On Monday, Olathe resident Colby Rainey woke up to a surge of unexpected attention.
A video of Rainey, a lifelong Chiefs fan, jokingly positioning a fan to force the Buffalo Bills’s kicker to miss a potentially game-tying field goal in Sunday’s AFC Divisional round playoff game blew up on social media in the hours after the Chiefs’ 27-24 victory.
After more than 24 hours of his antics making the rounds on social media, Rainey is even a bit blown away himself.
Got em with the ole fan trick! @ClayWendler pic.twitter.com/aLuriTQMUr
— Colby Rainey (@colbyrainey) January 22, 2024
The story behind the “fan trick”
- Rainey said the fan had been moved to the basement of his family’s home recently, and he noticed it sitting nearby late in Sunday’s game.
- At the point Bills kicker Tyler Bass was gearing up for his kick with less than two minutes to play, Rainey placed the fan on the left side of his big-screen television.
- “I was just thinking, ‘They’ve got to be catching a break soon,’” he said. “And I saw the fan sitting there. I said, ‘Watch this,’ and then I just kind of mindlessly sprung into action, not knowing what was about to happen.”
- Bass’s kick, of course, went wide right, veering off in the very direction Rainey’s fan was blowing, and in the video, Rainey and his family celebrate accordingly.
Rainey did not expect such a large response
- When Rainey posted the video to X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday night, he said he initially just expected friends and family to see it.
- What followed was a surge of people asking Rainey to make the video public so they could share it, and the notifications steadily continued through Monday.
- “It’s just been an onslaught of different people interacting with it in different ways,” he said.
The Chiefs took a victory on Sunday
- The Chiefs won 27-24, sending them to their sixth consecutive AFC Championship this Sunday.
- The victory felt incredible, Rainey said, but his trick going viral will also set this game apart in his and his family’s memories.
- That basement in the video is where Rainey and his family — also seen in the video — spend every Sunday, making a tradition out of rooting for the Chiefs.
- “This one will just be personally so much more memorable for us because of the aftermath of seeing this video online,” he said. “It’s been a lot of fun.”
