Brendan Taylor, social studies teacher, is excited for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) March Madness Men’s Basketball tournament that starts this week, and he uses a bracket he created to follow along with the tournament.

A bracket is an opportunity for college basketball fans to make their own guesses as to how the tournament will play out.

Taylor said his strategy while creating his bracket is to bet on the local teams winning, like University of Missouri and Saint Louis University.

“Historically, I’m pretty bad at this because my strategy is not good,” Taylor said. “But, I’ve been making a bracket since middle school, and I think it’s entertaining.”

Taylor said since most of the March Madness games are scheduled during the day when he is teaching, he doesn’t get as involved with the tournament as he did in middle and high school.

“It’s still a fun event to be a part of,” Taylor said. “There’s always good drama and competition which is fun for the fans.”

Echoing Taylor, Rayan Khan, junior, said he likes the competitiveness that the teams bring to the tournament.

Khan said he makes his bracket based on the teams that were successful in last year’s tournament and during the regular season. He and his friends have competed against each other in the past to see who’s bracket ends up being the most accurate.

“I like to just do it for fun,” Khan said. “I don’t want to get emotionally involved and take it too seriously.”

But March Madness is no longer only about basketball.

Using the March Madness bracket as an inspiration, the foreign language classes have a song competition every year that goes along with a national bracket of 16 songs.

Jocelyn Nebel Theiss, Spanish teacher, said foreign language teachers from around the country submit songs to one teacher who makes a national bracket and activities that go along with the songs in the bracket.

“It’s a really cool and collaborative activity to be a part of,” Theiss said.

In Theiss’ classes, all of her students filled out their own bracket before the national voting started, and there will be a winner in each of her separate classes when the voting ends on Tuesday, March 21.

“I know there is a ton of excitement with the teachers,” Theiss said. “My Spanish 3 students were really excited to get the bracket this year.”

The bracket gives students new songs to add to their playlists and introduces them to new artists, Theiss said.

“It’s my favorite time of year, and it’s my favorite thing to teach,” Theiss said. “For a lot of us, we use these songs in our classrooms for years to come.”