Younghoe Koo’s moment in Giants infamy — when he pulled up during a field-goal attempt and missed the ball altogether last December — might’ve saved Mark Toothaker’s life, and now Toothaker wants Koo to be his Kentucky Derby guest.
Toothaker, the stallion sales manager at Spendthrift Farm, was watching the Giants’ game against the Patriots in bed with his wife, Malory, and after rewinding the play, he laughed so hard that he had a seizure — feeling “like I got electrocuted,” he told the Associated Press.
After he went to the hospital, a CT scan showed a benign brain tumor — reportedly the size of a tennis ball — that was removed, and Toothaker believed it saved his life because “it could’ve happened any other time.”
“I know it wasn’t his best moment, but it was beyond crazy,” Toothaker told the AP. “For she and I to be belly-laughing at his expense, which I feel terrible about now, but it all worked out in the end, that for me it couldn’t have been a better moment.”
Toothaker will now be at the Kentucky Derby on Saturday, watching Further Ado, who is owned by Spendthrift Farm, compete in the first leg of the Triple Crown.
For Koo and the Giants, it marked the latest kicking mishap in a recent history filled with them, and Koo — once a Pro Bowler and accurate kicker with the Falcons — appeared in one more game for Big Blue before getting released, hitting 4-of-6 field goals and 11-of-12 extra point during his five games with the team.
And if there was a nadir for the Giants, Koo missing the ball altogether would certainly be in contention for that honor, and he was one of four kickers the Giants cycled through last season.
But Toothaker — tuning in for the game because of his friendship with the father of Wan’Dale Robinson, who’s now a former Giants receiver — described the moment as a “miracle” and that he was in the right spot at the right time, and his wife, Malory, acknowledged to the AP that “so many people aren’t that fortunate.”
“I could have had it on a plane, anywhere,” Toothaker told the AP. “I didn’t kill anybody. I didn’t run over a family in my Expedition running up and down the road. I guess that would’ve been the hardest thing for me to live with if somebody would’ve got hurt out of this.
“Believe me, as tough as that thing was, as violent as that seizure was, I have no memory of it and I would find it hard to believe that I wouldn’t have hurt somebody or hurt myself if I would’ve been behind a wheel.”
