A Devoted Fan
Jun 01, 2023 | Sports Extra, Athletics
By: D. Scott Fritchen
When it comes to everyday living, there are two things important to Cheryl Wing: Distance and weather. It's one mile from home to West Fifth Avenue. It's 3.4 miles to Walmart Supercenter. And it's 3.5 miles to AJ's at the Alley located at 1221 East 23rd Avenue in Hutchinson, Kansas, if you motor from South Poplar Street to East 17th to North Plum Street to East 23rd. It can be rather daunting. Downright treacherous at times. But Cheryl motors along. She has overcome a lot in life.
Navigating the streets on a full battery charge in the mid-70s with a pleasant breeze — what more could you ask? She shows up at the Catbacker event in Hutchinson for the 11:30 a.m. program on May 23 and she can't be missed, what with her purple V-neck jersey with a large white Powercat across her chest and sparkling gold sandals that sit upon the floorboard of the purple scooter that she rode in on. It takes time. It always does. It takes her a little more than one hour to reach AJ's at the Alley — her scooter tops out at 3 miles-per-hour — and she arrives as belle of the ball.
She just doesn't know it. Not until they present her with a Kansas State men's basketball Elite Eight mini basketball signed by head coach Jerome Tang that she holds in both hands, presenting it like the winning rhubarb at the state fair down the road. The smile doesn't leave her face as the crowd cheers and applauds her and her surprise gift. She'll put the basketball into her purple K-State bag on the back of the scooter, but not yet. She isn't finished showing it off.
"People that really know me would be able to tell you I have a lot of words, but this leaves me speechless," she says. "It's almost as good as actually being at the game, although that'd be better. The basketball guys presented it to me. They said, 'We want to give you this for your dedication to K-State.'"
She looks at the ball. Her eyes growing watery. Her smile remains.
"I'm a little crazy," she says, "when it comes to K-State."
It was early 2000 when things changed for Cheryl — the severe back injury followed by failed operations, and the disintegrated discs that led to the nerve and muscle problems in both legs. The sparkplugs weren't firing, which led to one fall, and then another. Before long, she stopped going anywhere. Titanium holds her back together. That surgery came in 2003. She's had five major surgeries. Doctors try to stop this or that. But the problems moved to her arms and hands. After living in Salina for 30 years where she worked as a computer instructor many of those years, she moved close to her daughters in Hutchinson five years ago. She couldn't trust her legs.
"I'm pretty independent," she says. "I do what I can do. I'm used to it, but it's getting harder and harder."
The trouble has progressed into her neck. She hopes to see a neurosurgeon for the first time in three years. She hopes that medical technology has come far enough that they can stop the progressive problems. But she has the scooter, the purple scooter with white Powercats, which is recognizable along the Hutchinson streets. She's the 55-year-old woman with purple in her heart who won't be stopped.
"The scooter and the purple, it's become a part of me," she says. "There might never be answers, so this could be it. I might as well make it fun."
Cheryl, a native of Lincoln, Kansas, is a lifelong K-State fan. She attended K-State for three years in 1980s. She returned and received her computer information degree at K-State-Salina in 1997. She cries happy tears as a K-State fan. Her apartment neighbors, most of them elderly, know when a K-State team is on TV: Cheryl is cheering on the Wildcats – loudly – in her first-floor apartment.
She figures she came closest to being evicted from her apartment during the 2022 Big 12 Championship Game — "I screamed at the top of my lungs," she says — and that was the most fun she could remember. Until the K-State men's basketball team went to the Elite Eight. She hooted and hollered during the exhilarating wins over Kentucky and Michigan State. She always has a soft spot for basketball.
It was the morning of December 14 that she faced a major decision. Everyone was gone to work. She was all alone. Would she do it? Would she motor the 3.5 miles to AJ's at the Alley? K-State brought the Big 12 Championship Trophy there. Between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., fans could get their picture with the trophy. But there were problems. Big problems. Cheryl never sleeps more than two hours at a time. The pain becomes too great. The night before, she didn't sleep a wink. Temperatures were in the low 30s with 16 mile-per-hour wind gusts. Layered in purple but with fingers exposed that wouldn't thaw for hours, she eventually made it to AJ's at the Alley, and she posed with the trophy.
"I got about a mile on my way back," she says. "I was in tears, but I didn't regret the trip at all."
She hasn't been to a K-State football game in 20 years. Today, she isn't sure if she could do it. There's the transportation logistics and financial challenges. Then there's the pain, which can return at any moment. But the purple heart yearns for a chance to be inside Bill Snyder Family Stadium. Nerves be damned, she'd love to see the Little Apple again. She wonders what it is like these days, the stadium and the city. She sees The Bill on TV and, my, how it's grown. She sees the football field and the Powercat and it unearths decades of memories to a time when she stood in those bleachers, a healthy young woman with her little daughters, watching the players tackle and the cheerleaders cheer upon a patch of green that felt like home. She wonders if that day will ever arrive again.
"I'd literally give anything to be there," she says, "to be there just once."
For now, Cheryl prepares to motor back to her apartment with the signed Elite Eight K-State basketball. She'll navigate the Hutchinson streets on her scooter, a home she's known for a while, which has become a part of her, and for which she's known across the city.
When it comes to everyday living, there are two things important to Cheryl Wing: Distance and weather. It's one mile from home to West Fifth Avenue. It's 3.4 miles to Walmart Supercenter. And it's 3.5 miles to AJ's at the Alley located at 1221 East 23rd Avenue in Hutchinson, Kansas, if you motor from South Poplar Street to East 17th to North Plum Street to East 23rd. It can be rather daunting. Downright treacherous at times. But Cheryl motors along. She has overcome a lot in life.
Navigating the streets on a full battery charge in the mid-70s with a pleasant breeze — what more could you ask? She shows up at the Catbacker event in Hutchinson for the 11:30 a.m. program on May 23 and she can't be missed, what with her purple V-neck jersey with a large white Powercat across her chest and sparkling gold sandals that sit upon the floorboard of the purple scooter that she rode in on. It takes time. It always does. It takes her a little more than one hour to reach AJ's at the Alley — her scooter tops out at 3 miles-per-hour — and she arrives as belle of the ball.
She just doesn't know it. Not until they present her with a Kansas State men's basketball Elite Eight mini basketball signed by head coach Jerome Tang that she holds in both hands, presenting it like the winning rhubarb at the state fair down the road. The smile doesn't leave her face as the crowd cheers and applauds her and her surprise gift. She'll put the basketball into her purple K-State bag on the back of the scooter, but not yet. She isn't finished showing it off.
"People that really know me would be able to tell you I have a lot of words, but this leaves me speechless," she says. "It's almost as good as actually being at the game, although that'd be better. The basketball guys presented it to me. They said, 'We want to give you this for your dedication to K-State.'"
She looks at the ball. Her eyes growing watery. Her smile remains.
"I'm a little crazy," she says, "when it comes to K-State."
It was early 2000 when things changed for Cheryl — the severe back injury followed by failed operations, and the disintegrated discs that led to the nerve and muscle problems in both legs. The sparkplugs weren't firing, which led to one fall, and then another. Before long, she stopped going anywhere. Titanium holds her back together. That surgery came in 2003. She's had five major surgeries. Doctors try to stop this or that. But the problems moved to her arms and hands. After living in Salina for 30 years where she worked as a computer instructor many of those years, she moved close to her daughters in Hutchinson five years ago. She couldn't trust her legs.
"I'm pretty independent," she says. "I do what I can do. I'm used to it, but it's getting harder and harder."
The trouble has progressed into her neck. She hopes to see a neurosurgeon for the first time in three years. She hopes that medical technology has come far enough that they can stop the progressive problems. But she has the scooter, the purple scooter with white Powercats, which is recognizable along the Hutchinson streets. She's the 55-year-old woman with purple in her heart who won't be stopped.
"The scooter and the purple, it's become a part of me," she says. "There might never be answers, so this could be it. I might as well make it fun."
Cheryl, a native of Lincoln, Kansas, is a lifelong K-State fan. She attended K-State for three years in 1980s. She returned and received her computer information degree at K-State-Salina in 1997. She cries happy tears as a K-State fan. Her apartment neighbors, most of them elderly, know when a K-State team is on TV: Cheryl is cheering on the Wildcats – loudly – in her first-floor apartment.
She figures she came closest to being evicted from her apartment during the 2022 Big 12 Championship Game — "I screamed at the top of my lungs," she says — and that was the most fun she could remember. Until the K-State men's basketball team went to the Elite Eight. She hooted and hollered during the exhilarating wins over Kentucky and Michigan State. She always has a soft spot for basketball.
It was the morning of December 14 that she faced a major decision. Everyone was gone to work. She was all alone. Would she do it? Would she motor the 3.5 miles to AJ's at the Alley? K-State brought the Big 12 Championship Trophy there. Between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., fans could get their picture with the trophy. But there were problems. Big problems. Cheryl never sleeps more than two hours at a time. The pain becomes too great. The night before, she didn't sleep a wink. Temperatures were in the low 30s with 16 mile-per-hour wind gusts. Layered in purple but with fingers exposed that wouldn't thaw for hours, she eventually made it to AJ's at the Alley, and she posed with the trophy.
"I got about a mile on my way back," she says. "I was in tears, but I didn't regret the trip at all."
She hasn't been to a K-State football game in 20 years. Today, she isn't sure if she could do it. There's the transportation logistics and financial challenges. Then there's the pain, which can return at any moment. But the purple heart yearns for a chance to be inside Bill Snyder Family Stadium. Nerves be damned, she'd love to see the Little Apple again. She wonders what it is like these days, the stadium and the city. She sees The Bill on TV and, my, how it's grown. She sees the football field and the Powercat and it unearths decades of memories to a time when she stood in those bleachers, a healthy young woman with her little daughters, watching the players tackle and the cheerleaders cheer upon a patch of green that felt like home. She wonders if that day will ever arrive again.
"I'd literally give anything to be there," she says, "to be there just once."
For now, Cheryl prepares to motor back to her apartment with the signed Elite Eight K-State basketball. She'll navigate the Hutchinson streets on her scooter, a home she's known for a while, which has become a part of her, and for which she's known across the city.
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