George Mason made the impossible possible

	Folarin Campbell and his Patriots' teammates have given the nation a new Cinderella to cheer for. John Biever/SI

Surely, the NCAA basketball tournament has such special appeal because it is, of all our great championships, so quintessentially illustrative of our national contradictions. It manages to be the perfect mix of illusion and reality alike, of democracy and privilege side by side.

The NCAAs begin as the American Dream, athletic division -- boasting that every college team in the country has the chance to make the tournament.

And the tournament itself is as down-home as commercials. It doesn't have a stylish name -- no World this, no Cup that. Rather, it only goes by a schlocky tag line: March Madness. As if it were a kitchen product, peddled by Madison Avenue. By now, too, alliteration has run amok. Classic American excess. Not only March Madness and the Final Four, but the Sweet 16, and, heaven help us, the Elite Eight. Classic American euphemism. "We made the Elite Eight" sounds so much better than "we got beat in the quarterfinals."

And why stop? May I suggest for next year: the Thrilling 32.

And even for those of us who only stand and watch, gambling on March Madness is tacitly allowed. You see, it's so quaint. It's not really gambling. It's just sports bingo. Betting baseball is the bond market, betting the NFL is the New York Stock Exchange, and betting the NBA is the NASDAQ. Betting March Madness is like playing the lottery. And UCLA is the Power Ball.

Many teams qualify for the tournament by winning their conferences. The others, those at large, so-called, must be selected. It's like being let into a fraternity or a country club. Teams are supposed to be admitted on the basis of merit, but the more connected colleges -- that is, those in the fancy conferences -- always seem to snare the most positions, even if they have lesser records. The establishment bracket experts are aghast whenever some tacky little nouveau commuter school, like, uh, George Mason, somehow gets chosen instead of a traditional basketball white-shoe state U.

And, just as in the United States we don't want to admit that there are any class differences, so everybody is in the middle class, so too do all the lower-division conferences, like, uh, something known as the Colonial Athletic Association, call themselves "mid-majors." We all feel so much better that way, don't we?

But in the end, of course, just as in real life, after all the hoopla about Cinderella, after the little Northwestern States and Bradleys and Bucknells have had their moment in the sun, the big schools that gave scholarships to all the high school blue-chippers are the ones that always win. You see, by then March is coming to an end, and it's back to reality: the Final Four is April Aristocracy.

Except, of course, this year. What George Mason of that Colonial Athletic Association has done is not just be an underdog, a feel-good story. It has, after all these years, validated the sweet myth of March Madness. The Patriots of George Mason have made us believe again in what's always been hyped, but which we'd come to fear was really only another con.

If you care at all for NCAA basketball, and you don't live in Florida, Louisiana or Southern California, you have to cheer for George Mason. That's my Patriots' Act.