Somewhere in these basketball brackets, theres a biology lesson

By Steve Beauregard Wednesday, March 18, 2015

We all recall a special, caring, dedicated teacher who inspired us. For me, it was my seventh-grade biology teacher, Mr. Reeder, who helped nurture and cultivate my interest in a subject. The subject happened to be gambling on college basketball, but this was an underfunded public school in rural northern Colorado. You take what you can get.

Mr. Reeder taught biology. He was from Indiana, where little boys have to obsess over basketball, otherwise they are sent to foster homes. He spent his days instructing us on the finer points of both pollination and March Madness.

Nobody cares much about college basketball unless theres something at stake. Gonzaga versus North Dakota State? If this game is held in December, a televised city council meeting will generate better ratings. But now it is part of March Madness, an entertaining three-week diversion for pathetic gambling addicts with no life. But enough about me, lets get back to Mr. Reeder.

He was very old by kids standards, which means he was probably in his early 30s. In biology class, he taught memorization by song. The process of photosynthesis was learned by rewriting the lyrics of Eddie Rabbitts hit song, Step by Step. I still remember it. Granted, nobody ever comes up and randomly asks me about cellular respiration, but if they did, I would be prepared.

Mr. Reeders true love was basketball. He constantly moaned about how his beloved Big 10 teams were always underrated. In class one morning, he (true story) distributed March Madness bracket sheets, promising us extra credit if we turned in a completed form.

When not teaching, Mr. Reeder coached our seventh-grade basketball boys basketball team, the qualifications for which were rigorous: You had to be a boy.

To compensate for our lack of athleticism, his game strategy was for us to run a full court press, start to finish. Some of you arent basketball fans, and may not fully appreciate how tiring this was, so to understand what it was like, put on some comfortable shoes, go outside and start running. Dont stop until you get to Silt.

We ran a lot in practice. Lung busters, they were called, where you run to each quarter-line mark and back for the entire length of the court. We ran and ran. And when Mr. Reeder saw that he had run us to the ground, exhausting every conceivable energy source we had we would be at the point where he was on the verge of being accused of child abuse he made us run some more.

We may have had the worst shooting percentage in our league, but nobody was going to out-hustle us. We were 12-year-old boys who had sprinted an hour every day for two months straight at an elevation of 8,000 feet. You could say we were in shape.

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Somewhere in these basketball brackets, theres a biology lesson