Student Wins $10,000 for Tuition at College Bowl Game

Rickie Reilly '16 won $10,000 at the New Mexico Bowl game last weekend. Photo by Nick Frogameni '12, '14.

The scoreboard said Arizona beat Nevada 49-48 in the Gildan New Mexico Bowl, but Rickie Reilly ’16 was perhaps the game’s biggest winner. That high score led him to walk away with a $10,000 scholarship.

As a contestant in the Gildan “Touchdowns for Tuition Sweepstakes,” Reilly was eligible to win $1,000 for every touchdown scored during last Saturday’s game, up to $10,000. Reilly, a computer science major, said he had a feeling he could win the grand prize because the two teams had high-scoring offenses and relatively poor defenses, but that didn’t make the game any less exciting.

“We were going crazy during the game,” said Reilly of his family. “It was wild.”

Reilly, his mother, father, two brothers and aunt watched the beginning of the game from the field before going up to a sky box. Reilly then went back down to the field for halftime, when he was announced as the sweepstakes winner.

The all-expenses-paid trip to Albuquerque also included a banquet with the football players, a special dinner for fans and sightseeing around the city.