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That Teacher's A Baller: Rutgers Grad Sinks Playground Shot In Viral Video

Kathleen Fitzpatrick was playing basketball with her third graders one Friday afternoon at recess as she usually does, when she made the shot that nearly broke the sports-side of TikTok:

Kathleen Fitzpatrick

Kathleen Fitzpatrick

Photo Credit: Holy Trinity School/Rutgers University Women's Basketball

"If I make this shot, we'll have hot chocolate as a class on Monday," Fitzpatrick told the students, she said in an interview with ESPN.

Dressed in jeans and a white blouse, "Miss Fitz" dribbles toward the hoop before launching the ball -- her students watching in anticipation. It goes in. The crowd goes wild.

Make no mistake, it's not "Miss Fitz's" first time handling a basketball: The Washington DC-area third grade teacher who is going viral for her schoolyard shot played for Rutgers University.

"We knew that follow-through looked familiar..." the Rutgers University women's basketball team said in a tweet.

The playground shot was posted by ESPNW on TikTok, where it had more than 5.9 million views as of Dec. 23.

The initial video was posted by the Holy Trinity School in the Georgetown neighborhood of DC.

"It was the assist from the reindeer that had me make my shot," Fitzpatrick joked on ESPN.

One of Fitzpatrick's most memorable shots came in 2018 while playing for Rutgers, when she sunk a 3-point buzzer beater shot during a game against University of Maryland.

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