WALLY'S WORLD: A Look Into The Mind Of A Genius

Champions are not born. They are made.

They pass through the utmost of struggles, face rejection with an undying will, and eventually reach the top of their sport.

But they do not come often; for this reason, we must cherish their presence among us.

Harvard, prepare for some big-time cherishing. Because I found one.

If you are an OEB concentrator, you may have had section with him. If you love insects, you may have hunted wasps with him in the Dominican Republic over Spring Break.

And if you are a true believer—one of the few who seek that perfect NCAA bracket, like myself—you will one-day worship him.

His name: Matan Shelomi ’09, the 2006 national champion of the Facebook Men’s NCAA tournament pool.

For those of you aching to understand the secrets of the Crazyland that is March Madness, look no further. In Shelomi’s mind lies the key to tournament success—and never-ending bragging rights over your friends for an entire year. Yes, boy!

Its simplicity may confuse some, but the answer to all of your tournament questions, 8/9 match-up quandaries, and final four dilemmas can be found in his words, and his words alone.

“Butler, I’ve never heard of them,” Shelomi wisely states. “But butlers aren’t good at football, so they won’t win.”

Yes. Yes. It became so perfectly clear as I sat with the great Shelomi, chowing down on Mather’s delicious General Gao’s chicken.

I was looking into the face of pure glory.

And as he continued the explanation of his method of bracketology, I felt like my mind would explode. It had found the “new way.” It had found the path of champions.

“I have never watched a game. I have absolutely no experience beyond NBA Hangtime,” Shelomi recalls. “I have no experience with any sport of any kind at all—don’t play, don’t watch.”

Like a Buddhist monk who separates himself from any earthly matters to attain Nirvana, Shelomi has found genius in oblivion.

I finally understood. For too long, I had fallen in to the trap that had led the downfall of so many like me—I watch college basketball.

I live, eat, breath men’s college basketball. I cover it for the Crimson; I spend Saturday’s procrastinating on papers watching it.

In front of a sage like Shelomi, I couldn’t admit it, but I even have a favorite Division III basketball team—and I follow its games. A lot.

But this is not the way. Total and absolute naiveté to anything that even resembles basketball is the key.

Shelomi, with a mind so strong, took this to the extreme.

“I didn’t actually know it was basketball, I though it was football,” Shelomi calls down to me from on high. “A few days before the final games, I asked someone where the Super Bowl was being played—they said it had already happened. This was the Final Four.”

You see, not even the common “I have no idea method” works. Even then, one is picking based on color, mascot, state allegiance, or which school has the hottest chicks.

But that “no idea” person knows what he is doing. He has a plan.

For Shelomi, the great champion among us, there is NO plan.

And through this path, he has found glory.

This year, Shelomi has not altered his ways in the least. His bracket remains clothed in secrecy, as it is a priceless commodity for any ESPN pundit. But they can’t have it. He does not want to jinx his great power.

For his true followers, though, he has one point of advice.

“I just know that George Mason is really sucky,” Shelomi preaches. “So that is really affecting my picks this year.”

No way I’m picking the Patriots this season. You heard the man: they suck. (For the record, George Mason did not make the tournament this year.)

It is too late for me. I have learned this wisdom far too late in my life to attain the glory the great Shelomi has found so easily.

But I will work. Every day starting with the end of this March of Madness, I will work to find this Shelomi wisdom.

Constantly repeating, never forgetting:

“Ignorance is bliss.”

—Staff writer Walter E. Howell can be reached at wehowell@fas.harvard.edu.