As the month of March comes to an end, so does the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball tournament, nicknamed March Madness. For teachers at Samo each year, the March Madness competition brings about a string of insulting emails and disappointment after disappointment, as teachers realize how little they know about college basketball.

For many Samo athletes to arduous road to becoming skilled athletes are paying off as they begin to receive letters of interest and recruitment.

Equipped with handcrafted signs and a newly purchased camera, she marches boldly toward the stands. She seats herself precisely in the middle of the first row of stands and narrows her eyes to spot her hero on the team. Instantly overcome with immense pride, she begins to shout vaguely familiar phrases about a sport she knows nothing about. She is the ultimate fan. She is the parent.

Historically, there have been rivalries among sports teams that have brought with them an attitude that can shift the mood of an entire crowd.

A sports team is like a family. If an athlete got into a fight on the field, the rest of the team would probably jump in to support him or her, sometimes mediating the fight, sometimes furthering it. Similarly, when athletes get into squabbles on the Internet, their teammates often react the same way.

You can work as hard as you want at your sport; running in exasperation up the Greek theatre, working out in the gym for hours on end or swimming laps until your muscles can no longer move. But when there is no crowd to fill the seats, all the hard work does not seem to pay off.

The hands of junior David Mijares are registered with the United States of America Boxing Club. If he wanted, he could use them to kill someone.