March Madness wears on me. It isn't so much that I don't care about basketball; I played some in high school and went to college games while an undergraduate and graduate student, though I did lose interest in the game when they decided to stop enforcing the rules and calling fouls.

Further, I consider myself a sports fan. In the last 20 years, I've attended more than 100 college football games, numerous professional sporting events, countless youth baseball games and have contributed quite a bit of money to the University of Northern Iowa baseball team, which sadly will not be around for much longer. No, my problem is not sports, it's sports fans. Specifically, rabid sports fans.

I can understand why youngsters who play sports also would closely follow higher-level sports. Most young athletes have a dream of continuing to play sports in high school, college and even professional sports and as they get older, so it's logical they would follow something that would be a possible career for them. They select role models and heroes and hope to emulate those career paths.

I also can understand why parents of these youngsters would get very wrapped up in youth sports, especially at the high school level. After all, what parent doesn't want to see his or her child do well and would consequently avidly support that sports team? What is harder for me to understand is the passion and dedication that full grown adults have for college and especially professional teams.

What possible difference can it make to someone if a team they arbitrarily picked to support does well? It might make a little sense at the college level if someone has a friend or relative playing for the team. If it's somebody you know and care about, you want to see them do well and see them succeed. But I doubt very much there's many people who have any direct connection to most college teams and certainly not to professional teams. Yet the passion and intensity with which they follow these teams is remarkable.

For example, I know Chicago Bears fans who are depressed for a week if the Bears lose on Sunday. How can they possibly be dejected by the outcome of a football game played by people they have never even met?

How, in any way, shape or form does the outcome diminish or enhance a fan's status? I hear these fans talk about "my Bears" as if they somehow were part of the team. Not likely. In fact, I doubt if anybody in the Chicago Bears organization has the faintest idea of the name, occupation or interests of any but a tiny few of their fans.

I'm not a psychologist, but I sometimes think that when the team an individual picks to follow does well the fans somehow think they are personally more important. It gives them bragging rights with their friends: "Did you see how great MY Bears did this weekend?" How can the human mind make this connection? It's one thing to watch a team do good things and appreciate the skill levels displayed … good or not. It's quite another to be obsessed with the outcome of the event.

I think the point here is it's fun to watch sporting events and competition between players even if you have no personal connection with them other than reading about their exploits on the sports page or on a police blotter. It's quite another to get emotionally involved in the outcome of the sporting event. Frankly, any nonparticipant who cares about the results of a sporting event more than 10 minutes after it's over needs to get a life.

As far as the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament is concerned, millions of people across the country watch the games and are enormously focused on the outcome. Now, maybe it's because they have entered an office pool and stand to win $50 on the results. That might be at least the tiniest incentive to care a little bit about the outcome, although I would argue had the time been spent working rather than studying game results, more money could be made. Sporting events need to be recognized for what they are: entertainment. They are not a life and death matters for fans.