It's March Madness time so who better to be the guest columnist for this month's edition of "Paw Prints" than Head Men's Basketball Coach Mike MacDonald…

Hello Daemen Nation! This is such a great time of year for college basketball fans with terms such as, "brackets", "seeds", "Cinderella's" and "Gonzaga" being talked about in offices and at dinner tables across the country. March is truly the most wonderful time of year for college basketball players, coaches and fans!

The aspect of a "win or go home" scenario gets people excited. And let's be honest, nothing is more American than a big underdog with one shot to slay a heavy favorite…we love those opportunities!

But, you should know that March is also a cruel month for those involved in college basketball as well.   Because in reality, every team, except for a lucky few, ends their season with a loss, and when the season ends, the careers of the seniors on their team ends as well.  That is why March can be very cruel too!

This year when we lost our ECC Tournament game to St. Thomas Aquinas on March 4, I was upset…upset that we lost, upset that we could not advance to the NCAA Tournament, but most upset that I would never have a chance to coach our seniors, Alex Borges, Supreme Hannah, Jesse Lalka, Arif Mehmetaj and J.J. Wilkes again. These five young men who have represented Daemen College so well on and off of the court for the past two, three, four and in some cases five years, would never get to wear a Daemen jersey again, and that made me sad (honestly I get a lump in my throat just writing about it right now!).

See, you have to understand that a basketball season starts in September with preseason conditioning, when our team is up at 6 a.m. three days a week and running on a cold, dark track to get in shape for practice to begin. That's in addition to on-court skill workouts and weightlifting sessions with our strength coach.  Once official practice starts on October 15, we practice six days a week for three hours per day to get ready for the regular season to start in mid-November. As games get going we continue the six-day per week schedule, but then you mix in bus trips, hotel stays and team meals which help bring your team even closer. This is on top of study tables and academic meetings to make sure our team is taking care of business in the classroom, which of course is the most important part of their college careers!  So when March rolls around, your team has typically spent more time with each other than they have with their own family…and the good teams are really close, like a family!

That's what makes the sudden death ending we face in March so gut-wrenching. After spending so much time together, you have to put the uniforms away and you will never have that team, with those people, together again.

You may ask, "Why do you coach if it ends in a gut-wrenching manner?"  Well, actually, it's not about the games in March; it's about the journey to get to March. I know it sounds like a cliché, but in reality it's the journey that matters. When you get to watch a bunch of guys come together for the greater good of a team; when you watch individuals sacrifice for each other; when you see 18-21 year old young men care about the group more than they care about themselves…that to me is awesome!   And that is why you coach!

You see we all start our season with a loss…we just don't know when that loss will be. But it's not that loss that matters. What matters is the six months leading up to that loss.  Because in those six months, you are hoping that your student-athletes are becoming better students, better athletes and most importantly better people.

So this weekend when I watch the Final Four, and the TV cameras show a student-athlete crying on the bench at the end of the game, I will feel sad. I will think about Alex and Jesse and Supreme and Arif and J.J. and all they have meant to our team and to my family in their time at Daemen. But then I will smile, and I will be very thankful for the opportunity that I had to be a small part of their lives, and I will realize how lucky I am because I had the chance to coach them.

Then the TV cameras will show the winning team celebrating and cutting down the nets. And I will think of the guys we have coming back and the opportunity we will have next year. I will become excited because I have had the chance to coach in the Division I NCAA Tournament and the Division III NCAA Tournament, and I want nothing more than to coach Daemen in the Division II NCAA Tournament! And the whole process of getting our team ready to reach that goal will start all over again! Let the journey begin!

Mike MacDonald
Associate Athletic Director for Corporate Relations
Head Men's Basketball Coach