Half-Court Basket Nets $10k for FSC Student

Florida Southern College student Mark Bucknam is cool on the tennis court but found himself edgy before making a half-court basketball shot that won him $10,000 during halftime of a men’s basketball game earlier this month.

“I was really nervous; my focus was just trying to not embarrass myself in front of a lot of my peers at the game,” said Bucknam, a 6-foot-3 freshman from Providence, R.I., who plays on the tennis team.

Bucknam said he doesn’t practice the shot particularly often, and knows exactly how he wants to spend his winnings.

“The money is almost certainly going toward my education,” Bucknam said. “I’ll let myself spend a little of it on some things that i’ve been hoping to purchase for a long time, but other than that it will be saved and put towards school.”

No one at FSC has ever made that shot before, said Al Green, the school’s associate athletic director.

FSC carries an insurance policy that pays out the winnings in the basketball promotion, Green said. “The insurance company paid the $10,000; we only paid the insurance premium,” he said.