The Pressure was too Much for this Kid

In college sports, moments which I call "moments of truth" happen frequently although usually not with this much money on the line.

Kyle Brotzman missed as easy field goal that would have assured his team a place in the Rose Bowl and brought millions of dollars to his college.

A few paragraphs from the NY Times article:

On the last play of regulation in a tie game against Nevada in Reno on Nov. 26, with a chance to keep Boise State’s national championship hopes alive and with a fallback spot in the Rose Bowl virtually assured, Brotzman pushed a 26-yard field goal a smidge to the right. In overtime, still shaken, he pulled a 29-yard attempt left. Nevada won, 34-31.

Benson is a Boise State alumnus. He is sympathetic to what Brotzman must be going through. He is also a pragmatist.

“Eight million dollars would have come to the WAC if he makes the kick,” Benson said. “That’s the reality of it.”
(http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/21/sports/ncaafootball/21boise.html?_r=1&ref=sports)

Here are the financials from the same article for both school and coach:

The Rose Bowl, like other Bowl Championship Series games, touts a per-team payout of $17 million. For teams like Boise State and others in one of the five conferences without an automatic bid, the payout is $12 million, Benson said. Boise State figured to gain $3 million, the other WAC teams would have split $5 million, and the four other second-tier conferences would have split $4 million.

Instead, Texas Christian of the Mountain West Conference is going to the Rose Bowl. Boise State will get part of the $1 million payout in Las Vegas, and the WAC will get a fraction of T.C.U.’s reward.

The missed kick also cost Boise State Coach Chris Petersen a $125,000 performance bonus due if his team reached a B.C.S. game, according to details of his latest contract. (The bonus for reaching a certain level in the N.C.A.A.’s Academic Progress Rate: $20,000.)

The most difficult loss to measure is the intangible of exposure. Last season’s Rose Bowl, between Oregon and Ohio State, had nearly six times the number of viewers as the Las Vegas Bowl between Oregon State and Brigham Young. That could affect things like Boise State’s alumni donations, application numbers and recruiting.

Should that kind of presurre ride on the shoulders of one player? Yes. BIG big time sports are for BIG time players. This was his chance to shine and he failed to make a kick he probably prepared for his whole life.

Here's some of the backlash from the story:

Yet when Brotzman missed the kicks against Nevada, the fallout was immediate and disturbing. Talk-show and bulletin-board chatter was nasty. Fans established ridiculing Facebook pages. (A counter-campaign in support took hold, however, and by the end of last week about 45,000 people had signed on to a Facebook page called “The Bronco Nation Loves Kyle Brotzman.”) A man who gambled heavily on Boise State reportedly made threatening phone calls to the family home.

“There was definitely an immediate backlash: ‘This kid cost us a chance at the national championship,’ ” the Idaho Statesman sports columnist Brian Murphy said. “It helped that Oregon and Auburn kept winning, so it didn’t really lose a spot in the championship game. And then there was the backlash to the backlash.”

At the end of the day, it's just a football game yet this kid will have trouble forgetting this day. I'm glad someone showed Kyle Brotzman some compassion as he will need plenty more.

“I just went up and hugged him and said: ‘You got a great future ahead of you. You’ve got to let that thing go by you,’ ” Hill said. “He was in good spirits. But that’s something that will be with him his whole life. I think he understands that’s part of the game. He’s a great young man. He had a 50-yarder the week before against us in the freezing cold. Right down the middle.”

Gswede