After seeing the 1st and 2nd rounds in person at the Hoosier Dome in 1989 and 1990, my husband and I really wanted to go to the 1991 Final Four. I read that the odds of winning were 1 in 10, so I sent 10 applications with 10 paper checks in 10 separate envelopes. A few months later, I got 10 envelopes back from the NCAA. Nine of them had a check and one of them had 2 tickets. We saw the "underdog" Duke Blue Devils "upset" UNLV.

We got tickets in 1992, 1993 and 1995 using the same system. After missing out in 1986, I upped my applications to 20 and got four tickets in 1997. Our son got to bring to bring a friend. He's 42 now and still talks about getting to go to those games. Somewhere along the line, the NCAA allowed multiple applications to be sent together. It was still all by mail, though.

We had kids in college in the years after that so my basketball tournament fun ended there. I did make it to the 2nd round game in 2005.