As a child, Ty Rogers learned the long-lasting effect of one basketball shot. While attending a Kentucky high school basketball game with his father, Rogers followed frenzied fans into a Rupp Arena hallway and craned his neck just in time to see a television that showed Duke's Christian Laettner make a final shot against the University of Kentucky.
Sixteen years after that memorable shot devastated an entire state, Rogers made one that sent Kentucky into a state of delirium. Rogers's buzzer-beating three-pointer in overtime that lifted Western Kentucky over Drake in the first round of this year's NCAA tournament will be remembered as long as they dribble basketballs in Kentucky.
"It will stay with him," said Western Kentucky assistant Scott Cherry, who played on North Carolina's 1993 national title team. "It is something people will never forget who are fans of Western Kentucky, or basketball fans in the state of Kentucky. It is like a Laettner -- unfortunately people in Kentucky don't want to hear about that -- a shot that will be replayed over and over."
Thursday night's West Region semifinal between No. 12 seed Western Kentucky and No. 1 UCLA features a number of standouts, including UCLA's Kevin Love and Western Kentucky's Courtney Lee, who could be a first-round NBA draft pick. But the name of Ty Rogers, a senior who hopes to land a sales job in Bowling Green, Ky., could outlive all of them in college basketball lore.
"I never thought it would be me that it would happen to," Rogers said. "I never dreamed this would happen."
Rogers, who would prefer to talk about team accolades, makes for an unlikely hero. He grew up in Eddyville, Ky., a town of about 2,500 that is known as the home of the Kentucky State Penitentiary. He honed his jump shot in his back yard, often counting backward to one to simulate buzzer-beaters. If he wanted to shoot three-pointers, he had to venture on to the grass.
Rogers was valedictorian of a class of 62 students at Lyon County High. His mark of 407 career three-pointers remains a state record. But among large schools, only Vanderbilt and Mississippi showed interest. After two seasons at Western Kentucky, he asked to take an academic scholarship to free up a basketball scholarship for another player. At the beginning of this season, he did not even start.
"I'm convinced in the big picture of things," Western Kentucky Coach Darrin Horn said, "one of the big reasons he was the guy that made that shot is that nobody deserved to be trumpeted and showcased more than Ty Rogers. It was really fitting that he made it."
Before the game, Rogers had such a strong premonition Western Kentucky would win with a buzzer-beater, he told teammate Matt Maresca as much.
"I said, 'Are you just messing with me or are you serious?' " Maresca said. "He said he felt pretty strongly about it."
With 5.7 seconds remaining in overtime against Drake, Horn gave instructions to the Hilltoppers, who trailed by one point. Rogers simply pointed at Maresca, saying: "I told you. I told you."
"Of course we hadn't even drawn a play up yet," Maresca said. "And we hadn't even gotten the ball in, and we didn't even know we were going to get a shot. But he was pointing at me, telling me. I thought he should have been paying attention more to that [play] rather than telling me."
But Rogers had no inkling that he would be the one to take the shot. As point guard Tyrone Brazelton raced the ball up court, Rogers let Brazelton know that he was behind the three-point arc if Brazelton needed to pass. Once Rogers caught the pass, some 30 feet from the basket, the 6-foot-3 guard released a shot without thinking because only 1.2 seconds remained.
"I knew it was good as soon as I released it," Rogers said.
After the shot, Rogers has remained the same guy from Eddyville, even as life around him has forever changed. When Rogers got back to the hotel after the game, he had 172 text messages on his cellphone. One stood out, grouping four buzzer-beating players together: "Tyus Edney, Bryce Drew, Christian Laettner, Ty Rogers."
A billboard outside a Chick-fil-A in Bowling Green, where the university is located, salutes Rogers as the fast-food restaurant's employee of the month. Rogers does not work at the restaurant.
At Rogers's high school, each class was allowed to watch the overtime session live. When Rogers made the shot, elated students ran through the hallways.
At Western Kentucky, some 30 students in Rogers's quantitative methods class watched the game live on their computers. When Rogers rejoined the class Monday, the shot was the only thing anyone, including the professor, wanted to talk about.
He laughed off questions Wednesday about whether a street will be named after him. Rogers knows the impact of his feat has not sunk in, but he understands it will be the first thing people associate with his name for years, probably decades.
Unlike the shot Rogers watched Laettner make as a child 16 years ago, residents throughout the state won't want to forget the image of Rogers rising for a deep three-pointer. As Cherry said, "He might be able to be the governor."
