Folarin Campbell helped drive George Mason into the Final Four, the first mid-major school to do so since 1979. John Biever/SI

By Seth Davis

Before taking the court against defending champion North Carolina in the second round of the 2006 NCAA Tournament, the George Mason Patriots dressed in their locker room while the song Kryptonite by the rap group Purple Ribbon All-Stars blared over a loudspeaker.

"If these guys are Supermen," Patriots coach Jim Larranaga told his players, referring to the Tar Heels, "we're gonna be their kryptonite."

The Patriots beat those Supermen to reach the Sweet Sixteen. Two games later, after they beat pre-tournament favorite Connecticut in overtime to reach the Final Four, the Patriots danced to Bon Jovi's Livin' on a Prayer at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. Upon returning to their campus in northern Virginia later that night, Larranaga and his players and the reigning Miss Virginia did a group dance to Y.M.C.A. Suffice to say, on that day, we were all Patriots, not to mention Village People.

The fact that George Mason lost to eventual champion Florida at the Final Four is a minor footnote to the most unlikely Cinderella in the history of college sports. This is a school that had never won a single NCAA tournament game, yet vanquished three schools with a combined four NCAA titles (Michigan State, North Carolina and Connecticut) en route to Indianapolis, dancing and smiling and singing all the way. They didn't win a championship, but there is an even more appropriate final destination for this team: SI's Sportsmen of the Year.

It is fitting that only three other teams has been honored by SI in this fashion: the 2004 Red Sox (and its fans), the 1999 U.S. women's soccer team, and of course, the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team. That was another merry band of young brothers who slew giants and captured a nation's imagination. But that team's gold medal proved to be an aberration. George Mason's mad dash to the Final Four, on the other hand, was the natural culmination of a decade-long rise of the mid-majors in the NCAA tournament, a trend that has given bottomless charm to the nation's favorite sporting event.

The Patriots were one of four mid-majors to reach the Sweet Sixteen this year (Wichita State, Bradley and Gonzaga were the others) and the first to reach the Final Four since Indiana State and Penn in 1979. That the achievement came after many in the college hoops cognoscenti derided the inclusion of so many middies made it all the more sweet for players and fans alike.

A few days before George Mason played its first-round game, Larranga told his players they should "visualize" what it would be like to win a game in the tournament -- whereupon two of his guys dumped a cooler of water over his head. "We're visualizing the celebration," they told him. Larranaga laughed.

Fortunately for us, the Patriots did their celebrating the next two weeks. They left us laughing, dancing and believing that the impossible was possible. That's what great sportsmen do.