Cinderella

The NCAA tournament is underway for the men and the women and it is time for the proverbial Cinderella teams to manifest themselves once again.

We like to cheer for an underdog when they aren’t playing our team and with 64 or 65 teams represented for both the men and women there has to be several to pick from, but who will they be.

I remember the team that had Cornbread Maxwell and the folk hero he became as he led his team to improbable wins one after another until that one game when he couldn’t provide the heroics and they lost. Every year we have a team like that it seems. Remember Butler and Gonzaga when they wore the slipper, but now they are there every year it seems. Western KY took their turn with their sharpshooter as he fired from seemingly everywhere and just couldn’t miss, until that game that he just couldn’t deliver just like Cornbread and so many others.

That is the way it works for the most part. Cinderella is just a fairy tale isn’t it? Could this year be the year that Cinderella actually gets to keep the slipper and prince charming give her the other one just after midnight on that oh so special night.

Looking back at the beginning of the year who would have picked the two UK teams to be enjoying the dance and festivities like there is no tomorrow. Let’s face it, nobody would have picked the lady cat’s to be so good with the opportunity to keep playing well into the tournament and with a few good bounces could still be standing at the end. I certainly will not forecast the finish because I just don’t know how it will end.

The same goes for the men. I know that everyone felt the team was going to be special because of all the new talent on the team that just appeared from nowhere to play for UK just like it would happen in a fairy tale. Let’s face it only the truly die-hard fan would envision such a year as they have had. Yeah, all of us made the statement that they would lose a “few” games during the season and have an opportunity to win it all at the end. How many games did we feel would be the “few” losses and to whom?

UNC, UConn, UL, TN, Vandy and Mississippi State were all forecast to beat UK because they had superior talent and more upperclassmen for stability. Along with those losses we had to figure they would slip up at least twice more and have a total of eight losses. Everyone knew that coach Cal was a good coach, but even the most ardent supporters had to recognize the possibility of several losses during the season. It simply wasn’t fair to expect more of them.

Look at teams like UNC that had to bring along a stable full of good talent and yet withered on the vine as the season progressed, but not the UK men. They took on all comers and stumbled only twice during games when everything that could go wrong did.

The lady cat’s had the unbeaten streak along with the men for a long time. A good shot here and there and they would have been a #1 seed just like the men. It has truly been a fairy tale year for both teams.

You see Cinderella has been right under our noses all year long with both the men and women. They have been wearing the slippers and dancing into the night, night after night and yet the pumpkin coach never disappears. The clock doesn’t strike twelve.

It has been such a wonder dance all year long and Cinderella has really enjoyed herself so much that she has forgotten that she is wearing the glass slippers. Neither team is the favorite to win it all, but prince charming hasn’t arrived yet so there is time for a few more dances before the clock strikes twelve and who knows who will have the last dance with prince charming.

The one thing we do know is that fairy tales become reality. Young men and women dream dreams about being the best athlete in their class and in the end only a few can make that claim, but they keep dreaming they will be the one. Nobody has a right to deprive them of that dream. Let them keep reaching for the stars and pinching themselves until the clock strikes twelve. We the fans can live in our dreamland as well. We don’t lay it all on the line night after night, but we are attending games or watching TV and rooting them on while hoping and dreaming of championships one after another.

Who will it be? Cinderella lives on and don’t anybody pinch me, because I don’t want to wake up. Just a few more dances is all I want. Perhaps prince charming will show up at the last dance and find Cinderella waiting.

I can hear the entourage approaching!  Cinderella, Cinderella do you have time for one more dance?