A high school teacher from Pennsylvania is roughly 24 hours away from winning a Ferrari at Fanatics Fest.
Red Lion High School teacher Matt Dennish, 39, stands at 6’6″ and is currently the top-ranked fan at the Fanatics Games, a sports and skills competition at Fanatics Fest in New York where fans are going up against superstar athletes for the $2 million grand prize.
Of course, Tom Brady currently holds the lead, but Dennish is right behind him in the standings – the second-place prize is a Ferrari 812 GTS, with the third-place finisher taking home a LeBron James 2003-04 Topps Chrome Gold Refractor Trading Card, estimated at a $250,000 value.
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Fanatics Fest selected 50 lucky fans who submitted a video showcasing their skills, and it’s no surprise to see why Dennish, a Philadelphia sports fanatic, got selected after his submission.
“Michael Rubin pops up, and Fanatics does a tremendous job of promoting. So, I saw this, I do a lot of stupid things when it comes to sports,” Dennish said to Fox Business. So I was like, ‘why not give this a try?’ So I made a video, and I try to challenge my students, so I put in the video a teacher vs. student game where I dunked over a student. Kid tried to take a charge, so I went over on top of him.”
Dennish is a former Division I track runner at East Carolina. He has the second-fastest time in school history in the 800-meters at 1:49.93. He also starred for Red Lion’s football and basketball teams when he attended, and he is now a 2-handicap in golf.
In his video, he included some of those highlights, as well as him making a half-court shot at a 76ers game. So, it’s no surprise that he is dominating the competition.
Challenges included quarterback skills, pitching accuracy, closest-to-the-pin, a UFC striking challenge, and, perhaps regrettably for Dennish, a WWE walkout.
The teacher admitted that he is sure to be a “meme” at school next year after his WWE walkout video already went viral.
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“I was definitely hoping that the WWE walkout video would not get out. But then I saw Fanatics Fest posted it. I was like . . . uh-oh,” he said.
Dennish said he “left some points out there with football,” but the die-hard Eagles fan is at least ahead of Eli Manning.
“That feels good,” he said proudly.
“The one I was most happy about was baseball. I could not repeat what I did. I crushed that one, putting it down the middle, and it went in the right spots. The WWE walkout, I’m proud of myself for not being a wrestling fan. It was a lot of research and a lot of talking to fans to see what that entails.”
Other stars who competed in the competition on Friday (that Dennish wiped out) include Dwight Howard, Rob Gronkowski, Russell Wilson, CJ Stroud and Julian Edelman.
But Dennish has to hold onto some hope Cam Newton, Dez Bryant, Joe Burrow, Odell Beckham Jr., Travis Hunter, and plenty of others have not begun their rounds yet.
If no fan finishes in the top-three, the highest-scoring fan will still receive $100,000, so Dennish is in good shape no matter what.
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