NCAA FINAL FOUR UPDATE: They're Just Kids

I was a witness to the middle of the country defeating the two coasts yesterday (Saturday). It was the day of the NCAA Final Four basketball semifinals here in San Antonio. The four Number One teams from the four regions of the country played in the two games. In other words, two teams had to win, and two teams had to lose. Memphis beat UCLA, and Kansas beat the University of North Carolina. The games weren't exactly upsets, but in each one, the schools with the stylish, refined traditions lost to the faster, stronger competitors.

So, Kansas and Memphis will face each other in the championship game Monday night. Both teams are speedy, confident, and they even wear the same colors -- red and blue. It should be a great game, but you never know. Before the semifinals, the "experts" predicted very close games. UCLA lost 78-63, and North Carolina lost 84-66.

Unpredictability is one of the most exciting things about college sports in general, and basketball in particular. The games are played by "kids," predominantly teenagers. They make mistakes. They're emotional. They do things that defy logic.

The fact that the games are played by people so young makes the enormous emotional involvement of the adults who watch them all the more interesting. So many people tie their moods, their ups, their downs, to what a bunch of kids do with a ball. Otherwise normal adults cry when "their" team loses. Or they hug and kiss perfect strangers when they win.

More than 500,000 people attended tournament games this year. 43,719 fans showed up for the semifinal games on Saturday. Millions of people spend hours at work trying to predict who'll win the NCAA tournament games. In fact, surveys estimate that the amount of money that American businesses lose to lost productivity because of the games is in the billions of dollars. And countless more dollars are wagered on the outcome of these games. It's crazy. Every parent knows that the behavior of a teenager is unpredictable. Why do sports fans forget about this?

The emotional involvement of fans and alumni with their schools' athletic teams is unique. You rarely hear about two guys in a bar who got into a fight, arguing about whose college has a better biology program. When someone from your college or university wins a Nobel Prize, you may feel proud, but I doubt that you go out into the streets, looking for a party to celebrate.

Despite the elevated status that sports fans give to college athletes, the fans are not above booing and cursing players. Sometimes they can be incredibly cruel. They wouldn't yell at kids like that in any other situation. It wouldn't hurt for someone to remind them that these are kids that they are verbally abusing. They're somebody's neighbors, somebody's children.

I remember going into the Duke locker room one year after they lost their game by one point. Reporters were asking questions of disappointed athletes who were undressing or had a towel wrapped around themselves. Then I heard a sound coming from the shower. It was the sound of one of the players crying. I never went into a losing locker room again.

One of the most amusing things when you're at a game is that every fan seems to consider himself or herself an expert. They don't just applaud when their team scores or boo when the other team does. They call out specific instructions. "Don't dribble so much," "Slow it down," "Double-team him," are among the instructions that fans feel that the players could not do without. This, of course, makes absolutely no sense. If these players are so great that fans tie their emotional state to them, why do they assume that the players need their advice?

I don't think that if they witnessed a top surgeon from their university doing his work, they'd call out, "No, no, no. Make that cut two inches to the left." Would they shout to a mathematician, "Cube root, not square root, you jerk?" Or would they yell,"proton, not neutron" to the best physicist from their school?

So, these overly hyped, well attended games are unpredictable and the reverence with which so many people regard them is completely illogical. And that's what makes them so much fun, and that's why I'll be there Monday night.

Brother, Can You Spare A Grand?

The latest development coming out of the current financial crisis is that individuals – regular people like you and me – are becoming banks. It's called Peer to Peer Lending. The idea is that the lender's money can earn more interest than if it were in a bank, and the borrower can borrow at a lower rate than if he or she went to a traditional lending institution. When I first heard about it, I knew right away it wasn't for me. I don't want to be a bank. For one thing, where would I get ten tellers to stand around talking while only one teller's window's open?

This kind of lending is becoming big business. Those who tout it say that it's a process in which "everybody wins." As if that's not a large enough red flag, the companies who run these things -- and who take a cut for themselves -- do it on the internet. The borrower and lender never meet, they just communicate online. I don't want to get my finances involved in a system that has the same rules as a porn chat room.

The websites try to create the atmosphere of a community, a club. Prospective lenders don't just consider the financial condition of the would-be borrower. They can use any criteria they want. According to those who have been studying these places, the lender will often decide which person to lend his money to based on that person's interests and hobbies. I don't know much about economics, but I'm not going to fork over my money to somebody just because he collects clocks.

Borrowers don't need to put up any collateral. They're often people who couldn't qualify for a loan elsewhere.One Peer to Peer company only requires that the borrower be a United States resident with a credit score of at least 520, a bank account, and a Social Security number. They don't even have to own a wallet.

So this system allows people whose credit isn't great to borrow money from people who set their own interest rates and make up the rules as far as who qualifies for a loan. Isn't that how we got into this financial mess in the first place?

But even if this thing didn't look like it was a disaster waiting to happen, I still wouldn't want to become a bank. There are too many decisions. Would I have to hire a guard?Should I validate parking? Should I close early on Halloween?

There's another reason why I don't want to get involved in this thing. What happens if the person I lend the money to can't pay it back? I don't have the right kind of personality to chase people for money. I don't want to be seen as the cruel, impersonal bank that's not allowing a mom and dad to buy a birthday gift for their kid. I don't want to see their noses pressed against my computer Windows as they beg for a little more time.

In this digital age, some people feel very close to those they "meet" on the internet. I think that's one of the biggest problems of Peer to Peer "communities." If you're wise, the only circumstance in which you lend money to a friend is if you don't ever expect to be paid back.Otherwise, bad feelings, lost money, and recriminations are bound to follow – even if you have common interests and a "really good feeling" about the other person.

Let's face it. With the exception of governments, banks are probably universally hated more than any other institution. They're seen as heartless, unfair, and as really hard places to find the bathroom. Why would people want to take over those negative feelings? I say we stick with tradition. If we have to hate, let's keep hating the banks instead of each other.