‘Gotta do something crazy’: App State student seizes his moment on ESPN’s ‘GameDay’
Zackary Carr said one thought flashed through his mind when someone from ESPN’s “College GameDay” plucked him from the crowd of delirious Appalachian State University students holding cheer signs.
“’I gotta do something crazy,’” the 18-year-old freshman from Gastonia recalled in a phone interview with The Charlotte Observer on Tuesday, days after his totally unexpected moment in the national spotlight.
And wild he went before the cameras, rousing the crowd with his split-second decision to perform two popular dance moves, the worm and the griddy.
Carr and two other students had just been escorted to the stage as finalists for a free year of tuition for best poster among the 2,000 or so placard wavers on Sanford Mall on the Boone campus.
“GameDay” broadcast from the mall for the Mountaineers’ game against Troy on Saturday, Sept. 17. App State drew ESPN’s attention after its 17-14 upset of then-No. 6 Texas A&M the previous weekend in College Station.
Sign cleverly poked at Texas A&M
Carr said he didn’t think he stood a chance when the school announced the contest, but why not give it a try, he thought.
He came up with words for his sign that played off his school’s startling victory over Goliath-opponent Texas A&M. The Aggies paid App State $1.5 million to play in College Station, the unspoken assumption being that A&M would win by a mountain-slide.
“The only ATM that lets you withdraw $1.5 million,” Carr’s sign read. A large image of the Mountaineer mascot hovered above the words, along with the Texas A&M and App State logos.
“We not only beat them, we walked away with $1.5 million,” Carr’s dad, Chris Carr, told the Observer.
Zack’s family assisted with the sign, and a family friend who owns a printing company produced it on a hard plastic.
‘A big carnival’
Carr and his brother, Carson, an App State junior, camped out on the mall starting the night before, with throngs of other students.
“It was like a big carnival,” their mother, Dawn Carr, said.
She and her husband, both App State alumni, have season tickets to the games and had a tailgate spot on Saturday morning roughly 200 yards from the mall, she said.
At 10 a.m., Zack Carr texted his parents. He’d made the top 3, he said.
“Me and Chris were freaking out and began running over toward the ‘GameDay’ stage,” she said.
But they encountered a wall of people, she said. Some thought she was trying to cut the line just to get closer to the stage and cameras, until Dawn said she began yelling that her son was “up there.” Suddenly the crowd parted for them, she said.
Flop onto the stage
Zack Carr said he thought of doing something insane right before he was escorted onto the stage, when the escort mentioned that 2.5 million viewers were watching the broadcast.
He and the two other finalists wore black and gold suspenders, App State’s colors.
When he was announced the winner, Carr ran a few steps, flopped on his belly and did the decades-old break-dancing move, the worm. He quickly rose, approached the front of the stage and did another move, the griddy, rousing the cheering crowd as he swung his arms back and forth.
Zack said he was just as happy for the other two finalists after the “College GameDay” announcer said the university was awarding them a year of free tuition, too.
The video shows him raising his right arm at the news and then hugging the others.
Days later, he was still in a bit of shock, he said.
“I still can’t believe I was even picked from the crowd,” he said.
Now when he walks on campus, everyone seems to know who he is, he said.
“Some people come up to me and say, ’Hey, tuition kid,’” he said.
“I’m not complaining,” he said of the sudden attention.
‘Miracle’ baby
His mom said the family considers Zack a miracle.
When Zack was 17 weeks in her womb, she said, she faced surgery for colon cancer and doctors said, point blank, that he wouldn’t survive.
Dawn Carr was given that news four hours before her surgery, she said. She refused to have an abortion, she said, and told the medical team that she was getting up and leaving for home.
She stayed after surgeons said they would take the risky step of removing her uterus with the womb inside and have an operating room worker hold it throughout her surgery, she said.
Zack did just fine, she said.
Several months after her surgery, she delivered Zack at a healthy 7 pounds, 13 ounces, the Christian Broadcasting Network reported in a feature about the birth when Zack was 2 1/2 years old.
“He’s not afraid of anything … strong, rambunctious, outgoing,” Chris Carr told CBN at the time.
“A lot of people say they’re born again, but Zackary can actually prove it – he really was,” his mom told the network.
And Zack continues to amaze, his parents told the Observer this week.
“Our miracle on the mountain is excelling for sure,” Dawn Carr said.
This story was originally published September 23, 2022 at 5:45 AM.