Warning: Unfunny Post! Warning: Unfunny Post!

The Madness is coming folks. I hear it, calling me. It's going to be here in just a few short weeks, The 2006 NCAA Basketball Tournament. March Madness.

And it's about this time every year when my female roommates find themselves unable to fathom how I can watch that much basketball. Because I exaggerate not one bit when I say that on March 16th and 17th I will not leave the house from noon to midnight. I will leave my couch only to get food and use the bathroom. These are the best two days of the year, and not everybody understands that.

And I've said before, that's okay. It's okay that not everyone gets sports. Sports aren't for everyone. But, once in a while a story comes along, out of sports, that is just so damn great that everyone should hear about it. Well, about a week ago, a story like that happened.

Let me say now, this post isn't going to be funny. I'm not going to rant. I'll try to keep it from being totally sappy and over-the-top, but I make no promises. I just wanted to share this story with people who may not have come across it otherwise. If you watch much ESPN, you've probably seen it already, and it may well be breaking into normal news as well now, but I wanted to mention it just the same.

Here's the setup. It's February 16th, at a high school basketball game at Greece Athena High School, I think in Rochester NY. Since it was senior night for the team, the coach decided to play Jason McElwain, who was a benchwarmer who also served as team mananger, and hadn't played a minute all season.

Now here's where the story gets better: Jason McElwain is autistic. He's a high-functioning autistic high-school senior.

Jason promptly went out and missed his first two shots. Greece Athena was down by double digits anyway, so it wasn't really a big deal. In fact, Jason may not have gotten a chance to play at all if Athena hadn't been out of it. So nobody really cared that he missed his first two shots, they were just excited to see him playing. And then that's where the story gets much, much better.

After missing his first two shots, Jason dropped 6 three-pointers (a school record) to rack up 20 points in 4 minutes. Let me say that again: Kid went 6-6 from distance. Now, Athena didn't win. In fact they lost by about 20. But that didn't stop the student body from storming the court at the end of the game, lifting Jason up, and marching him around on their shoulders.

Now, does all that justify me sitting on my ass for a combined 20+ hours over two days watching basketball? No, probably not. But it's pretty damn cool just the same.