Blog Post

March Madness Social

April 7, 2022 Uncategorized by ryanmccrary01

March Madness Social Experiment
By Ryan McCrary

KALAMA, Wash. – Last month I had the opportunity to go to the 2022 WCC Basketball Tournaments and then I worked the NCAA Men’s Basketball First and Second Rounds at Moda Center in Portland. After the extreme weirdness of 2021 with basketball tournaments played in tomblike, empty arenas, seeing fans back in the building and the joy on the faces of the kids competing was inspiring to see.

It also meant something different for me. After nearly two years I was… completely surrounded by people. Lots of people. There were no digital boxes on my computer screen. There was no mute button or turn off video button. I did not have to tell the people I was speaking to that their mute buttons were “on”. I was engaging with people in what my niece calls “IRL” (in real life for the uninitiated).

At times this was jarring and at times I felt completely out of practice. Fortunately conversation is much easier when you have March Madness to discuss.

Back in November, I visited Europe for the first time in a long time. It was energizing to be in crowds again and feel the dynamics of major cities like Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brussels and Copenhagen. But, it was difficult to connect with people while wearing masks. The social cues were harder to read.

Shortly after the world shut down I moved from the Bay Area back to the ancestral home of Kalama, which, loosely translated, is Hawaiian for “Interstate 5 runs through it”. It’s a small town of about 1,500. A Kalama crowd is three people talking at the post office.

Not a lot of IRL socializing opportunities to be had, but the resocialization process can happen anywhere.

Now that the masks have come off at last, I’ve made the following discoveries.