September 20, 1973. I was a senior at Connecticut College, and sat in my dorm room breathlessly watching as Billie Jean King played tennis against Bobby Riggs. I was aware that it was spectacle but I felt that it still mattered. It was the challenge of a sexist showman who held that no woman could play tennis as well as a man. After every set, (King took every set), I was so full of emotion, didn't know what to do with myself, so I raced around the hallway of the floor of Morrison. I seem to remember being alone in my celebration but I had to, well, do something.

Some 39-plus years later, I sat watching as the University of Connecticut women took on Kentucky in the NCAA basketball tournament where the Huskies beat Kentucky's Wildcats by 30 points. I sat in my living room, watching this game on television and found myself wondering this: had you told me on that night in early autumn in New London that I would have been sitting there tonight, what would have surprised me the most?

A) That women's college basketball was being showing on prime time television (don't even try to figure out how to explain cable tv to my 20 year old self. I don't know that I understand it now).

B) That I would be sitting there drinking locally distilled raspberry liqueur (that probably wouldn't have surprised me, not really).

C) That I would know the coach of the UConn team by name, and would have followed his team for years;

D) That there would be a professional women's basketball league with some of the best players coming out of UConn, and that I would have watched many of their games on tv, and several at the local sports arena;

E) That on my birthday I watched two college regional games, again, knowing the names of some of the players;

F) That as I sat in my new recliner watching the game on television, that a few feet away from me was my wheelchair.

Weird thoughts. There's far more to wonder about, but whoo boy, I do wonder what I would have thought of my life. I am pretty sure that I would not have expected that the women's team from the University of Connecticut would be on television. I don't think I was that optimistic.

Now, would it be too much to ask for this year's final to feature UConn and Tennessee?