“Oh, it’s awesome, I’m glad to be part of history, so you can’t take (it) away. I mean I’m trying to figure out what’s bigger than a walk-off in the Super Bowl, but I don’t know yet.”

That quote comes to you courtesy of Mecole Hardman, the Chiefs receiver who caught the game-winning touchdown in overtime to defeat the 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII last Sunday.

We’ve all been where Hardman was on Sunday. Oh, maybe not at the Super Bowl, but we pretended we were when we were playing with our friends in our backyard or at some field somewhere in the neighborhood. Every little kid who happens to be a sports fan also fantasizes about being a professional athlete when they grow up. I wanted to be a running back, but my 6.1 time in the 40 never got me any looks from scouts. Thankfully, nobody could ever catch me in my sports fantasies, and I did score many Super Bowl-winning touchdowns when I was a kid. I also hit countless World Series-winning home runs (in Game 7, of course). I made so many winning threes in Game 7 of the NBA Finals, that I stopped counting around the age of 15.

Yes, all kids get to dream about doing something awesome on a grand sports stage when they grow up, but most don’t have the actual skills necessary to even get invited to any particular sports training camp. Hardman’s skill level allowed him to play college football at Georgia–most kids don’t even have the talent to be recruited by Georgia State Tech–and to be drafted in the second round by the Chiefs in 2019.

Hardman caught 151 passes and won two Super Bowls in four seasons with Kansas City before signing with the Jets as a free agent last offseason. Hardman only caught one pass with New York before being traded back to the Chiefs during the 2023 campaign. All in all, Hardman only caught 15 passes for 124 yards and no touchdowns during the regular season. His postseason wasn’t much better, as he caught just five passes for 62 yards.

But Hardman will always have that one catch–a three-yard touchdown pass from Patrick Mahomes to win the Super Bowl in overtime.

Remember how composed you felt when you fantasized about doing your championship-winning thing as a child? It might not have been the same way if you got to do it for real.

“I kinda don’t remember it in a sense, I kind of blacked out, for real,” Hardman said days later in a quote courtesy of NFL.com. “Like I knew I caught the ball, man, and we won the game, but after that it was kind of blank. The magnitude of the game was kind of just overwhelming, but after that it was just nothing but celebration out there.”

It was the most watched Super Bowl in history, as over 200 million people saw at least part of it on multiple platforms. Obviously, Mahomes was center stage, as was Travis Kelce and his girlfriend, Taylor Swift. Andy Reid was the winning head coach. The 49ers had their share of star power–including Brock Purdy and Christian McCaffrey.

Yet, it was Hardman who got to be the hero in the end.

Hardman actually joins an exclusive club. How many Super Bowls have gone into overtime? Just II out of LVIII. How many players have scored walk-off touchdowns? Just II. Running back James White was the first one when he plowed his way into the end zone for a two-yard score in overtime, as the Patriots defeated the Falcons in Super Bowl LI. When you think of that Super Bowl, you think of 28-3. You think of Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, Matt Ryan, and Julio Jones. You’ve probably watched Julian Edelman’s insane catch on YouTube countless times. 

But do you remember who scored the walk-off touchdown in overtime? I know I had to look it up.

Pretty wild that White isn’t a household name. I guess that’s because he had a pretty nondescript career with the Patriots, one that included just 1,278 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns in eight seasons.

It was also just one of six Super Bowls the Patriots won between 2001-2018. I guess it’s easy to be forgotten in that regard. However, White was sort of like the Neil Armstrong of football players. He was the first man to walk into the end zone in overtime to win a Super Bowl.

Actually, if we’re being technical, one might say Colts running back Alan Ameche was Neil Armstrong. He scored a one-yard touchdown in overtime to defeat the Giants in the NFL Championship Game played at Yankee Stadium in 1958.

Of all the kids who grew up fantasizing about scoring the game-winning touchdown in overtime of an NFL Championship Game or Super Bowl, only three–Alan Ameche, James White and Mecole Hardman–got to do it for real.

That’s quite the exclusive fraternity.

And Hardman became the first NFL player to score a Super Bowl-winning touchdown with his team trailing in overtime.

He now has his own little club.

Who knows where Mecole Hardman’s career will go from here, but at least he got to play out a childhood fantasy that millions of kids can only dream about.