While she was growing up, Kara Snitger’s family often ate potato-and-cheese pierogies, along… While she was growing up, Kara Snitger’s family often ate potato-and-cheese pierogies, along with kielbasa, for dinner.

Years later, Snitger is sometimes referred to as the “pierogie scholar,” after she won a $75,000 college scholarship from the same company whose pierogies she ate in her youth.

The Pitt freshman was awarded the scholarship from Mrs. T’s Pierogies after kicking a 30-yard field goal during the half-time show at the Big 33 Classic all-star football game. Chosen as one of nine Big 33 scholarship recipients to get to try for the money, Snitger didn’t expect to end up on the football field that day.

“You don’t get picked for this like this,” she said with a laugh.

Snitger hails from New Cumberland, Pa., just outside of Harrisburg. She entered a scholarship competition with the Big 33 Scholarship Foundation to pay her tuition at Pitt. The second of three children in a middle-class family, she knew she would develop the normal “$80,000 or whatever” college loan debt most students have when they graduate.

She was awarded $1,400 in scholarships from the Big 33 after writing an essay for the competition. One of 400 recipients, she attended a conference and dinner for awardees, where nine recipients were chosen to participate in the field goal competition.

A soccer player, Snitger had an advantage over some of her competitors. But that advantage didn’t discourage her from preparing.

“I practiced a significant amount,” she said. “I didn’t want to not be ready.”

The game fell the day before she and her family planned to leave for vacation at the Outer Banks. The Snitgers drove through the night to Hershey, Pa., where the July game was held at Hersheypark stadium. Before the game, each of the nine potential kickers lined up on the field, with a large number in front of them. Two skydivers jumped onto the field, Snitger said. One carried the game ball, the other determined which of the nine contestants would be the kicker. Depending on which number the jumper landed on, the corresponding contestant would make an attempt at kicking the field goal at halftime.

Snitger said she was shocked when she realized she was going to be in the limelight at halftime.

“That was the longest half of anything I’ve ever had to wait for in my life,” she said with a chuckle. “I was freaking out, basically.”

Snitger said she lined up the kick as she and the kicking coach from Cedar Cliff High School, Andy Bell, had talked about. In her head, she had a way she wanted to do the kick. With no plans to focus on the cheering crowd around her while kicking, she took two practice kicks, pulled her leg back and kicked the field goal.

It didn’t look like she had made it from where she stood, but the reaction of the crowd made her realize the kick was good.

“I remember thinking people wouldn’t care about the kick,’ she said. “I was like, ‘Oh, no one watches.’ Meanwhile, the stadium is screaming and on their feet. I was freaked out. Some people said it was the most exciting thing they’d experienced at a sporting event.”

“I don’t know what I would have done if I didn’t make it. I would have rather not been picked,” she added.

After the game and the media frenzy that followed her kick, she and her family headed to North Carolina for a week at the beach, leaving her grandma at home in New Cumberland to field the media attention.

But when they returned home, Snitger said, there were 45 messages on her family’s answering machine.

Winning the scholarship still hasn’t sunk in for her, and she doesn’t think it will until after she graduates and doesn’t have almost $100,000 in loans to repay.

According to Snitger, the money, totaling $76,400, will be divided among four years, and that it can cover anything from room and board to books. After she completes college, Snitger will receive the remainder of the money, once taxes have been removed.

Though she has not chosen a major, Snitger said she plans to take full advantage of the opportunity she’s been given.

While proud of her accomplishments, she doesn’t brag about the scholarship.

“I don’t like to tell people about it,” she said. “I’m still getting a job; I’m doing nothing different. This gives me more of a reason to go to grad school. My parents told me to look at it as a blessing.”