'Why not West Virginia?'

by: Carnacki

Mon Mar 29, 2010 at 16:50:00 PM EDT

Almost basketball heaven.

West Virginia is in it to win it. And here, in perhaps the craziest NCAA tournament of all time, why not West Virginia, why not these Mountaineers?

You come from a place like West Virginia and you're always being told what you can't do. It's too rural, too poor, too, well, too just West Virginian. If you're going to succeed you have to leave, go off to somewhere bigger and fancier. It's how it's worked for generations. The possibilities are limited at home, limitless away. So off they go - many of the best and brightest seeking success elsewhere even as they carry their home state pride with them forever.

It's not coal that is West Virginia's greatest export. It's people.

So now comes Huggins, son of West Virginians, born in West Virginia, a graduate of West Virginia and he's puffing out his chest and saying the exact opposite.

There isn't anything West Virginia can't do, he says. And we're going to do it from right here at home.