The teacher hit the basketball all over the field and won the superhero title from her students
Kathleen Fitzpatrick, aka Miss Fitz, decided to make a deal with her high school class at Holy Trinity School in Georgetown, a few blocks from the Potomac River.
The deal was that if she did an all-around hit on the school basketball court, she’d reward the class with a hot chocolate party.
And Mrs. Fitz is nothing but a net.
The video shows the students and Ms. Fitz jumping for joy after she made the scene.
Fitzpatrick told CNN she often plays basketball with the kids at recess. “They were always impressed by the smallest pictures, so I joked and started this deal,” she said.
The video quickly started going viral during the Christmas week.
“The kids would come to class in the morning and say ‘Miss Fitz, this is going viral!'” Fitzpatrick said. “But kids can exaggerate, and I only have one Instagram, so I really don’t know.”
Fitzpatrick says she has now received responses from people around the world including Germany, Spain and the UK.
Basketball run in the family
Fitzpatrick’s skills come as no surprise, because she’s played basketball all her life. Her cousin and brother also played.
She is the basketball coach for the fifth grade boys at Holy Trinity. She trains alongside her mother, Ellen, who shot the video.
“I grew up around it and loved it since really I can remember.” Fitzpatrick said.
Fitzpatrick is a former member of the women’s basketball team at St. Joseph in Philadelphia and Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
She moved to Rutgers in 2016 and played for Hall of Fame coach Vivian Stringer.
“Playing at Rutgers for a state college and for a Hall of Fame coach is bogus,” Fitzpatrick told CNN. “I learned a lot on and off the court.”
Fitzpatrick said she had such a great experience with Stringer that she decided to stay an extra year and coach Stringer as a graduate assistant. “I learned a lot from one of the best people to do it.”
The Rutgers women’s basketball team responded on Twitter to the viral video, suggesting they haven’t forgotten their former star.
“The surreal part is the whole point of the video is to have fun with my students.” Fitzpatrick added.
The students won’t be back from vacation until next week, but Fitzpatrick says she can only imagine they’ll have some more betting ideas waiting.