University of Georgia football fans had a great day when the Bulldogs beat Tennessee on Saturday, but two UGA students won big before the game even began.
Belle Sessions, a member of the class of 2028, won a raffle ticket to participate in Pat McAfee’s Kicking Contest on ESPN’s “College GameDay,” hosted live from Athens ahead of the high-stakes game.
But Sessions said she didn’t think she’d be able to make the kick. So she recruited the student standing next to her, Henry Silver, a soccer player from Fishers, Indiana, to kick for her and split the prize.
He kicked the ball from 33 yards straight into the field goal — a kick that some on social media speculate he would have drilled even if he’d been much farther away.
McAfee, a sports analyst and former Indianapolis Colts player, pays the entirety of the prize himself each week. The prize is typically $150,000, but McAfee increased it to $400,000 for the students to split, plus $400,000 to go toward hurricane relief efforts.
The first 300 people who show up for “College GameDay” can enter a raffle for the weekly contest. Contestants only have one chance to kick the field goal. Before Saturday, fans had won $250,000 this season, according to ESPN.
Silver is a Colts fan, and his Instagram profile photo shows a picture of him with McAfee taken at training camp years ago, McAfee said.
“It’s like the universe and God kind of bringing it all together,” he said on ESPN.
Silver’s former soccer team in Indianapolis, Indy Premier, congratulated him on social media with a childhood soccer photo. Some sports fans on social media are now calling for Silver to be recruited to play college or NFL football because of how great his kick was.
“They might need to put that kid on a team,” McAfee said on ESPN.
About the Author
