go Butler!

If you're watching the Basketball NCAA Final tonight, I hope you'll be rooting for Butler. I have a personal reason -- beyond their miracle underdog status -- I taught Freshman English at UCLA with Butler University President, Bobby Fong.

Although we haven't kept in touch since grad school, I have always remembered him for his ethics as a teacher. At a time when tenure track jobs at universities required you to love theory and Derrida above all else, he chose, instead, to teach undergraduates at Berea College in Appalachia. When I saw the announcement of his becoming president of Butler a few years ago, I was not surprised to learn it was a school that valued "The Butler Way" of combining academics and athletics.

With stars who go to class on the day of a tournament game, and Butler's 90% graduation rate for all athletes, it certainly seems they are for real.