Fear the Turtle

Bad news: As of tonight, I officially have zero chance of winning National Review’s NCAA college basketball tournament pool. The reason for this is not because my bracket got busted by all the upsets (there haven’t been too many, as it turns out) but rather because I never bothered to fill out a bracket in the first place. Life is more hectic than ever for me as a writer, and that inevitably means that some things fall away. One of those is my ancestral love for my local college basketball team back in the day, the Maryland Terrapins.

As a suburban Montgomery County kid with a brother attending school in College Park during the Gary Williams “glory years” of the late ’90s and early ’00s, there was never any question that I would be a Terps fan. I myself attended a Division III school in Baltimore; I naturally imported my college sports excitement from down I-95. I retain all those old emotional triggers, even when they’re no longer relevant. (Those who remember the “old” Atlantic Coast Conference from that era will hopefully understand the unquenchable hatred I still harbor for Duke University and that whiny flopper J.J. Redick as a Maryland fan.)

About the Author

Jeffrey Blehar

Jeffrey Blehar is a National Review staff writer living in Chicago. He is also the co-host of National Review’s Political Beats podcast, which explores the great music of the modern era with guests from the political world happy to find something non-political to talk about.

Bad news: As of tonight, I officially have zero chance of winning National Review’s NCAA college basketball tournament pool. The reason for this is not because my bracket got busted by all the upsets (there haven’t been too many, as it turns out) but rather because I never bothered to fill out a bracket in the first place. Life is more hectic than ever for me as a writer, and that inevitably means that some things fall away. One of those is my ancestral love for my local college basketball team back in the day, the Maryland Terrapins.

As a suburban Montgomery County kid with a brother attending school in College Park during the Gary Williams “glory years” of the late ’90s and early ’00s, there was never any question that I would be a Terps fan. I myself attended a Division III school in Baltimore; I naturally imported my college sports excitement from down I-95. I retain all those old emotional triggers, even when they’re no longer relevant. (Those who remember the “old” Atlantic Coast Conference from that era will hopefully understand the unquenchable hatred I still harbor for Duke University and that whiny flopper J.J. Redick as a Maryland fan.)

About the Author

Jeffrey Blehar

Jeffrey Blehar is a National Review staff writer living in Chicago. He is also the co-host of National Review’s Political Beats podcast, which explores the great music of the modern era with guests from the political world happy to find something non-political to talk about.