by cory hedgepeth – When a great season comes to an end, it’s never easy, particularly when the evil foe that steals the treasure is Kentucky. And Calipari. When we first see the reality (the travel 3-point shot), it manifest itself as shock. The body sort of shuts down and delays the acceptance of the reality of the situation. But then it moves on to things like anger, mental headline tickers titled “Calipari’s hair is still awful” and “vacated Final Fours” and “is that girl really dipping her burger in ranch dressing?” Sorry for the tangent, I just found that so strange.
Last Monday in Los Angeles was a gorgeous sunny day. This isn’t going to be some anecdote intended to make the Midwestern following feel lousy (heck I think the weather was great there for the most part), its just the way it was. Sunny, clear, a constant summerish breeze, less smog and gun fire. Around 9am I went to my local mailbox store to mail a package. The owner was taping a box together, he took a moment to look up from his tape gunning and said to me, “those Jayhawks going to pull it out for us tonight?” The owner is from Los Angeles and has probably never been to Kansas before. But that didn’t matter, Kansas was soundly America’s team that night, as evidenced at the West Hollywood mailbox store. Us. I got that feeling immediately, the feeling of heavenly manipulation. Divine Intervention. As if God himself was like, “Kentucky is evil. Calipari has stiff weird hair. Let there be Kansas. Let there be only the light of Jayhawks. Let Ashley Judd keep taking on lesser and lesser respectable roles.”
This is a diary of the mental stages I went through on my National Championship journey in West Hollywood, California.
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