Editor's Note: On Saturday, Tennessee junior Michelle Snow became just the third women's college basketball player to dunk in a game. The 6-foot-5 center shared her thoughts on the feat with Page 2.

Pat Summitt owes me a dance.

	Michelle Snow slammed a two-handed jam -- then hung on the rim -- in Tennessee's 111-62 rout of Illinois on Saturday.

I earned it Saturday with 10 seconds left in the first half of the Maui Invitational championship game. After a steal, I took the ball to the other end of the court, where I became a part of history with a two-handed dunk.

Coach was supposed to meet me at halfcourt, and together we'd do the "Bankhead," a dance where you sort of bounce your shoulders. I always told her we'd get a technical together. Instead, I forgot all about our bet and went sprinting back on defense, just like Pat would have wanted.

And as for Coach, she sat back down on the bench while my teammates went nuts.

I'm not sure they -- or anybody else -- has settled down since.

I had always hoped that if and when I dunked in a game that it would be a breakthrough of sorts in women's college basketball and women's sports in general, that little girls out there would see me do it and know that they too can accomplish their dreams.

But this is unreal. I knew I always had the support of my family, teammates and our Lady Vol alumni, but I never expected members of the Connecticut men's basketball team to congratulate me on the dunk during our teams' chance meeting in Maui. I never expected hoop fans and players from schools around the country to call and write. And when we returned to campus Tuesday and walked past the Tennessee men's team while they practiced, I definitely didn't expect them to stop in their tracks, turn around and scream and cheer for me.

People in the stands were screaming like crazy Saturday. It all happened so quickly. I remember standing back there on the block. But then I saw her. This girl on the other team, about 10 feet away, was wide open. I knew Coach was going to get mad at me if I didn't deny her the ball.

I don't know how I got there, but I made the steal. The other team just stopped, like they didn't know I had the ball. So I took off, and said to myself, "Line up your feet and go for it." And I did. I looked back one more time just to make sure no one was coming after me and there I was, hanging on the rim.

Up there, I really didn't feel or hear anything. I was kind of in shock. Finally, I let go of the rim and was just like, Wow. Then I just took off because I was concerned about getting back like Coach would want. Later, after a high five during halftime from Pat in the locker room, she told me she was surprised I ran back.

DUNK DATA

Though it was first reported that Michelle Snow was the fourth woman to dunk in a women's college basketball game, sources now say Snow is just the third woman to do it. West Virginia's 6-foot-7 Georgeann Wells was the first player to do so when she dunked twice during the 1984-85 season. North Carolina's Charlotte Smith, 5-11, dunked on Dec. 4, 1994, to become the second woman to dunk in a college game. Five more years passed before it happened again. Snow, a 6-5 junior center, scored on a breakaway dunk with 10 seconds left in the first half of Tennessee's 111-65 rout of Illinois on Saturday in the championship game of the Maui Invitational. North Carolina's Sylvia Crawley also was believed to have dunked in a game, but Crawley told Dana Gelin of UNC's sports information office that Crawley never dunked during a collegiate game. Crawley is well known for dunking a one-handed jam while blindfolded during the 1998 ABL Slam Dunk contest. Several players, including Crawley, former UNC player Marion Jones, former Duke player Michele VanGorp and several others, have successfully dunked in practice or pregame warm-ups.

But I don't think anybody who really knows me was surprised I finally dunked. I've always been fascinated with the dunk ever since I saw someone do it on the playground when I was 8 or 9. And I fooled around on the court, and dunked a couple times in junior high, but the goals weren't regulation.

Dunking wasn't important until after I saw Charlotte Smith do it in a college game in 1994. I had spent the previous summer hanging out with her a little bit at North Carolina's annual summer camp. The next season, she dunked in a game. When I saw her do it, I said, "I can do it, too. I know I can do it." That's when it really got into my heart, and I set the goal.

I remember dunking again, with a volleyball, as a freshman in high school. Some guys at school -- these mean guys I don't even want to remember -- said I'd never be able to really throw it down. But you know what it's like when people tell you you can't do something. You do everything in your power to prove them wrong.

That's exactly what I did.

I don't know how many nights I've spent in the gym with Ron Slay or Vincent Yarbrough, a couple of guys from the Tennessee men's team. But we would just go to the gym and play, work on all sorts of things, including dunking. They taught me so much. They'd tell me, "You're dipping too low, jumping from too far back. Jump under the goal, count your steps."

The most important thing they told me was not to be scared. They'd tell me to try this and try that, and I'd tell them I couldn't. But they'd respond, "You never know."

And they were right. Just look at what happened in practice Thursday.

Once the post players broke away for our individual workout, coach Al Brown had us working on a dunking drill, even though we had never done anything like that in practice before. In the drill, we would dribble in from the wing for a one-handed dunk. I did fine with my right hand, but then Al told me and Ashley Robinson, who's 6-5, to switch over to the left side.

"Are you serious?" I asked him. "My left hand is terrible."

But he told me to try it. So I drove across the lane and slammed it down, slammed it harder with my left hand than with my right -- on my first attempt. I've come a long way since missing six or seven times during Midnight Madness my freshman year. That night, I bricked every time.

I've been able to dunk for quite a while, and did so in pregame warm-ups a lot last season, and Pat has always told me I have the green light. I almost dunked in a game last year, too, against Texas Tech in the Mideast Region final of the NCAA Tournament. I went up with the ball in both hands, but at the last minute, just sort of dropped it through the basket on a fingerroll.

At that point, we were only up by two points, with a chance to go the Final Four, which is what I wanted more than anything. So I just wanted to make sure I scored the basket. Plus, if I'd missed, I could just see Pat calling a timeout and her arms reaching out to my neck. I think she would have been pretty upset if I had tried to dunk there and missed. That wouldn't have been smart basketball.

More than anything, I wanted to show that women, if given the right circumstances and opportunities, can dunk. We're ready to take basketball to the next level, and hopefully, this will open the door for others to come through. There are tons of other young ladies out there who know how to dunk in the college game. They just haven't had the opportunity.

Will I ever dunk again in a game? Definitely, if the opportunity comes. But I do know that seeing the highlight on SportsCenter was awesome.

The best thing, though, was something my mom said to me after Saturday's game was over. I don't even know whose cell phone I used to call her, but the first thing she said to me was, "I'm so proud of my baby."

That made my heart melt. That's the one thing I want to do -- make my mom proud.