But for Andrea Houser and her son, Drew, the little pond will forever be the place where one dream crashed and a new one was reborn.

"The irony is incredible," said Joe Saltalamachia, associate director of admissions for Unity College and coordinator of Sunday's Fifth Annual Fishing for Scholarships Tournament on Unity Pond. "Chilling, amazing, I don't know what you call it, but there were lots and lots of tears shed at the end."

Saltalamachia was not the only one at a loss for words.

Andrea Houser, more than 24 hours after learning her son had won a free freshman year at Unity College, was still marveling at the irony on Monday. It was on that same pond, after all, that her husband Gary, Drew's father, perished in a plane crash in 1992.

"We just couldn't believe it," Houser said. "That this turn of events would happen, it was almost like coming full circle."

But that circle never would have been complete had it not been Joe Bellerose there by Drew Houser's side on Sunday. Gary Houser's best friend when the two attended Unity College in the late 1970s, Bellerose stepped in after the crash, taking Drew Houser on the hunting and fishing trips Gary Houser never could. The boy, who was 3 when his father died, put Bellerose's face in that father-shaped picture frame in his mind.

"After the accident I think Joe felt a responsibility to be a surrogate dad and do all the things Gary would have done," Andrea Houser said.

"He's done a wonderful job. Since 1992 we've been closer than family."

Bellerose, who owns a construction company, said he did the best he could to fill the void by spending time with Drew Houser when the Housers visited from their Northborough, Mass., home.

For Drew Houser, who had left for a college camping trip on Monday and could not be reached for comment, Bellerose did more than enough.

"Although my father isn't here this day, I know for sure words wouldn't be able to express how proud he would be of his friend Joe and how he has raised me," Drew Houser wrote in his college application essay.

But perhaps, Andrea Houser said, it was Gary Houser who was looking after his son on Sunday. Drew Houser and Bellerose never caught a fish, say nothing of one of the 200 smallmouth bass, pickerel, white and yellow perch and crappie that had been tagged for prizes.

"I hate to say it, but we did not (catch anything)," Bellerose said. "We couldn't believe it, to tell you the truth."

Nelson Beaudry of Windsor caught a tagged fish, a nice-looking smallmouth bass.

After learning his son, James, a junior fisheries and wildlife major at Unity College, already had a partner for the tournament, Nelson Beaudry offered to skipper a safety boat.

Prevented from keeping his fish by tournament rules against power boats, Beaudry understood he would have to enter any prize from a tagged fish he caught into a drawing. He would not be able to automatically pass it along to his son. He had no idea until later that his was the lone fish that had been tagged for a full year's tuition.

It is the only time a full year's waiver has ever been landed in the tournament's five years. The grand prize, the one fish with four years' tuition, has never been caught, Saltalamachia said.

"What do you do?" Beaudry chuckled. "In a way I wish I could have given it to my boy, but you have to do what's right."

Beaudry learned he caught the fish in the area where Gary Houser was killed.

All 170 students who fished in the tournament were entered into the drawing for the top prize, but it Drew Houser's name that came up.

"It was the last prize of the day and we were tired," Andrea Houser said. "They called Drew's name and I seriously almost passed out. We were thrilled and grateful and we just knew that Gary was looking down on us."

The families had been talking about Gary Houser all weekend, Bellerose said.

"I couldn't believe it really," he said. "It was totally amazing, I guess."

Part owner of a store in Northborough, Andrea Houser said her other child has special needs, and paying for college will be a struggle.

"I have been struggling financially," she said. "This eases the burden for me an awful lot."

A total of $25,000 in scholarships and prizes was won during Sunday's tournament -- the next biggest prize was $2,500, followed by a student who won a combined $750 -- but Houseman's grand prize is at the heart of what Saltalamachia had in mind when he created the only known collegiate "fishing for scholarships" tournament five years ago.

"It was visions like this that got me motivated enough to make it happen," he said. "This is what we were thinking when we started this tournament. It finally came full circle for us."