While the players and coaches exchanged handshakes at the end of the game, CBS cameras panned to a young girl adorned in Villanova-blue ribbon who continued playing bravely on her piccolo after her team had lost even as tears streamed down her face.
The short clip showing the heartbroken girl playing her instrument as she sobbed with tear-stained face went viral on social media. The young girl won the hearts of thousands of netizens who shared her pain even though most were not Nova fans. But some were not so sympathetic.
Play on #PiccoloGirl Play though your heart is breaking. pic.twitter.com/P54Ctnsxf2
— CrazyHippieUncle (@dogstar7tweets) March 22, 2015
Play on #piccologirl play on
— idk man (@teiliofa) March 23, 2015
When you thought you were the top piccolo player at your school but you’re not #piccologirl pic.twitter.com/MTckIH0Sn9
— Procrastinator (@jeslielones) March 23, 2015
There was a brief debate whether her instrument was a flute or a piccolo. But the consensus emerged quickly that she was playing a piccolo and not a flute, and the earlier meme #FluteGirl gave way to #PiccoloGirl.
#FluteGirl is actually #PiccoloGirl. Know your instruments, people
— Carah Hollaway (@carah_e) March 22, 2015
At first, she was known to millions online as the “Piccolo Girl,” but the news media soon confirmed her real name as Roxanne Chalifoux.
After recovering, Chalifoux responded to the thousands of tweets generated by images of her teary face: “Villanova wildcat till I die, through the smiles and tears.”
Villanova wildcat till I die, through the smiles and the tears
— Roxanne Chalifoux (@roxiechalifoxie) March 22, 2015
Images of the crying “Piccolo Girl” generated thousands of tweets under the hashtag #PiccoloGirl; and memes flourished on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
She was shown on Twitter memes borrowing images from the movie “Titanic.” Other meme images enlisted the help of “creepy uncle” Joe Biden, standing creepily in the background, comforting her creepily with both hand creepily on her shoulders. Meme creators also remembered to recruit John Travolta to plant an awkward kiss on her cheeks, congratulating her, presumably, for her 15 minutes of fame.
That’s right… you just keep on playing. Biden’s here. #MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/FGNJNMNjHf
— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) March 22, 2015
A meme creator contrived a “double dose of creepy consoling” with the Photoshopped images of Biden and Travolta as shown below.
The Blaze reports that Villanova alumni Mike Maloney, who owns Maloney’s Pub in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, declared Chalifoux “The best fan of all Time” and awarded her free drinks for a year. But she would be able to claim the award only if she is 21.
Many have remarked on the irony that the biggest story coming out of the NCAA’s “March Madness” basketball tournament over the weekend was not the game in which a top-seeded team lost to an 8-seed but media stories about images of a young girl struggling to put on a brave face after her team lost, playing on her piccolo while her face flooded with hot tears.
But despite the pain of the loss, most analysts say that Wildcats fans can take consolation in the fact that their team lost valiantly after a year of top performance.
