Oregon State’s football team handed Notre Dame its seventh straight bowl loss last night in the Insight.com Bowl in Phoenix. However, for my money, the real story from that game is Oregon State’s kicker, a 19 year old freshman named Alexis Serna, who walked on the Oregon State football team before this season without a scholarship.
Four months ago, after having attended just a few classes at Oregon State, Mr. Serna was the goat of college football after blowing three extra points in a one-point loss to then number one ranked LSU. As SI.com columnist John Walters writes in this wonderful article on Mr. Serna:

So imagine waking up as Alexis Serna in Corvallis, Ore., on the morning of Sept. 5. You don’t have a scholarship. You’ve only dressed for one game in your college career and the entire country — yourself included — is blaming you for Oregon State’s loss the night before. And someone at ESPN refers to any missed PAT as “pulling an Alexis Serna.” You are 19 years old.

Remarkably, Mr. Serna overcame the humiliation of his first college football game to nail 40 of his next 41 kicks — including 16 of 17 field goal attempts — to make the second team All Pac-10 team. Late last month, Mr. Serna’s coach rewarded him by giving him an athletic scholarship. From my vantage point, Mr. Serna ought to be awarded Sportsman of the Year.