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Jeff Peterson, a pediatrician who lives in Portland, is a Kansas alum who brought his wife, Sarah, into the fold. And their 2-year-old, Farris, of course.

Meredith Finn recalls that 2005 was "a beautiful year."

Finn, a Portland resident and a 1989 graduate of the University of North Carolina, watched her beloved Tar Heels win the NCAA Division I men's basketball championship. And she won her office's not-so-legal NCAA tournament pool.

"Wait," she said, catching herself and laughing. "We didn't really have an office pool."

A year ago, Jeff Peterson's elation came at Carolina's expense when Kansas defeated the Tar Heels in a national semifinal en route to winning its first national championship in 20 years.

"Seeing Roy Williams, after all of the drama of him leaving Kansas to go to North Carolina to coach, that was pretty amazing," said Peterson, a 1997 Kansas graduate and a pediatrician who lives in Portland.

Go ahead, embrace the madness. March Madness, that is.

The NCAA tournament, which continues tonight, is down to the Sweet Sixteen.

The 70-year-old tournament has become one of the staples of American culture. Brackets are photocopied, marked up and covertly passed, along with a few dollars, to an office-pool organizer.

"Whoever markets the tournament and whoever turned this into a 64-team bracket is a genius," said Terry Donald, a 1990 Xavier graduate who lives in Litchfield. "It is, without a doubt, the biggest and most popular sporting event ever. The Super Bowl is one day and the World Series pales in comparison. It's talking about it, it's people filling out brackets and alumni organizations getting together and meeting, probably for the only time that year."

For many alumni, the tournament evokes a sense of school pride and a sense of community among other alums. Rivalries such as UNC-Duke, Kansas-Missouri and Pittsburgh-West Virginia can make enemies out of even the closest of friends.

"If KU is not playing Missouri in the tournament, I root for (Missouri)," said Mary Longhofer, a 1987 Kansas graduate who is a registered nurse in Saco. "I'll put my distaste for them aside. But the rivalry has always been around. I remember going to Columbia (Mo.) to visit and the rivalry was huge. It's a passionate, intense thing."

And in the clash of schools, size matters. Think David versus Goliath, or in this year's case, Siena's upset of Ohio State. The tiny Franciscan school against Big State U.

"Little teams can win," said Patrick Parson, a lawyer in Damariscotta and a Gonzaga alum. "Schools you've never heard of can go on a hot streak and knock off a national power and get that moment of worldwide fame. It's the great equalizer. Everybody gets a chance."

In the spring of 1995, Parson was a resident assistant at Gonzaga and remembers the night the Bulldogs won the West Coast Conference title and earned their first NCAA tournament berth. Parson watched students spill out of dormitories and onto the quad of the Jesuit school.

"A big party emerged and it was about 9 or 10 p.m. on a Monday night," Parson said. "It wasn't destructive, and nobody was doing anything hostile or harmful. It was just an amazing, amazing event."

Peterson recalls the same rush from 1988, when he sat in front of the television at his family's home in suburban Kansas City to watch Kansas win the national title.

"I remember hearing the whole neighborhood erupt," said Peterson. "But I also remember watching Kansas lose on a last-second 3-pointer to Syracuse at a tournament game in Denver in the mid-1990s. I remember how devastated I felt, because it felt like I was leaving a funeral."

If you're lucky enough, you get to be front and center. Addison Everett, a Cape Elizabeth resident, is a sophomore at Pittsburgh and part of the student cheering section at the Peterson Events Center and the school's answer to Duke's "Cameron Crazies."

"I don't know if people think Pitt is going to win the national championship, but some people definitely think we can," Everett said. "The expectation on campus...