Amanda Badertscher
Basketballs ricochet off walls, soccer balls soar across gyms, and somehow, they always find the net. With gravity-defying trickshots and larger-than-life energy, University of West Georgia alumna Amanda Badertscher ’12 has racked up millions of views on social media – jaw-dropping moves so impressive, they even landed her a spot on America’s Got Talent (AGT).
The teacher’s rise to fame started during the pandemic. With sports on hold and classrooms shifting online, Badertscher began filming playful trickshots as a way to keep her students engaged and herself entertained. These lighthearted challenges quickly became a social media sensation, with each video pushing the limits of creativity and drawing a bigger audience.
“During quarantine, I downloaded TikTok to get me through being myself,” recalled Badertscher, who teaches physical education at P.B. Ritch Middle School in Dallas, Georgia, and would do sporty stunts with colleagues to entertain the kids. “I saw these amazing trickshots on accounts that had hundreds of thousands of followers. The more I scrolled, the more I noticed it was only men. I thought, ‘Hang on a second. I can do this.’”
Badertscher posted her first video in January 2021, admittedly to not a lot of fanfare, but she kept posting because it was fun. Then she had her first viral video – a million views that got her up to 10,000 followers overnight.
“The Trickshot Queen,” Badertscher’s moniker and social media handle, currently has 1.4 million followers on TikTok, 363,000 on Instagram, and 135,000 on Facebook. One of those was a scout for America’s Got Talent, an NBCcompetition TV series that featured Badertscher in its 20th season premiere. But it was an opportunity that almost didn’t happen.
“Trickshots are wildly unpredictable, so when she first reached out, I kindly declined,” Badertscher confessed. “She immediately emailed back and stated the entire panel loved my videos and promised to ensure I was comfortable with the shot. I figured this lady does this for a living – she wouldn’t bring me on to fail.”
Filming occurred over two 10-hour days in March. Although Badertscher was used to trickshots, she’d never performed in front of a live audience.
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“I was extremely nervous,” Badertscher acknowledged. “I did everything I could to prepare, from praying to practicing. I talked to Terry Crews. There’s a reason he’s the host – he’s amazing at making you feel at ease right before you go onstage. All the nerves went away, and I was just excited to be there.”
And when it comes to her students, Badertscher said the “starstruck” middle schoolers know who she is before they even enter class.
“The sixth-graders are always excited because they look at social media the way we used to look at TV,” she beamed. “The seventh- and eighth-graders get excited too, but they can’t be too excited because I’m their teacher. They have to act cool. They’re all amazing – they make me feel good.”
Badertscher credits UWG’s College of Education with giving her the confidence she exudes in the gym and online.
“The professors saw my skills and the way I taught, and for the first time, I felt I’d found my calling,” Badertscher shared. “UWG helped me believe in myself, and that has translated into my trickshots, too. When you’re filming and putting yourself out there, it can be scary, especially how cruel the world can be. But when you have confidence, you don’t care what other people are saying.”
So, what’s next for the Trickshot Queen? Badertscher is set to attend her first red carpet this month as a guest of Dude Perfect, a sports-comedy troupe whose first movie, “The Hero Tour,” will hit theatres nationwide starting Sept. 26.
In the meantime, Badertscher will continue to push herself and practice patience. Her current challenge is on Day 25 of hitting a basketball with a bat over her house and sinking it – blindly – into a net.
“I hope I’m a positive influence for the younger generation,” she concluded. “Trickshots are all about discipline. Sometimes you get lucky and make it in five minutes; other times it takes longer. At AGT, I was so out of my comfort zone, so hitting that balcony shot on the first try, while reaching millions of people, made me proud to put my fears behind me. I believed in myself and got it done.”
