The whole ballgame: Surgical strike on Madness

Hate Mail: Well oil be darned

If I had to do it all over again, this is how I'd do it. First, the union of my testicles and a sharp knife. Hey, that part is unavoidable. You want a vasectomy? Fine. There are two requirements: A scalpel. And your testicles.

But after that, it gets good -- if I had to do it all over again, I mean. Because this is how I'd do it. Or, rather, this is when I'd do it:

During March Madness.

Is there a better way to spend the first or second weekend of the NCAA tournament than in bed, with the remote control in one hand and a bottle of Vicodin in the other? Take away that whole "testicles and scalpel" thing, and the answer is no. No, there's not a better way to spend the first or second weekend of the NCAA tournament.

And that's why urologists around the country have reported an upswing in vasectomies during March: Because a lot of you men are smarter today than I was seven years ago, when I had a vasectomy in the summer of 2003. Do you know what there is to watch on television in July? Nothing. No NFL. No NBA. No college football or basketball. There's Major League Baseball, and that's it. I was so bored in July 2003 that I spent the weekend with frozen peas on my groin and the Florida Marlins on TV.

But not you men today. No, you guys are smarter than I ever was. You've been calling your urologist -- you're probably on the phone with him right now, you showoff -- to schedule your March vasectomy. One office reported a 40 percent increase in the procedure during last year's March Madness, and to meet that demand some doctors will be performing vasectomies this month on Wednesdays and Thursdays, rather than the usual Friday-only schedule, to accommodate the NCAA Tournament. Which is being televised on CBS, I hear.

"In our modern culture it's hard not to tie things to television," says Dr. Donald Snyder, a urologist in Greenfield, Ind. "If guys are up and around too much [after a vasectomy] they can suffer some discomfort, so the best way they can keep from hurting themselves is to stay off their feet. If you like college basketball, what better time is there to stay off your feet than March?"

At this point, some of you are wondering if this whole thing is a joke. Vasectomies, in March? Would people really do that? And the answer is yes -- people would really do that. Urologists trace the start of Vasectomy Madness to 2008, when the Oregon Urology Institute marketed a March deal called "Snip City." A year later, the Urology Team in Austin, Texas, saw a 40 percent increase in vasectomy traffic in March after it combined the ridiculous name of one of its surgeons, Dr. Richard Chopp, with the timing of March Madness by offering a T-shirt reading, "I got Chopped."

I couldn't make that up. His name is Dick Chopp, people.

Like I said, people do weird stuff all the time, even when it involves something as serious as a surgical procedure below the belt. In April 1999 when Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski announced he would be having hip-replacement surgery, people with hip pain throughout the Carolinas tried to schedule their procedure too. Apparently they were hoping to recover in the bed next to Coach K. I'm telling you, people are weird. Coach K outsmarted the wackos by having his surgery a day ahead of schedule. Plus I'm pretty sure he had a private room.

Point is, people will go to unusual lengths to do certain things, and having a vasectomy is one of those things. Nothing is sacred, you know. Chesapeake Urology in Baltimore markets itself to men by placing ads inside the Baltimore Ravens' stadium -- above the urinals, to be precise.

Again, this column is not a joke. Look at the guy standing on your left. Now look at the guy on your right. One of them will have a vasectomy in a few weeks.

OK, that was a joke. But overall this is not a laughing matter. Nor is it a PSA urging men to have a vasectomy. What you do with your testicles is your business, but I will say this: A vasectomy is scary only in theory. In theory, it's terrifying. I'll give you that. A needle to numb the area? Then a scalpel? Horrifying. But in practice, it's not.

Put it this way: Three years ago I had laser eye surgery, and that was horrifying. It lasted just 10 minutes, but for those 10 minutes I could smell my eyeballs burning. Seriously. And the clamps they use to keep your eyelids open? Medieval. Compared to that, a vasectomy is nothing. Even when the doctor performing the vasectomy says those four words no man wants to hear:

Now, the other side.

Otherwise, the vasectomy is a piece of cake. Truth is, this whole March Madness thing is a con to fool your wife. Not that I'm above conning your wife when it comes to this whole topic. Look, you're the one getting the scalpel to the scrotum. Not her. And doctors have come up with a 10-minute procedure for women, something called Essure, that's easier on them than a vasectomy is on us.

So if you choose to use this procedure to get hooked up with a weekend of March Madness in bed, go for it. Just understand -- and this is where your wife should stop reading -- that the recovery time for a vasectomy is rather short. A friend of mine in North Carolina, a pastor at my church, had his vasectomy on Friday morning and was preaching on Saturday night.

This is no time to be a hero, though. Surgery is surgery, and surgery down there is a major undertaking. So spoil yourself. Don't do like I did on Jan. 23, 2002 -- 18 months before my vasectomy -- when I had my appendix taken out. I know the exact date, because it was one day before No. 1 Duke visited Boston College. That was my trip, dammit. I was covering ACC basketball for the Charlotte Observer and I was scheduled to fly to Boston on the 24th. But the day before, I woke up in abdominal pain. Sure enough, it was appendicitis. A few hours later I was coming out of surgery, and I groggily called my boss and assured him I'd be on the plane to Boston. Or so my boss tells me. I don't remember that phone call. Drugs are beautiful.

Anyway, that was no time to be a hero, and the plane left without me. Still ticks me off. Two surgeries in my nether-regions, and I have zero basketball to show for it.

So don't be me. If you're going to have a vasectomy, do it in March. Everyone else is.