Congrats to the Underdogs, Butler University, on Making the NCAA Final Two!

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Last night, Butler University's men's basketball team was beaten by Duke University's team at a score of 61-59. Congratulations to both these fantastic teams! You made this year's N.C.A.A. men's basketball tournament extra special.

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Congratulations to the Butler University men's basketball team for winning their Final Four matchup game yesterday against Michigan State with a score of 52-50! This is the first time in decades that a 5th seeded team has reached the final game, which will be played against Duke University tomorrow night. Duke beat West Virginia last night.

The mascot of the Butler University team is a bulldog and, last night, if you watched the game, you couldn't miss him, dressed up in his dark blue and white Butler coat. He seemed to be enjoying the game and subsequent victory in Indianapolis as much as all the Butler University fans with the game taking place in their home city.

I like it when an "underdog" achieves what was made possible through dreams, a lot of hard work, and a terrific young coach, Brad Stevens, who made his players believe that they would reach this final game.

The President of Butler University is Dr. Bobby Fong, who is the first-born child of Chinese immigrants. He did not learn how to speak English until he was in kindergarten (this was my situation as well, since my family immigrated from Canada, and only Ukrainian was spoken in our home except when my parents did not want the children to understand what they were saying, they would revert to speaking in German). Bobby Fong went on to major in English at Harvard and then received his PhD from UCLA, also in English. Dr. Fong has been the President of Butler University since 2001. The New York Times had a wonderful feature article on Dr. Bobby Fong, which also related how he learned math from baseball statistics and learned about the US by reading about baseball.

Kudos to Butler University, a liberal arts university, with fewer than 5,000 students! I wish their men's basketball team, its students, and its President all the very best! They demonstrate what is special about sports, good sportsmanship, and the terrific possibilities!