Social Media Impact of A Kent State Player's Late-Minute Foul

Making an error in a big game has happened plenty of times in sports history. Remember when Michigan’s Chris Webber called a timeout in the National Championship game when the Wolverines didn’t have a timeout. It happened nearly 31 years ago, but is still a stain on his college career and a play that lives forever in infamy.

Former Bleacher Report’s David Daniels even wrote an article on the “100 Biggest Blunders in Sports History” in 2011. While the article is dated and can certainly be updated, sports is known to have mental mistakes, wrong play calls and errors that will be remembered by those fanbases in not a good way.

While today’s newsletter is about a play that wouldn’t make that list, it still had a major reaction on social media. On Sunday March 17, Kent State’s Julius Rollins made a mistake at the worst possible time.

Rollins fouled Akron’s Greg Tribble with six seconds left and his team leading 61-60. Rollins’ foul came after Cli’Ron Hornbeak hit a go-ahead jumper in the lane to give the Golden Flashes the lead.

Rollins thought his team was still trailing after Hornbreak’s jumper. As the rest of his teammates got back on defense, he sprinted up to commit a foul thinking his team needed another possession.

Here’s the play:

Akron’s Tribble ended up making both free throws to give Akron a 62-61 lead. Kent State’s Jalen Sullinger tried to hit a game-winning attempt before the buzzer, but the shot didn’t go in and Akron won the MAC Championship and an NCAA Tournament berth.

You can clearly see the disappointment on Rollins’ face as he sat on the bench after the late-game foul.

You gotta feel bad for the young man. Mistakes happen in sports games, just like they do in life. But this one was costly for his team and when the video was posted on social media, people had a mixed reaction to the error, both feeling bad for Rollins and people trolling him too.

Here is Rollins last Instagram post:

Here are the latest comments on the post which are positive and reassuring to him:

But the backlash and negative comments happened too…

Instagram wasn’t the only place where the trolls came out. Twitter or X had similar reactions from the sports community.

A tweet like “He should walk into traffic” should NEVER be acceptable on social media let alone saying it to anyone in real life. Would this troll say this to Rollins’ face? Definitely not. That person just felt like they have an outlet on social media and this behavior is funny to them. Well, it’s not acceptable, nor will it ever be.

What can be learned from this?

First, I hope people get off of their “troll high horses” and realize this is a 20-year old college student. He made a mistake and he has to live with it. That’s already punishment enough.

Second, social media can be a breeding ground for negativity as we saw with last week’s newsletter on MLB’s uniform issues. We as people should care about what people think about our comments and not let trolling run wild in our society especially sports social media.

Finally, I’m sure Rollins is already beating himself about this error. The good news like my parents said to me growing up, “It’s not the end of the world.” Mistakes happen, especially at inopportune times, but time heals all wounds. I hope Rollins has a support system of people who care about him to lift him up when things like this happen.

As I read a quote on the internet, which remains true to Rollins in this instance, “Mistakes do happen and life goes on.”