Isaiah Hoffman, a premed student who hopes to find a cure for Alzheimer’s, won the Dr. Pepper Tuition Giveaway in 2017.
How many footballs can you toss into an oversized can of Dr. Pepper in 30 seconds? What if $100,000 is on the line?
For Isaiah Hoffman, a pre-med double major in sociology and biology in the College of Arts and Sciences, the answer is 12.
Hoffman scored the big win at halftime of the ACC Championship Game on Dec. 2, in front of a sold-out crowd at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina. He made it into the competition by blowing past the first step in the process — getting at least 50 votes of support (he got 750) — and submitting a short video about his plans to cure Alzheimer’s disease, which has affected several of his family members. Two months later, while sleeping in on a Saturday morning, he got five calls in a row from a Texas number he didn’t recognize. When he finally answered, it was the CEO of Dr. Pepper on the other end of the line, inviting him to take a shot at the tuition challenge.
When he was a freshman, Hoffman says he nearly had to drop out for financial reasons. Now, he wants to become a surgeon.