Published: April 01, 2008 09:54 pm            

JOHN CANNON: Cinderella wins heart

During an all-too-rare visit with her grandparents Sunday afternoon, my granddaughter excitedly rushed into the home office where her grandmother was working.

“Mew, we’re winning!” she exclaimed.

“Who is we and what are we winning?” Mew asked.

“Davidson, and we’re beating Kansas!” the 11-year-old girl gasped.

Just seconds before my granddaughter rushed upstairs with the news, she had been bouncing up and down on the family room couch next to me, as she watched the Davidson-Kansas game nearing its final minutes.

It was not until then that I realized just how contagious March Madness can be. If my granddaughter can catch the fever, then anyone can.

But, of course, Davidson was the Cinderella team of this year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament, and we all love Cinderella, particularly little girls who still believe the impossible can come true.

But, alas, Kansas eventually prevailed, and the chariot this Cinderella team hoped would carry it to San Antonio turned into a pumpkin. Ah, but the ride was fun, wasn’t it? If Davidson had made it to the Final Four, every person in America except the fans of North Carolina, Memphis and UCLA would have been rooting for Cinderella. Everyone loves an underdog.

Even young girls with only a marginal interest in basketball.

While a fifth-grade student at Oakview Elementary School in Ashland a year ago, my granddaughter tried out for the girls basketball team. That decision shocked me because, prior to her first practice, she had shown zero interest in basketball. In fact, if she had ever handled a basketball or watched more than 10 seconds of a game, I was not aware of it. Neither was her mother.

Nevertheless, she played on an excellent team that never lost a game. Of course, she was not the reason the team went undefeated, but she didn’t embarrass herself during those few minutes (or seconds) she got to play each game.

My biggest disappointment was that she didn’t accomplish the one goal I set for her at the start of the season: She never scored. Her shots hit the rim a couple of times but the ball never went through the hoop.

After moving to Lexington in August so her mother could start a new job, my granddaughter opted to concentrate more on things she was really good at instead of playing basketball.

However, in early November she and her mother were given tickets to the UK game against Central Arkansas. Thus, she got a taste of basketball at Rupp Arena, and it must have increased her interest in the game.

After the Wildcats lost to Gardner-Webb the following night, my granddaughter asked me on the phone: “Who in the heck is Gardner-Webb?”

“I’m not sure,” I replied honestly. “Sounds kind of like part of a headline on the Sunday Lifestyle pages, doesn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know: ‘Gardner-Webb exchange vows.’”

“Not funny,” she said.

“Well I thought it was.”

I suppose it’s nearly impossible to live in Lexington and not catch at least a mild case of UK fever. This is particularly true of my granddaughter because, at approximately the same time she moved to Lexington, she discovered boys for the first time in her young life.

Of course, sixth-grade boys are not impressed by girls who are first-chair violin in the school orchestra or captain of the junior varsity Quick Recall team. If you want to capture their attention, you have to know at least something about UK basketball. So my granddaughter learned.

Don’t get me wrong, my granddaughter still is light years away from being one of the Wildcat fanatics whose entire happiness seems to depend on whether a bunch of college kids win or lose.

But she did fall in love with Cinderella, a.k.a. Davidson. That’s surely an early sign of catching the fever.

JOHN CANNON can be reached at jcannon@dailyindependent.com or at (606) 326-2649.

        

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