THE BUILDING IS LOCATED Just over four miles from Highmark Stadium, off a busy Route 5, the Ten Lives Club has big plans for expansion, including an expansion of the main adoption site.
It's been months since January, when everyone's attention focused on the local cat shelter in Western New York, and money started flowing in from football fans.
It all started in the hours after a missed kick by Tyler Bass in the Buffalo Bills' 27-24 divisional round loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.
Bass' 44-yard kick sailed wide right to end a Bills drive that was riddled with missed opportunities and gave the Chiefs the lead and eventual playoff victory, again, with 1:43 remaining.
In the hours after the loss, Bass became the target of hundreds of negative comments on social media. He deleted his accounts after the game, “just for my sanity, you know what I mean.”
“But at the end of the day, as a kicker playing in the NFL, I mean, that's what you set out to do,” Bass said. “You're going to have critics from all sides. That's the nature of the business. … There's nobody tougher on me than myself. So, whatever they want to say, let them say it, at the end of the day, I just have to get back to work and move on.”
As Bass began the process of moving on, the Internet got busy in a more positive way. Some of these things shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Bills fans are known for coming together on social media and supporting various causes. The examples are countless, from former Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton in 2017 throwing a touchdown to beat Baltimore and help end the Bills’ historic playoff drought to donating to Oishei Children’s Hospital in Buffalo after Josh Allen’s grandmother Patricia passed away. This time, it reached far beyond the team’s fans.
We want everyone to know that all of these @TODAYshow National superstars are available for adoption at our main shelter in Blasdell. You can tell all your friends that you adopted a celebrity. 😻 photo.twitter.com/1OoeKt9tpf
— Ten Lives Club (@tenlivesclub) January 26, 2024
As people searched for a way to support the kicker, fans spotted a photo Bass had taken with one of the Ten Lives Club cats through the “Show Your Soft Side” campaign, which works against animal abuse. Bass wanted to pose with cats for the campaign, as he and his wife, Ryan, have two cats.
Marie Edwards, executive director and founder of the Ten Lives Club, received a phone call from her daughter, Sallie, who suggested the shelter organize something in honor of Bass after hearing about the hate he was receiving online. Later that day, Kimberly LaRussa, the shelter’s public relations manager, posted a Facebook message on the shelter’s account.
“WE ARE SUPPORTING TYLER BASS. DO NOT INTIMIDATE OUR FRIEND. We just heard the terrible news that Tyler Bass is receiving threats after yesterday's game and our phones are ringing off the hook from people wanting to donate $22 to the Ten Lives Club in Tyler's name.
“Tyler doesn't deserve the hate he's getting. He's an excellent football player and an even better person who took the time to help our organization and rescue cats last year. Please leave our friend alone.”
The Facebook post alone raised more than $53,000 and was shared 2,000 times. The post is filled with comments from cat lovers, fans of other NFL teams, and others, expressing their desire to donate for all sorts of reasons. Taylor Swift fans also donated, given the singer’s love of cats and her attendance at the game in support of her boyfriend, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. In the end, more than $400,000 was raised in Bass’ name.
“It really meant a lot to us to see all the fans supporting Tyler Bass and some of them aren't even cat people, some of them emailed us and said, 'I'm personally not a cat person, but I love Tyler Bass,'” LaRussa said.
As a new season approaches, the reality is that while there has been support and appreciation for Bass on social media, the pressure is on him to bounce back for the 2023 season. Part of his approach for the year is to not take advantage of the ups and downs.
The bass is on on the verge of his fifth NFL season, looking to bounce back from his lowest field goal percentage since his rookie year.
As a kicker, success or failure comes when all eyes are on you and there is little room for error. Over the course of his career, Bass, 27, has learned to better manage his mental approach to the position.
“You have to go through that to understand it. I think even after really good games… a lot of people are going to tell you that you're the best, that you're really good. That's just as bad as people telling you that,” Bass said. “My approaches are only as good as your next kick.
“And if you apply that approach to social media, you just have to be sensible, manage it and not get carried away by it. In the end, use it for whatever you use it for, but it's not real life.”
Bass was selected by the Bills in the sixth round of the 2020 NFL draft out of Georgia Southern. In his first season, he made 82.4% of his field goal attempts and missed two extra points. From 2021-22, he made over 87% of his field goal attempts each season and made every extra point in 2021 (51). In April 2023, he signed a four-year contract extension that keeps him with the team through 2027.
But last season wasn’t just about one missed kick, leaving questions about how Bass can turn things around in 2024. After making every field goal attempt through the first five weeks of the season, he missed three of four in Weeks 6 and 7, made 100% of field goals from Weeks 8 through 11, then missed two of four in an overtime loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. Struggles were also predicted early in the postseason, with Bass making one of three field goal attempts in a wild-card win over the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Bass worked during the offseason to find some consistency at his new base in Florida. He got married and developed a routine there that included going over everything related to his kicks during the offseason. Now that the team is in the midst of training camp, Bass has had his ups and downs in practice, such as Tuesday's practice when he went 4-for-6.
“You don't wish adversity on anyone, but adversity… [Bass] “I had to go through that at the end of the season and realize who are the people that are with me, because they're with me whether the kick goes in or not,” Bills special teams coordinator Matthew Smiley said. “And who are the people that I have to watch, that see me as a spectacle on the field and potentially have to block out that noise and really focus on what I'm trying to do and who are the people that are helping me accomplish that.”
He also found that waking up and not looking at social media is refreshing for him, as it allows him to focus on what really matters to him.
“Once you get through that week, two weeks of that itching, you don't even feel it, it actually bothers you,” Bass said. “You're like, I don't even want to be in that. So I think… everything happens for a reason.”
She also returned to social media to express her gratitude for the support she has received and said that what she has learned will serve as a guide for the season.
“I learned this in my rookie year,” Bass said. “I think Dr. [Desaree] Party [Bills team sport psychologist] He said, “Would you like to wake up in the morning, look at your phone and see, or have 20 people in your room telling you that you're worthless, that you're bad, that you're terrible, that you're not like that?” It's not a good way to wake up… Why do that? Wake up, be grateful, breathe, enjoy the morning, enjoy being awake and being in the moment.”
WITH TRAINING FIELD And with preseason games underway, Bass' attention has turned to the 2024 season and he's ready to turn the page after last season's end. But there's one aspect of that playoff loss that will stick with him.
The Ten Lives Club brought in 3,063 cats and kittens last year, and has already experienced 1,372 adoptions as of June of this year.
Bass has continued her work with the local shelter. One family, Peter and Erin Brody of Wheatfield, N.Y., were unaware of Ten Lives Club before the attention generated by Bass's botched kick. They went to an adoption event at KeyBank Center this year, which Tyler and Ryan attended, and ended up taking home two sister cats, Pearl and Stevie.
“It was so emotional to see all the responses… I mean, they had record donations literally the week that he had missed a kick,” said Peter Brody, also highlighting the need to support other shelters. “I had never heard of Ten Lives Club to begin with, honestly… and since then, it's just incredible the amount of exposure, press and money they raise.”
The Ten Lives Club was planning to build a new $2 million facility before events this year expanded the shelter's reach and support to another level.
But they changed one thing: it will be called the Tyler Bass Cat Adoption Center.
“We brought [Bass] We came up here and sat down with him and said, “We'd like you to be the honorary co-chair.” [of the new facility]”Him and Ryan, his wife,” Edwards said. “That's going to give it more weight to have his name on it. So you know what? Because of everything that happened with Facebook and all that, we probably got another 20,000 followers because there are people from different countries that sent money. There are people from all over the United States.”
