Those who know college sports know that Northwestern University is not known for their supremacy in athletics.  They're more known for debate and their academics and their periodic upsets in football.  But during spring season, Northwestern stands out, especially among big ten teams.  Softball is the #4 seed in the upcoming tournament, Girls' Lacrosse are the defending champs and also the #4 seed.  Women's tennis has advanced to the quarterfinals.  Baseball is leading the big ten and boys' golf just won the big ten championship.

But unless you were a Northwestern fan or a die-hard college sports fan, the first thing you'd synonymize with Northwestern athletics these days are the hazing scandals involving men's swimming and girls' soccer.  Now, I'm in no means condoning anything my future classmates partook in, however, it's sad that the first time Northwestern gets serious press for sports it's for something like that.  Especially during a time of great success for Northwestern spring athletics, all the media wants to talk about is hazing.  Hazing is a reality that the media and society have to accept.  No, it's not pretty, but every sport at every college does some sort of hazing.  And nothing was violent in Northwestern's hazings.  Once again, I'm not condoning the actions, but we in the media need to pick and choose wisely what to discuss.  Yes, people want to hear about the hazing, it's a big controversy.  But wouldn't it be nice to discuss how a school not known for its athletics is performing at such a high level this season?  If the hazing scandal opened people's eyes to how Northwestern is faring this season in athletics, great, but I don't think it will.  We need to prioritize better on what is important and decipher importance with what people want to see.   

With a very famous sports day upcoming in Super Bowl Sunday, I'd like to do a couple top 5s involving sports days, starting with my personal favorite and maybe including some that are overrated and some that are underrated.  

5.) Sunday at the Master's- Ok, this really only works if you're a golf fan I understand that.  But I'm not even that much o####olf fan but I love watching the final few holes of the Master's on Sunday.  Obviously it's much more fun to watch if it's close and Tiger isn't running away with it, but even without the drama it brings the Master's tradition, sparks the opening of golf, and ends in the famous green jacket celebration.  It's one of the only times I'll watch golf all year and that is why I added it to the list.

4.) Super Bowl Sunday-  While this may find a spot as well in my top 5 most overrated days in sports, it's hard to argue what a great day Super Bowl Sunday is.  All sports fans have a house to go to and can play squares and make bets and even if it's a bad game you can always enjoy the commercials.  Super Bowl Sunday lands a spot here mainly becuase of it's history and entertainment aspect to it.  Also, if your team is in the game even better because there's about as much pre game as you can get that morning and afternoon.

3.) New Years' Day (excluding this year)- My favorite memories from when I was younger is waking up on New Years' Day and finding mulitple bowl games to watch.  College Football is such an exhilirating sport and the pagentry and tradition involved with the New Years' Day bowl games makes it that much more fun to watch.  Once you get to around 1 or 2 o'clock there's already 4 games on at once, all with something up for grabs.  And if some games are blowouts there are always others on other channels making it one of the great days of channel surfing as well.  I admit it has lost some of its lure with the BCS spreading out its games but New Years' Day bowl games still find a way to #3.

2.) Thursday's First round NCAA tournament games- Okay, so you have your 50 brackets filled out, highlighters ready, pools entered, and you've been waiting since Selection Sunday for this moment.  Starting at 11:00 you;ll have 16 games of thrilling March Madness to watch on CBS.  As a student I'll go from class to class trying to hide my radio or trying to find a way to get to a computer to watch the gamecast.  It's the start of the most exciting playoffs in all of sports and 16 games is a great way to do it.

1.) Baseball's Opening Day-  While this has also lost some luster due to a random game in Japan or a Sunday nighter before all the games, it finds itself at #1 because it marks the beginning of our National Pastime.  We've lasted through offseason trades, pitchers and catchers reporting, and spring training all leading up to Opening Day where usually almost every team has a game throughout the day into the evening.  It's the beginning of spring and then summer and the start of the 162 game marathon the baseball fans live for.  It's historic and exciting and always worth the wait.

This list is clearly biased due to my own personal interests in specific sports, but some are hard to argue with.   Willing to hear many other ideas on other great sports days.

Just missing the list: Final 4, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, Olympics Opening ceremonies,

Watching my favorite team, the Northwestern Wildcats, blow a 22-0 lead and lose the Sun Bowl to UCLA today 52-38 has made my day miserable.  I have to ask myself in these situations: isn't it just a game? A game that I'm not even playing in? Why do I care so much?

Maybe it's the fact that I've lived and died with the roller-coaster-type football team since I was 5 and thought that this could be their first bowl win since 1949.

Or maybe it was being with all my family friends, all donning our purple and yelling at every play.

Or maybe I just like sports too much.

Whatever the reason may be, when we gave up two onside kick returns for touchdowns in a row I felt sick to my stomach and my Mom, who doesn't even like football, didn't understand why I let that loss get to me so much.  Us hardcore, die-hard sports fans get asked that question a lot: Don't you realize there are things in life more important than sports?  Of course I do, of course I know that i'd rather be living a healthy life with a losing team than being sick with a winning team.  But just because sports 'aren't everything' in life, doesn't mean they still can't affect our moods.  I'll get over this loss, just like all Chicagoans get over the heartbreak our sports teams bring to us, but what is great about living and dying with a sports team is what happened with my White Sox.  One day, your team will surprise you and rise up to win a championship.  For the month of October the White Sox made me smile everyday, instead of breaking my heart like in years' past.  That's why we live and die with our teams for that one special year.

Maybe next year will be Northwestern's year.  Until then, I'll be watching highlights over and over again to try and figure out what went wrong.