FAITH LAPIDUS:

Everyone in office pools wants to pick the Final Four. Those are the last four winning teams remaining from a field of sixty-five in the men’s competition. This year’s NCAA Men’s Final Four competition takes place in Indianapolis, Indiana starting April third. The top women’s teams play in San Antonio, Texas beginning April fourth.

There are always surprises during March Madness. This year’s top men’s team, the University of Kansas, lost in the second round to ninth seeded Northern Iowa University. But evenly matched teams often play to exciting finishes like Michigan State University’s last second victory over the University of Maryland.

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STEVE EMBER:

In some ways, the NCAA really is about championships. The first was held in nineteen twenty-one. Sixty-two teams competed in the National Collegiate Track and Field Championship held at the University of Chicago. Today, the NCAA holds eighty-eight championships in twenty-three sports every year. Since nineteen seventy-three, colleges and universities have competed in three divisions. The largest schools compete in Division One.

FAITH LAPIDUS:

This year, the NCAA is marking its one hundred fourth year. But it is only the twenty-ninth year that women’s championships have been part of NCAA sports.

Before the early nineteen seventies, women did compete in sports clubs at America’s colleges and universities. But these activities were not organized as they are now. Women’s competitions were organized through health associations or other groups. And they received little attention compared to men’s sports.