LOGAN, Utah — A Utah State cheerleader learned how quickly March Madness can turn to March sadness, she just didn't think she'd go viral over it.
As time ran down Thursday on the Aggies first-round NCAA tournament loss to Missouri, television cameras panned to Ashlyn Whimpey with tears in her eyes.
And then they did it again!
Soon, Whimpey became an international sensation as the crying cheerleader.
"It's kind of like turning into this big thing," said Whimpey in the understatement of the year on Friday.
Full video below shows Whimpey crying on the court:
The Utah State junior was obviously upset about her team's loss, but the clock was clicking down on something more personal in her final year as a cheerleader.
"It kind of all just hit me at once that I was really, this is my last time to be able to even be doing this," Whimpey, who is currently applying to nursing programs, said.
Ashlyn has no issues admitting that she's a crier, but claims she had gotten better over the months.
"I had good reason to be crying, there were a lot of emotions!"
While the world empathized with Whimpey within seconds of her weeping on television... twice... she was completely and blissfully unaware of her new-found fame.
"As soon as I walked off the court and went back to our locker room, I looked at my phone and my mom had texted a picture of me on TV," she shared. "And I literally, my first thing I responded, I said the TV people hate me!"
Even though she felt the television crew hated her, the internet offered its full support.
Well... kind of.
"My Instagram started getting a bunch of follow requests and I was like, what is going on because I didn't even realize that I had been posted on Bleacher Report," Whimpey shared, "and and then I started getting all these messages and getting tagged in a bunch of stuff, and like within seconds, someone had tagged my Instagram in the post and I was, it's really just crazy,
"Luckily, a lot of the comments and stuff were nice because I don't want to get my feelings hurt over it. There are definitely some mean ones but it's nothing, none of them I can't take right on."
Ashlyn says the attention over the last 24 hours has been overwhelming and completely out of the blue, which is what March Madness is really all about.
"I never ever thought that this would happen!" she says now. "It's crazy!"
