Terry Oder says he’s willing to give the Patriots their football back.

Fan Says He’ll Give Up Game-Winning Football In Exchange For Donations To Scholarship Fund

January 25, 2012|By AMANDA FALCONE, afalcone@courant.com, The Hartford Courant

Terry Oder says he’s willing to give the Patriots their football back.

If, he said Wednesday, Patriots fans can help him raise $50,000 for a scholarship fund before the Super Bowl on Feb. 5.

And if the football team wants to make a contribution, he said he’d accept.

"I’m not asking for any money from the Patriots," Oder said Wednesday, "but if they offered, I would take it."

Oder was in the stands for the AFC Championship Game Sunday when Baltimore Ravens kicker Billy Cundiff’s field goal attempt went wide left, sending the Pats to the Super Bowl. Oder, watching the game with some of his childhood friends, grabbed the errant ball.

It was a heart-warming end to a bittersweet story. Oder, a physician with a Hartford medical group, said he brought his buddies to the game for some fun after weeks of sadness associated with the death of one of their friends, who had died unexpectedly from a heart infection. The scholarship fund is for his friend Aran Patrican’s 1-year-old son.

Click here for the rest of the story

Thanks Ed Sawicki  for forwarding the story