Happily ever after. Yes, that's where all fairy tales end, and what follows is most definitely a fairy tale. This is the one about the football star and the cheerleader. It has everything you could want from a fairy tale—magical kisses, a whiff of danger, a prince who almost died, a princess walking in the snow and, yes, true love. And, of course, there's a happily ever after. The only difference with this fairy tale is that the story does not end with happily ever after. It begins there.

Well, you'll see.

***

Once upon a time, a football player knelt in front of a cheerleader, camera flashes illuminating his face and his Boise State jersey. The last crumbs of confetti twirled in the Arizona air. The hoarse cheers of an exhausted crowd and the final strains of the school fight song echoed in the night. It was all too much. Everyone in that stadium had just witnessed the greatest college football game ever played, the 2007 Fiesta Bowl. Boise State was winning, then Oklahoma was winning, then it seemed over, then it wasn't.... This was the sort of game that made people across America spontaneously burst into tears of joy.

The football player, Ian Johnson, scored the final points in that game. Down by one in overtime he scored a two-point conversion on a play from another century, a play known as the Statue of Liberty, or, as they simply called it in Boise: Statue Left. Quarterback Jared Zabransky took the snap, dropped back, turned to his right and faked a pass in that direction. Only then, he slipped the ball behind his back for Johnson to take it. Johnson ran left—Statue Left—and all was clear, the Oklahoma defenders were as befuddled as Captain Hook facing Peter Pan.

Johnson ran into the end zone, and Little Boise State had beaten Mighty Oklahoma, and it was the perfect ending to the perfect game. Strangers hugged. First dates kissed. Johnson threw the ball into the crowd hoping it might reach his father—but Ian was too pumped up and overthrew h...