We over here on #TeamTorrey are still trying to figure out how Carolina Panthers tight end Greg Olsen managed to rack up more than half a million Twitter mentions in a 24-hour span. Olsen won The Walter Payton Man of the Year Challenge with more than 1.2 million uses of #OlsenWPMOYChallenge on social media and took home the $25,000 prize for his charity, Receptions for Research. The tight end trailed Torrey Smith going into the final day of the competition before mounting a furious comeback.
But Smith deserves commendation as well. The Niners wideout flooded your timelines with #TSmithWPMOYChallenge for a month and racked up more than 600,000 mentions to place second. For that, the Torrey Smith Family Fund has been awarded $10,000.
In addition to that money, Smith has offered to donate a dollar of his own money for each retweet of the tweet below up to $25,000. The friendly Twitter bout also resulted in both players donating to the other's charity.
The main event is yet to come. Both finalists for their respective teams will find out if they've won the 2016 Walter Payton Man of the Year Award at the NFL Honors ceremony the day before Super Bowl LI on Feb. 4. Should Smith take home the prize, he'll be the second straight Niner to claim the award after Anquan Boldin won it in 2015.
Congratulations to Smith and his family on a job well done in their continued efforts to make our community a better place.
We will donate a dollar for every RT of this post up to 25k to the @TSFamilyFund thanks for the inspiration @gregolsen88 ...it's been fun! — Torrey Smith (@TorreySmithWR) January 9, 2017
This man @gregolsen88 donated to @TSFamilyFund ..... Great guy pic.twitter.com/17RaEO7tLv — Torrey Smith (@TorreySmithWR) January 10, 2017
