As he did last year, Mr. Obama’s foundation, Obama.org, is sponsoring about a dozen young people with a full ride, to go learn about careers in sports TV and media, as well as the business of sports management at the Final Four (this year hosted down in Houston). For many, it is their first plane trip in their lives.

Additionally, last year’s crop of Final Four interns spent part of the past Summer at Ravensbourne University, in London — in a two-week immersive program — exploring how US basketball culture influences fashion, art and music in the United States, and increasingly around the globe. Here is all that outstanding news:

…On and off the court, we inspire changemakers to take action and empower them with tools and connections to change their world for the better….

Last summer, the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance sent four Chicago students across the pond to participate in a cultural exchange program at Ravensbourne University London, which was hosted by Vault49. For two weeks, one spent in London and the other in Chicago, MBK program participants joined together with students from London to explore how basketball culture influences the fashion, art, design, and music of their cities.

Check out what the students learned on their cultural exchange journey:

As March Madness continues, we’re thrilled to share that nearly one dozen bright young men and women will represent the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance and the Girls Opportunity Alliance in Houston, Texas during the NCAA men’s and women’s Final Four tournaments.

To help you celebrate March Madness all tournament long, we created basketball-themed digital stickers and backgrounds [which may be downloaded at the bottom of this linked page]….

And, perhaps trivially (in view of the above), this may mark the second year in a row that I best Mr. Obama, in the bracket competition. You see, Duke was ousted earlier this past weekend, and he had the Blue Devils winning the whole thing. He also had Kansas going very deep, and had Purdue. All those teams are already gone, in this year of shocking upsets. [To be fair, my pick to win it all — Marquette — was also ousted by late Sunday night, but I still have three of my final four teams in play. Mr. Obama just lost too many early games. He cannot catch up.]

As I said before St. Padraich’s, we diverged mightily on our tourney picks this year. And due to upsets, like last year (at the moment, at least) my picks have me near the top twenty per cent, nationally (of about 6 million entrants) — while the Duke thing takes him to about the 65th percentile (at the moment).

So it is indeed trivial that Hinderaker spent his evening defending DeSantis’ isolationism, and minimization of Putin’s war crimes in Ukraine, for which an arrest warrant at ICC (for war crimes!) — and not unlike Tangerine’s coming one, in Manhattan, for indicted felonies… is barely worth a footnote, in its impotency. Oh, and later tonight — trying vainly to insult Mr. Biden.

Yet, and even so — Mr. Obama’s foundation, through what started as a silly sports diversion — has led the way in improving the lives of all sorts of Americans. So… Kudos, Mr. President!

नमस्ते