MARCH MADNESS AT TIVOL

TIVOL is a 106-year-old company, and some traditions never change. While most office pools for March Madness are done on the Internet with immediate scoring, we like to keep it old school and work from paper brackets with multiple copies.

After every game a pre-determined TIVOL employee goes through every sheet and highlights or crosses out winners and losers. By the time the Sweet 16 rolls around, our jewelers’ shop looks more like a Las Vegas bookie’s office with the paper entries pasted all over the cabinets.

We wouldn’t have it any other way, actually. While the rest of our lives and our work has become very much digital, these paper brackets are a tradition we can’t part with. Call it nostalgia.

This year the system will be no different, only the teams will be, as 2016’s March Madness looks wide open. Kansas is the favorite, but the local No. 1 has not won since 2008! So that leaves Iowa State, Michigan State, UCLA, and even some directional school in the hunt for the Championship.

One other thing has remained the same at TIVOL for 20 years: my bracket always has Missouri on the top. (Although the Tigers and I will have to wait a while to cash that ticket.) There’s no tourney for the Tigers, but just for old time’s sake I might pick them to win it all anyway.