College student wins $100k after beating NBA’s Damian Lillard in 3-point contest
A college student has just become $100,000 richer after defeating an NBA star Damian Lillard in a three-point shooting contest.
During the NBA All-Star game on Sunday, Jaren Barajas, an 18-year-old business major at Los Medanos College participated in the YouTuber’s MrBeast’s $100,000 Challenge where he competed against the Milwaukee Bucks’ Lillard to see if he could make one three-point shot before Lillard could make three within a three-minute time frame.
Although Lillard was able to make two baskets, Barajas made a successful shot himself at the last second to earn the prize.
“This is going to mean the world to me, it’s going to help my family a lot and definitely my future,” Barajas said after winning, according to The Associated Press. “Hopefully, it’ll help me pay for my education — which it will.”
Barajas also recalled advice from his father, who was in attendance at the game. “It was coming down to the wire, we had 30 seconds left and my dad always tells me use the backboard,” he recalled. “That’s what I had to do to make it go in.”
Lillard told the AP that he was happy to witness the college student’s win. “I went out there and I made the first two and I’m not going to say I lost on purpose, but I didn’t,” he told the publication.
“I was trying to make the shot. I was trying to get a quality make. I was just happy to see his real excitement. That’s life-changing for somebody.”
The NBA said it would donate $50,000 to Oakland native Lillard’s newly established scholarship fund benefitting nine high schools in the East Bay as well as $50,000 to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Oakland and San Francisco.
This isn’t the first time MrBeast has enlisted a professional athlete to take on an amateur. Back in December, he facilitated a match between retired NFL quarterback Tom Brady and high school quarterback Jake Balanovich.
Brady and Balanovich were tasked with popping four balloons each with a football. The balloons were increasingly placed farther away, with the farthest balloon requiring a 50-yard throw to pop. To make the match more fair, Brady’s balloons were smaller than Balanovich’s.
MrBeast brought the teenager’s classmates onto the field to cheer him on throughout the contest. Brady even admitted he was impressed, fist-bumping Balanovich after he successfully popped his balloons.
Although the two were neck-and-neck throughout most of the contest, the high school student ended up popping all of his balloons first and took home the $100,000 prize.
