Miss Virginia Is a Goalie

In case you missed the headlines, they named a new Miss America Saturday night in Las Vegas. The winner was Miss Indiana, Katie Stam, a 22-year-old communications major from the University of Indianapolis. Congratulations to Miss Stam, who I'm sure will make a fine Miss America.

Then again, I can't help but feel just a little bit disappointed. That's because just a few weeks ago during a Washington Capitals game, I had the opportunity to meet Tara Wheeler, the reigning Miss Virginia. Being from the Northern part of the state, I had to root for the hometown girl, and it certainly didn't hurt that while she was an undergraduate at Penn State, she was the starting goalie for the school's women's ice hockey team -- a fact that has generated media attention from as far away as Australia.

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Wheeler sat down with FOX Sports for an interview a few days before leaving for Las Vegas, and she had some interesting things to say about how hockey prepared her for life on the pageant circuit:

I think with anything that you've worked at really hard like playing hockey, it teaches you how to be focused and determined. Anyone who has grown up playing hockey has grown up getting up at the crack of dawn to get that early ice time. So to have that kind of love and devotion for a sport carries over to anything you're passionate about and it's the same for pageants.

Here in the Washington area, my buddy John Keeley at On Frozen Blog has been the point man for letting the world know about Wheeler's hockey connection. Click here for their full archive of Wheeler-related posts. John even went so far as to accompany her to the airport before her trip to Las Vegas.

When I met Tara, she made the point that the Miss America pageant has helped raise more college scholarship money for young women than any other charity in the world, and after talking to her for a few minutes, it was easy to see that the scholarship money that she's won will go to good use. Wheeler might not have won last night, but I don't doubt that she'll always be a winner going forward.