HAWTHORN
WOODS, Ill. — A sixth-grade boy from suburban Chicago completed a
near-perfect bracket predicting the NCAA men's basketball tournament,
finishing in a tie for first in ESPN's massive annual contest.
Sam
Holtz said ESPN officials told him Tuesday that is he ineligible to
claim the top prize — a $20,000 gift card — because he's 12 years old.
ESPN requires participants to be at least 18 and he was told he will get
a goody bag from the cable network instead.
"I'm irritated," Holtz told the Daily Herald (http://bit.ly/1O4FDtw ). "Yes, I'm still proud of my accomplishment, but I'm not happy with the decision."
The
tournament includes 67 games and Holtz missed only six. He was perfect
picking games played in the Sweet 16, Elite Eight and Final Four. Out of
11.5 million who entered a bracket on ESPN's website, Sam finished tied
for first with 1,830 points after Duke beat Wisconsin 68-63 in Monday's
championship game. He entered 10 brackets in the contest.
"There is no secret," said Holtz, who attends Lake Zurich Middle School North. "There was some luck, and I studied ESPN.com. I just picked the teams that I felt had the best players."
His mother, Elizabeth, kept him home from school Tuesday.
"He
wanted to go to school today, but I kept him home because ESPN said
they planned to call this morning," she said. "He wants to go this
afternoon, but I told him if Jimmy Kimmel calls, he's going to have to
miss that too."
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