The quest for 40-0
Robert Griffin III becomes the Spike Lee of Women's Final Four: BrittneyGriner's celebrity fan
Brittney Griner towers over women's basketball — and one of her biggest fans isa crossover football star.
Robert Griffin III made Baylor fans cheer like never before on the footballfield, but he flew to Denver to be in the stands to cheer on Brittney Griner.
Nothing gives a sport a jolt quite like the right celebrity fan.
Reggie Miller wouldn't be Reggie Miller without Spike Lee screaming at him from the front row at Madison Square Garden. Ashley Judd's main job these days seems to be cheering on Kentucky basketball rather than making movies.
But Baylor University and the Women's Final Four now boasts the coolest celebrity fan of all.
Griffin III said he would have scalped tickets to get in if he needed to in order to cheer on Griner and the Bears' quest for 40-0. Luckily, the guy has a few connections at Baylor.
That would be Robert Griffin III, the Heisman Trophy winner who continues to show why he's the classiest athlete in sports. Griffin III showed up at the Women's Final Four in Denver to cheer on his former Baylor classmates, particularly Houston's own Brittney Griner.
Griffin III said he would have scalped tickets to get in if he needed to in order to cheer on Griner and the Bears' quest for 40-0. Luckily, the guy has a few connections at Baylor.
RG3 flew in from Washington D.C. where he was attending one of those mass autograph sessions of sports stars (since Griffin is destined to become a Redskin, he might as well get in with the fans early). He sat in the Baylor student section and cheered as Griner and the Bears overpowered Stanford and its own pair of Houston-area stars Nnemkadi and Chiney Ogwumike in the second half of Sunday night's national semifinal.
Griffin III says he will be back for the title game Tuesday night when Baylor takes on a Notre Dame team that beat UConn in one of the most entertaining Women's Final Four games ever for the national title. Griner and the 39-0 Bears are favored to complete their undefeated season (though not by as much as you might think, the Irish are only five-point underdogs in Las Vegas) and as Bears coach Kim Mulkey likes to say,"Brittney Griner is the face of women's basketball."
This isn't a team that lacks publicity. The days of the Women's Final Four having to beg for attention are long gone.
But it still never hurts to have sports' newest transcendent star — a big-time male athlete who is already one of the NFL's most recognizable faces even though he hasn't been drafted yet — throw his aura behind the game.
The best thing about it is that RG3 doesn't even seem to think his showing up in Denver is any big deal. Of course he made it. Baylor is playing for a national title.
