Year of the Jayhawk

As an alum of the University of Kansas, I'm not sure that we'll ever see a better year for the Jayhawks.

First off, our football team came out of nowhere to rack up an 12-1 record including a BCS bowl title. In the preseason analysis, most pundits had predicted the Hawks to finish in the middle of the pack in the terrible Big 12 North. Although their schedule was admittedly easier than some of the other top teams (Not you Ohio State), KU showed their mettle against a solid Virginia Tech team in the Orange Bowl, demonstrating that they were in fact better than most were giving them credit.

Things then got crazy with our basketball team. We had a terrific regular season but at KU, expectations are exceedingly high and success is most often measured by our post-season results. After a narrow escape against Davidson, which by all accounts we probably should have lost, the Hawks advanced to the first Final Four to showcase all four number one seeds. Any team surviving this Final Four would earn the title. Karma came back to roost as the Hawks throttled the heavily-favored North Carolina Tarheels, led by our former coach Roy Williams and player of the year Tyler Hansborough, to advance to the title game against the Memphis Tigers. Beating Carolina was simply one of the best nights ever for a KU fan. As if things couldn't get any better, the Hawks staged the greatest comeback in championship history through a combination of Memphis mistakes and terrific play, culminating with Mario Chalmer's shot heard round the world. With the Memphis foul trouble and all momentum in our favor, the overtime was nearly a forgone conclusion as we won our first national title in 20 years.

To cap off everything, this past week saw the crowning of a new NBA champion, the Boston Celtics. One of our all-time best and favorite Jayhawks, Paul Pierce, had been languishing in Boston for years and he was quite close to leaving the venerable this past off-season. In an effort to keep their star from departing Beantown, the Celts brought in Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, two of the NBA's finest at their respective positions. Not only did Pierce bring his A-game for the Finals against the Lakers, he ended up being voted the Series MVP.

Celebrate Jayhawk fans! This past year has been a long time coming!

Rock Chalk!