By snoadmin
CBS’s hit reality TV show “The Amazing Race” is in its 12th season this fall, and viewers are tuning in to watch two of Cal State Long Beach’s own students, Nate Hagstrom and Jennifer Parker, as they compete against 10 other teams in a race around the world.
The prize? A cool million in cash.
For travel enthusiasts, traveling the globe is an experience unlike any other. To enter a different world and to explore the deepest niches of the earth is something that cannot be traded. For 11 teams of two, traveling the world in 28 days on “The Amazing Race” is an extraordinary but stressful experience.
Hagstrom, a former LBSU men’s volleyball player with a degree in communications, set out to audition with his girlfriend, Parker, a senior fashion merchandising major, with their sights on having the summer of a lifetime.
Casting and auditions for “The Amazing Race” proved to be a lengthy process, according to the couple.
Parker, a former Clippers Girl, was spotted at a Clippers game by a casting crew member and was urged to audition for the show. The pair eventually made their way to Morongo, where the auditions were taking place.
“The line was extremely long,” Parker said.
Luckily, a casting crew member recognized Parker from the Clippers game and took the couple ahead to the front of the line.
“We just did our thing in front of the camera [and] danced and sang,” said Hagstrom.
After making it all the way to the final auditions in Los Angeles, Hagstrom and Parker still had to go through numerous interviews and medical tests before filming began in July.
The race kicked off at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles. When “The Amazing Race” host Phil Keoghan yelled “Go!”, there was no turning back.
“It didn’t even feel real,” Parker said, when reflecting back on the start of the race.
“Yeah, we couldn’t even believe this was actually happening,” Hagstrom said. “We forgot about the cameras; the competition was driving us.”
The intensely competitive nature of “The Amazing Race” led some teams to form alliances with one another, but not for Hagstrom and Parker.
“We were friends with the other teams when we weren’t racing,” Parker said, “but during the race, it was understood that it was still a competition for a million dollars.”
In the first leg of the race, which aired Nov. 4, teams traveled to Shannon, Ireland, and partook in the Detour and Roadblock challenges. In the Roadblock, one team member had to ride a high-wire bicycle across a ravine suspended about 200 feet above the North Atlantic, while the other team member traced the same route about eight feet below.
“It was like riding through air,” Hagstrom said, who pedaled the bicycle, “kind of like ‘E.T.'”
In the Detour, teams filled baskets with 15 pieces of peat and transported it on a donkey to a nearby ranch to get their next clue. The task may sound easy, and it might have been if the couple had picked the right donkey. Sadly, this was not the case for Hagstrom and Parker, who took about five hours to get their donkey to move.
“We tried everything to get that donkey to move,” Hagstrom said. “Jenn even tried to ride it.”
Hagstrom and Parker finally got their donkey moving and finished in 10th place at the end of the first leg, barely beating the last team to the pit stop.
Teams also had to run to Tempall Bheanain, considered the world’s smallest church, on the island of Inis Mor. There, they had to sign up for one of three ferries departing for the mainland the next morning.
“It was intense,” Parker said of the roughly three-mile trek to the church.
Although they are not allowed to disclose information about future episodes, Hagstrom and Parker described their overall race experience as “once in a lifetime.”
“It’s an amazing thing to do, and you get to travel around the world for free,” Parker said.
For Hagstrom and Parker, who have been in an on-again off-again relationship for about two years, the hardest part about the race was communicating with each other.
“We’re competitive people and we’d just forget to communicate as boyfriend and girlfriend,” Hagstrom said.
Despite the setbacks encountered during the race, the couple said the experience of “The Amazing Race” and its competition has changed their outlook on everyday life.
“The Amazing Race” airs Sundays at 8 p.m. on CBS.
