I have a sickness I would like to tell everyone about. It’s a disease that comes around every year about this time, and I want to get the word out in case I disappear for a while. By no means am I the only one who suffers from this sickness, but maybe I can help some of my fellow victims cope with the problem as I have learned to.

The affliction I have is the madness. The “March Madness.”

I have suffered from the madness since 1991, when Christian Laettner and the Duke Blue Devils were thumped by UNLV, and then rebounded to win the next two championships, including a 71-51 thumping of my boys, the Fab Five freshmen at the University of Michigan.

Some may think this term is used to describe all the hoopla around the sweetest month or so in sports today, but I beg to differ. The term “March Madness” is used to describe the effect that the NCAA Tournament has on basketball players, coaches, and, most importantly, the fans.

Strange things begin to happen in the cosmos when Championship Week wraps up and the selection committee chooses the winners and losers, the powerhouses and Cinderellas, of the college hoops world.

For example, there is some strange force that prevents me from leaving my apartment while there are tournament games on television. The weird thing about this miracle is that it is at its strongest at the times when I have a class that does not require attendance.

I seem to be able to escape the confines of my couch if there is a dire need to be in class, say, for a quiz or test or some crap like that. But once the scheduled time of that class is over, I am pulled by the gravitational force of the television, right back to the apartment.

One of the major effects of the madness that I have noticed, is that it immediately sends my attention span, which is normally smaller than the size of my roommate’s freakishly small head, directly into overdrive. There are not too many occasions when I have been able to sit and watch television for 12 hours straight, but I’ll be damned if I don’t do it Thursday through Sunday during the first weekend of tournament play.

The major problem I’m having now is dealing with the fact that I may not be able to watch the Cyclones storm through the tourney, for the second year in a row. What began as a promising chance at redemption for Larry Eustachy’s team is slowly dissolving into a far away dream of postseason bliss. Don’t get me wrong, I think they still have a good chance at making it to the Big Dance, but some things have to change, quickly. Let’s hope for a strong showing in the Big 12 tournament, by the men and women.

My other favorite team, the Wolverines, will be sitting out the postseason after putting themselves in position to be an upper seed in the tournament. This is thanks to the sanctions the university imposed on itself — with hopes the NCAA would spare it — which stems from the former players who allegedly took money from recently deceased booster Ed Martin.

The one good thing about the school forfeiting all games from that time period is it means the infamous Chris Webber timeout against North Carolina in 1993 never happened.

Another symptom I have experienced is the cheering for the underdog. I am a firm believer that many of these teams, like Austin Peay or Valparaiso, do not belong competing for the national championship, but they are the best thing about the tournament. That may sound rather contradictory, but hear me out. If some low-life team from the MAC or some other small conference can put together a run of six great games, then they go home with the trophy. Rarely have we seen it happen, as several of them end up facing Duke in the first round and get blown out by 40 — in the first half.

For the smaller teams who don’t face the misfortune of running into the Blue Devils early on, they have somewhat of a chance. These little bastards are the guys who come in and knock out a No. 2 seed, cough, Hampton, cough, cough.

Occurrences like these relate to yet another sign of the madness: the home, dorm, or office pool. There is nothing sweeter than filling out your photocopied brackets and giving the loser who has nothing better to do five bucks to keep track of everyone’s picks and dish out the dough at the end.

Ahh, illegal gambling, ain’t it sweet?

One of the biggest ways that the tournament affects the competitors is that it can turn an absolute nobody into an NBA draft pick. Prime example here: Bryce Drew. This kid hits one amazing buzzer-beater, and he gets drafted to play in the NBA. Makes sense, I guess.

Obviously, there are more symptoms than what I have listed here, but I don’t have all day to write about them. Hopefully I have been able to help some of my fellow March Madness patients, even those who are still in denial, deal with their problems. If not, oh well, they won’t be able to harm anybody in the upcoming weeks, as we all will be held prisoner by our televisions.

Rick Kerr is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Des Moines.