UPDATE: American Madness 2010 IS ON!

No, not this Madness...

For those waiting with bated breath to hear when (or if) American Madness would be happening this year, you can finally relax. AU Athletics announced yesterday on its facebook page that, "American Madness is coming up on Wednesday, November 10 at 7 p.m. in Bender Arena", with the disclaimer that more details are soon to come.

So thank you, AU Athletics, for clearing this up. However, I must make a confession of my own: I missed something the other day. After the nonchalant facebook announcement, just to make sure I wasn't going crazy, I immediately went and checked every source I could find to make sure that I was correct two days ago in saying that a date for American Madness had not yet been set. Approximately an hour later, I held in my hand the official AU Athletics wall calendar, flipped open to the month of November. There it was, staring at me: "American Madness Pep Rally 7 p.m.", right on November 10th under an italicized note marking the 8th anniversary of women's soccer's first Patriot League championship. This calendar has been in circulation since at least the women's volleyball game on August 27th.

So, needless to say, I will be referring to this calendar more often in the future to reduce the chances that I'm spouting baseless fear-mongering. That being said, Athletics probably should have put forth the effort to advertise it a little better early on (again, last year the online press release went up on September 8th). Maybe then DCist would have reported the correct date, since I'm assuming the extent of their research was doing a search on AUeagles.com.

While this issue has been cleared up, this doesn't mean you shouldn't still vote in this week's poll, "Should AU hold American Madness (Midnight Madness) in October?" Surprisingly, after two days of voting almost a third of respondents feel that American Madness should not be held in October. If you said no, let us know why in the comments! I'm curious to hear the reasoning, as I'm sure it's good.

So that's that, I'll see everyone in Bender Arena on Wednesday, November 10th, at 7 p.m. for American Madness! If you can't make it to campus, I'll be live-tweeting on @AUHoops.

Pro Deo Et Patria and GO EAGLES!
Josh