But Can he Get His Head On A Coin?

In a past life I spent six years in college before, er, being "forced" to pursue other goals. What made it even worse was that John Belushi's character in Animal House managed to make it SEVEN years before flunking out.

I did, however, once get wasted at a toga party. Consequently I can take some pride in knowing that my collegiate experience wasn't a complete waste of time.

Those six years were spent at a relatively unknown medium sized state school here in northern Virginia. It was primarily a commuter college. In fact, my first year there--1977--was also the year that the first dorms opened. Out of a student body of about 15,000, less than 500 actually lived on campus. And quite frankly, unless you were a student or knew someone who attended the place, you would probably never have heard of it. Being named after one of the more obscure founding fathers of the United States didn't help matters.

Things have changed since then. With a student body of about 30,000, it has since become the largest university in the state of Virginia. The basketball team--which in 1977 played in what was basically a high school gymnasium--now plays in a 12,000 seat arena.... Too bad they hardly ever sell out for the games.

Anyway, all that obscurity is now apparently a thing of the past. This unknown school is suddenly the hottest name in college sports. George Mason University, which barely earned an invitation to the NCAA tournament (A.K.A. March Madness) has made it to the final four. They have been the underdog in each of the games they played to get this far, knocking off such heavily favored schools as last year's national champs, North Carolina, and the University of Connecticut, which was favored to win this year.

GMU plays the University of Florida tomorrow in Indianapolis. Whatever the outcome of that game, George Mason can take pride in the fact that he's finally as well known as Thomas Jefferson.