Zach Wamp is a wreck. The 3rd District’s esteemed seven-term U.S. congressman can’t decide which of his two favorite college basketball teams to root for when the NCAA Tournament begins today.
Should he choose the University of North Carolina, where he began his college education? Or Tennessee, where he also attended classes and his son Weston is currently enrolled? Then there’s that teensy, tiny, troublesome fact that he’s supposed to be looking out for the Volunteer state’s best interests each day on Capitol Hill.
“I’m in a real box,” Wamp said Wednesday morning. “I never dreamed they’d put North Carolina and Tennessee in the same (East Regional) bracket.”
Wamp’s a little more than your casual hoops fan. He was McCallie School’s basketball MVP during his senior year in 1976. He went to both McCallie and UNC with Dean Smith’s son, Scott. Now 50, he’s still active in Congressional pick-up games, where he retains his reputation for aggressive defense.
But when it comes to March Madness, he admits to being illegally screened by the possibility of the Tar Heels and Vols meeting in the regional final.
“I’ve worried all year that we might end up playing each other,” Wamp said. “I probably need to listen to my son, who’s also a big fan of both. When the brackets came out, Weston told me, ‘Dad, I’m just going to try and sit there and enjoy the game.’”
According to an entirely unscientific survey of local eateries, a lot of folks intend to enjoy the tournament. Eddie Wilson is a manager at Taco Mac on Market Street. He says business “definitely picks up for us” on the first two days of the tournament.
“We’ll keep extra servers on duty both days. And this year, with it also being Good Friday, it should be really packed for the Tennessee game at 12:30.”
Wilson expects all of Taco Mac’s 20-plus televisions to be tuned to the tournament. The restaurant’s satellite dishes should be able to broadcast every game, rather than just those slotted to be televised in Chattanooga.
At 12:15 today, Wilson also hopes to catch at least a few glimpses of his Georgia Bulldogs against Xavier. “I’ve got them winning the first game in my bracket,” he said. “I don’t think they can get beyond that, but I’ve got to pick ‘em to win at least one after what they did in the SEC Tournament.”
A block away on Broad Street, Buffalo Wild Wings manager Michelle Rush anticipated a similar crush.
“We’re expecting to be slammed all day,” she said. “We’ll have six extra servers on both Thursday and Friday afternoon. We’ve got 45-50 televisions, and I imagine all of them will be turned to the tournament.”
Bud’s Sports Bar in Brainerd boasts of 70 televisions. “We expect every seat to be filled,” said the establishment’s Leah Brown on Wednesday night. “Especially when Tennessee plays on Friday afternoon. We’ve always got a pretty full house on Friday, but with UT playing, it will be packed and they’ll stay longer than usual.”
Not everyone can call in sick this week or take off at lunch to watch their favorite teams play. Miller and Martin attorney Ward Nelson says he’ll try to keep up with the tournament, but he also says he doesn’t have a television near his office. He freely admits, however, that at least a few of his fellow legal eagles will do everything possible to watch today’s opening round.
“We don’t have a lot of meetings around here,” he said. “But we have one attorney who makes sure he calls a meeting for 12:15 on the first Thursday of the tournament every year. I don’t know exactly what they do in there, but they have three TVs in there and plenty of food brought in.”
Like millions of other Americans, Nelson has often filled out an office bracket ... just for the pride of winning, of course.
“A few years ago my oldest son Wes filled out the winning bracket,” said Nelson. “We’ve pretty much stunk ever since.”
It should be noted here that office bracket pools are illegal. According to Hamilton County District Attorney General Bill Cox, “Risking anything of value for something of greater value is considered gambling. Technically, flipping a coin to see who buys lunch is gambling. Does that mean law enforcement is going to arrest you? Law enforcement usually focuses on professional gambling. But that doesn’t mean they would never look into an office pool.”
Back on Capitol Hill, Wamp is so upset about the NCAA placing North Carolina and Tennessee in the same regional that he’s considering boycotting all brackets, whether they wind up in a Congressional office pool or on his refrigerator.
“I just might sit this one out altogether,” he said. “This couldn’t have been worse.”
Someone suggested that perhaps Wamp should launch a Congressional investigation of the NCAA Selection Committee. If Congress can take on steroids and major league baseball — an action Wamp has opposed, by the way — why not March Madness?
“I firmly believe,” he said with a slight chuckle, “that Congressional involvement in sports should be limited to NCAA Tournament office pools.”
Mark Wiedmer started work at the Chattanooga News-Free Press on Valentine’s Day of 1983. At the time, he had to get an advance from his boss to buy a Valentine gift for his wife. Mark was hired as a graphic artist but quickly moved to sports, where he oversaw prep football for a time, won the “Pick’ em” box in 1985 and took over the UTC basketball beat the following year. By 1990, he was ...
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