On the north lawn at West Point, poised on a tip of land overlooking the Hudson, is a cauldron full of stones encircled by an enormous steel chain. Visitors often pause there to take pictures. It reeks of significance. People video the stones and muse about their origin as if, perhaps, they might have been carried there from Plymouth Rock itself. It's funny though, the cauldron and the rocks aren't important in the least. It's the chain that has a story.

My elementary school library was a glorified closet tucked into the top side of the ‘T’ where the tiled hallway broke away to the science wing. It was big enough to walk in, but barely. Each side was lined from floor to ceiling with books on cold metal shelves, and the lighting came from a bulb hanging from the center of the ceiling that you pulled a string to turn on. This is where I discovered Nancy Drew.

The ‘way back when’ is like a series of little movies. The day I tripped the brake on the golf cart while Dad was standing over his ball on number 13. The day we drove that shiny midnight blue Buick Regal off the lot and he taught me how to check the oil and work the jack. The day he walked me down the aisle, nervous as a cat, me in my veil, calming him and running the show as I suppose I have always been prone to do. But it’s weird. I don’t remember him at all from that day, past the aisle.

Just over two weeks ago, the sports world ground to a palpable and immutable stop. It was like the old Road Runner cartoon where the coyote is running along at Mach 1 chasing the bird and all of a sudden the road stops. His coyote legs just keep spinning in thin air for a few seconds and then he plummets, finally landing in a giant flat splat on the ground miles below.

When I first met Geno Auriemma, he was wearing a sport coat with the lapels turned up like ear muffs and Italian loafers with no socks. It was snowing sideways in Norman, Oklahoma -- a typically atypical weather day in the middle of October, which made a gym full of high school athletes as giddy as the reigning national championship coach was confused.