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FROM THE EDITOR: Too distracted to write about anything else today

Ah, it is mid-March again, my favorite time of year. Winter is turning to spring, the bridge between chilly night and hot-as-youknowwhat summers. My birthday is in March, St. Patrick’s Day is in March and Spring begins in March.

All that is secondary in my life to the NCAA basketball tournament, which started around the time I began putting this newspaper together (I don’t count those four play-in games Tuesday and Wednesday). By the time I am writing this, there has been two major upsets, and underdogs were 7-0 against the point spread.

How would I know this if I’m supposed to be focused working?

For one, mobile technology such as my iPhone makes keeping updated on scores while at my desk easier than ever (crud, Texas is down 2 to Butler with 1:45 left. I have Texas winning this game in my bracket).

A report by employment firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas claims that $1.9 billion is lost in wages to employees who are distracted by the tournament. The report goes on to say that the focus on the tournament is so widespread that trying to crack down on workers is futile.

“Employers would do better to manage March Madness by embracing it as a means to boosting employee morale, engagement, and loyalty,” a recent Forbes.com article on the report said.

Even Barack Obama takes time out from running the country to fill out a bracket for television (Butler just pulled away from Texas, 56-48).

Like many people, the big basketball tournament is my favorite sporting event. More people watch on Super Bowl Sunday, but I’d say more people are personally engaged in the basketball tournament, routing an alma mater or some other personal affiliation.

The there’s this factor: Georgia State could never beat Baylor in football, but they beat them in the basketball tournament on Thursday. The University of Alabama-Birmingham just canceled their football program because it was losing millions of dollars, but the basketball team upset a highly-regarded Iowa State.

College football is tilted towards the big conference schools like Alabama and Ohio State, and only have four teams compete in their version of a playoff. While the Georgia States of the world will not win the national title in basketball, they can knock off the big boys for a game or two.

While the little guys get their licks in on the hardwood here and there, the big schools are still the ones who win the national titles. In fact, UNLV is the last program outside the six big conferences - SEC, Big 12, Big 10, PAC 12, ACC and the former BIG East, to win the championship, and that was 25 years ago.

I enjoy the men’s tournament because it is the best representation of the little guy taking on the big boys we have left in college sports.

Can Robert Morris beat top seed Duke tonight? Not likely, but it is possible, and that’s what makes the event so enduring.

Not the right venue

It had been quiet, almost too quiet.

Then the forgery story ran on the top front of Wednesday’s newspaper, sending a few readers to the Times’ comment section to go after one of the suspects mentioned.

The commentators went after not only the accused, but also the accused’s family, relatives and business interests current and past.

This led me to shut off comments on that story. One problem was that one person started calling for the boycotting of two businesses; one the suspect owns and the other the suspect’s aunt used to own but sold nearly eight years ago. The other concern was talking about crimes not related to the current story.

Our commenting guidelines are clear, stating in part, “no potentially libelous statements or damaging innuendo,” and “no personal attacks, insults or threats,” and “no comments unrelated to the story.”

The people who work at these two businesses, one that has nothing to do with the suspect, are largely just teenagers and young adults trying to earn money. To try and have the community turn on them does not seem right to me. The owners have their money. The workers will be the ones hurt most.

Something else that caught me off guard was the suspect in question wasn’t even a main part of the story. The police are looking for him for a felon in possession of a firearm, but that was discovered while pursuing one suspect and arresting another. I’m not making apologies for him or trying to defend him. I had not even heard his name until Monday’s press conference at the Nye County Sheriff’s Office. There are 10 other named suspects and as many as six unnamed juveniles involved in this case, but this particular person is the only one that has been singled out for online attacks.

As I said a couple of months ago when the comment section got out of hand, the platform is there to spark lively and constructive discourse among readers about the community. It will not be used as a club to attack others, be they a suspect wanted by police with a criminal history or someone else.

I hope the police find him and give him his day in court. I will not have him tried and convicted in our comment section.

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