By Abby Rathbun

March Madness is in full swing. I have multiple brackets in multiple pools. I know the odds of my championship teams making it, UCLA and Wisconsin, are highly improbable.

Baseball season has already semi-begun with the Red Sox and the A’s traveling to play in Japan. I can recite the 40-man roster for my Chicago Cubs, even though I know it has been a century since their last World Series Championship.

Ask me if I know what is on the next test for any of my lectures or lab and I will only be able to give you a vague answer. I am not alone as I am sure many of my classmates are in the same boat as me.

Granted, not every University of Louisville student could recite the complete roster of their favorite baseball team, but they could give me a play by play of “Lost” or “Gossip Girl.”

It is easy to make the assumption students are more about what is happening on the field or the small screen as compared to what is happening in their classes. I am, personally, very interested in the majority of my classes.

Students, especially those who have their own dollar invested in their education, care about their classes enough to study for hours and to attend their classes on a very regular basis

So, what’s the deal?

College becomes so overwhelming and so all consuming that looking for an escape becomes necessary to maintain sanity. I spend hours in the library and even more in my apartment reading and studying.

Sports, especially my beloved baseball or college basketball, provide three or four glorious hours of reprieve from school.

My mind is, by nature, ready for learning. So when I see Soriano batting or see Wisconsin play, it is easy for these sports facts and statistics to become absorbed like or even replace the Supreme Court cases or details of operons in prokaryotes I was focusing on mere moments before.

This is not a free pass for students to slack off and pay more attention to sports. However, professors should not become concerned when students discuss the sweet 16 teams instead of the political instability in the Tibet region.

It’s not that we all don’t care about it; we just want to escape our seemingly inescapable world of studying and reading.