March Madness as a kid was fun for many reasons - the brackets and the fact it had "madness" in the name. Somehow our Middle School (I was in 8th grade in 2005 March), and then high school, even played early round games on TV - granted this was before the March Madness Online app. Hell, that should be obvious b ut more than that it was before the Boss Button, which came out the next year. Back then only CBS showed games, and maybe they would switch from game to game, but you kind of got what you got. Still, some of the insanity was still there - especially the fact the late games the first two weekends would go quite late.
During March Madness, WFAN would simulcast CBS Sports Radio broadcasts of March Madness. WFAN would do this at various other times - SNF/MNF or the World Series, etc., but them doing it for March Madness was a bit strange. From memory CBS had an ownership stake in WFAN or something, but it was a way to keep abreast of games that would go on well past my 10pm bedtime (by memory it was 10pm, though I probably tried to extend to 11pm by that point). I had no TV in my room. I had no laptop, granted this was the year before watching sports on your computer became a thing (the whole Boss Button thing...). All I had was that little walkman.
To be honest, I don't even know what made me push to get a walkman that had a radio tuner. It was definitely before I started listening to WFAN - it was probably more to be able to listen to WPST (the teenie-bopper channel of the late-90's / early-00's in the Philadelphia / Central NJ area). But overtime as sports overtook my life, it became my way to listen to WFAN nightly. It was also the beginning of me going to bed with headphones in my ear, something I've basically only weaned off of recently, a good 20 years later.
But anyway, back to March Madness. I distinctly remember the first game I listened to. It was March 18th, 2005, and it was Bucknell's crazy win over Kansas, a 13-seed beating a 4. The 2005 tournament was the first time I did a bracket - I picked Illinois to win it all (like most of the world) but had Kansas going to the Final Four. Not sure why. Instead, I listened over radio, visualizing this school I'd never heard of keep things close and then won on a bank shot win 10 seconds left. This was the same day that infamously Vermont beat Syracuse (an early finish I could watch on TV). I remember being slightly annoyed (my bracket being busted) but also enthralled about the March Madness of it all - and more surprised I felt that way through visualizing basketball in my dreams listening only with my ears.
That didn't come close to the next day, when on March 19th, a plucky West Virginia team took on Wake Forest - a 7 v 2 seed. The two seed Wake Forest had Chris Paul. The seven seed West Viriginia had no one known at the time, but that wouldn't last. Through my earhole I was introduced to Kevin Pittsnogle, Mike Gansey and others, as West Virginia won one of the crazier games in early-round history, a ridiculously dramatic 111-105 win double OT.
Mike Gansey, who would never amount to all that much, had 29 points, 19 after halftime. I probably only started listening after hafltime (Wake led by 13 at the half). Wake just chipped away with big shot after big shot - hitting three after dramatic three, including a few by their giant Kevin Pittsnogle. It's crazy that I remember the moments of this game - West Virginia tying it late in regulation, Wake Forest tying it late in the first OT, Chris Paul fauling out, and "Gansey... again!" ringing out. I can remember this game so vividly despite only listening on TV. I don't think I even watched highlights or a replay of it for another ten years (when a lot of old March Madness games got uploaded to Youtube) - as somehow the game was vivid enough through the radio.
So let me wax poetic about the radio for a bit. I knew what sports on TV was. I'd watched sports on TV for years before 2005 March Madness, and already loved sports in general (if not college basketball). I realize people in the 1940s or whatever didn't have a choice. I did, but somehow in my first real exposure to games on the radio, I realize just how great the radio announcers are. I could see Gansey stepping back and draining threes. I could see the tension rise on the play of all Kansas Jayhawks players (their first round loss a year later to Bradley is another game I followed on the radio). I could see it all playing it out in my subconcious. It was my way of realizing how special a good radio announcer can be.
That all said, it isn't like I suddenly started following sports on the radio - it was solely a March Madness thing, other than maybe falling asleep to some Mets west coast games on WFAN or something. But it is surprising still taht part of the reason I love March Madness is those incredible close, late games I listened to on the radio twenty yaers ago, and really none more than that West Virgina v Wake Forest thriller - when unknowns become stars for the night, where Chris Paul was only the third nbest player on the court, passed up by a guy in Mike Gansey that was so obviously one of those "99% of us will go pro in another field" types. That was what March Madness is about, and somehow a radio was able to teach me that.
