During March Madness, it has become a popular tradition to make brackets with friends and compete to see who will have the most accurate one. Senior Jack Schneider wanted to create a league but on a larger scale. It eventually became a league with 95 members ranging from freshmen in high school to freshmen in college. 

“Back in 2020, (before COVID-19 shut March Madness down) a senior named Andrew Martinez was trying to do the same thing where he was having multiple grades join in one league,” Schneider said. “It eventually didn’t work out, but the idea inspired me to do it in my senior year.”

Schneider’s original idea was to only include the senior class; however, it seemed too small for his liking. This is where he decided to do what 2020 graduate Martinez wanted to do and branch out the league to juniors which then led to the sophomores and finally the freshman joining.

Despite this being the first year Schneider has run his own bracket, he has been participating in March Madness brackets for four years. Schneider believed he would be able to run it well because of his experience running other leagues such as fantasy basketball and fantasy football and his experience in college basketball.

It has been a family tradition for Schneider to go to the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 in the East Region every year. He even had the opportunity to see star player Zion Williamson of the New Orleans Pelicans play live.

Additionally, he thought this type of activity would bring the school together. 

“This will bring Valley students together because there are people in every grade in this bracket,” Senior Evan Cotton said. “There are also people who even graduated Valley in this bracket so it really doesn’t matter what grade, you’re still a part of it.”

Other students had similar reasons to join the league.

“I decided to join the bracket because I thought it would be fun and most of the guys at Pascack Valley are doing it,” Senior PJ Ajalat said.

Currently, the top 5 standings for the league are currently Robert Wasserman (Fr.), Dean Hussein (Jr), Alex Schlessinger (Sr.), Austen Bet (Sr.) and Justin Amato (Sr.).

“With so many people in it, there was such a little chance to win but that’s the whole point of March Madness,” Schneider said.