The joke is definitely not on him.
A young Florida student whose homemade shirt for his school’s “college colors day” went viral after it was revealed he had been bullied for it has been offered a free ride by the very university he chose to honor — nearly a decade before he’s old enough to enroll.
The University of Tennessee announced Thursday it would admit the fourth-grader and award him a four-year scholarship to cover his tuition and fees beginning in fall 2028 if he decides to attend the school and meets admission requirements.
The university, whose athletic teams are known as the Volunteers, said in a statement that it has spoken several times to the boy’s mother, “who has expressed gratitude to the university and said the family has been deeply touched by the overwhelming outpouring from people around the world.”
The child, whose name has not been released to protect his privacy, made headlines last week after his teacher described a heartbreaking bullying incident involving the boy a few days earlier. The woman, Laura Snyder, wrote in a viral Facebook post that he wanted to wear a UT shirt for “college colors day” but didn’t have one.
“So when the day finally arrived, he was SO EXCITED to show me his shirt,” she wrote, adding a picture of the boy wearing an orange shirt with a piece of paper pinned to it featuring the handwritten letters “U.T.”
But the student later went to her room, put his head on a desk and began crying.
“Some girls at the lunch table next to his (who didn’t even participate in college colors day) had made fun of his sign that he had attached to his shirt. He was DEVASTATED,” Snyder said.
The university soon learned about the post, which has been shared more than 11,000 times, and decided to surprise the boy with a box of official UT merchandise and the release of a new university design inspired by his drawing.
The shirt was a major success, crashing the store’s website and resulting in more than 50,000 preorders as of Thursday. Proceeds from the sales will go to the anti-bullying foundation Stomp Out Bullying.
Snyder did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday afternoon.
