D-backs’ McFarland tells story of failed March Madness pool in 7th grade

The NCAA Tournament bracket has been set, which means that it’s officially time for March Madness. Many people have fond memories of watching the tournament unfold each year, but for Diamondbacks reliever T.J. McFarland, the March Madness experience hasn’t been so great at times.

The D-backs posted a video to their Twitter account Monday morning, which featured McFarland and his father Tim telling the story of how T.J. was busted for running a March Madness pool at his school in seventh grade.

The hilarious story of how Tim McFarland taught his son @66TJMac how to start a gambling ring, er, a #MarchMadness pool in 7th grade. pic.twitter.com/7QFw9y3Ik6

— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) March 18, 2019

According to the elder McFarland, he taught T.J. how March Madness pools work when the tournament rolled around that year, but he didn’t anticipate that his son would actually start one of his own. T.J. used this newfound knowledge to his advantage, though, and got around 250 people at his junior high to enter a pool at $10 apiece.

The school wasn’t having this, so they called McFarland to the office when word of the pool got around. Conveniently for them, he had $200 in his pocket from some new entrants to the pool upon arriving there.

Tim got a call soon after, where he was told that his son was running a gambling ring within the school. He confessed that he was the one who showed his son how to run the pool, and sat in on the meeting in which T.J. was given detention for a week.

Tim also grounded T.J. for a while when they got home, but he couldn’t help but feel a little bad considering his role in the whole thing.