Tony Ford of Spartanburg, all 6 feet 5 inches and 407 pounds of him, strode down the back corridor of Colonial Life Arena with the determination of a gladiator, wearing a sign that read: “I want to be on the pink team.”
It refers to the hue of one team of partners on the popular NBC weight loss and life-changing series “The Biggest Loser,” which conducted a massive casting call Saturday in Columbia.
Ford watches the program with his 4-year-old daughter, Grace. Pink is her favorite color.
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“It’s the only program we watch together,” the 41-year-old truck driver said. “So I want to be on the pink team for her. And I want to be on the program for me.”
Ford, a big man with a big heart and big dream, was one of about 1,000 people who packed the Colonial Life Arena for a chance at slimness and stardom. Columbia was one stop on an 11-city tour to be canvassed by three teams of casting directors tasked with winnowing nearly 25,000 auditions nationwide — both in person and on videotape — to find 16 charismatic heavyweights to anchor next season. On Saturday alone, they each looked about 250 people in the eye and took about two minutes to hear their stories and size them up.
Holland Stripland, an Alabama native, Auburn grad and now Los Angeles resident, has been a casting director for the show for seven seasons. She said the directors are looking for big personalities, likeability, great stories and “rootability.”
“We want to find people the audience can root for,” she said, in between flights of 40 people each, who sat elbow to elbow and hip to hip at four V-shaped tables in front of Stripland and three other young, enthusiastic and sympathetic casting directors. Each person had but a moment or two to let their inner light shine.
“They have to have that extra something,” Stripland said.
The father-son team of Curtis and Billy Carter of Troy, N.C., hope they impressed the directors. It is the third time they have auditioned for a weight loss reality show.
Son Billy Carter, 21, carries a whopping 470 pounds and has been heavy since he was a child. He offers a picture of himself chugging a two-liter Pepsi at age 2.
“That’s me in a nutshell,” he said. “It’s sad because I can’t even weigh myself on a bathroom scale. I have to have a shipping scale or something.”
Curtis Carter, a relatively slender 320 pounds in the rotund gathering, blames himself.
“Stupid father,” he said. “That’s s-t-o-o-p-i-d father. We used to put Pepsi in his baby bottle because it made him happy. Then he got too old for us to change his ways. So I am (auditioning) with him because I don’t think he can do it without me. And I know I can’t do it without him.”
Friends Lacy Bryant and Charlotte El-Sharif went to nursing school together in the Midlands. Bryant is a nurse at Tuomey Health Care Systems in Sumter, and El-Sharif is a nurse at KershawHealth in Camden.
“We can’t look an (overweight) patient or someone with diabetes in the eye and tell them they need to eat healthy,” El-Sharif said, adding that she is very competitive and sees the program’s competitive bent as motivation for her to get fit. “I don’t want to be a failure in life.”
Casting director Stripland said about 40 to 50 people — each with at least 100 pounds to lose — of the 1,000 people auditioned on Saturday were to receive callbacks beginning Saturday evening. Those interviews will be much longer and are to be conducted by the team from Monday through Thursday.
The names of the Columbia finalists are kept confidential, she said.
Ford, the Spartanburg truck driver, said he hopes beyond hope that he is one of them when the new season airs in January. Being a cast member means more than fame or the $250,000 grand prize. It might mean his job.
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration is urging trucking companies to institute intervention policies to keep their drivers healthy.
“I’m always looking for something to motivate me to lose weight,” he said, noting that it is an unending challenge “to get into cars and be comfortable. To get into clothes that don’t fit. To wait for hours at an amusement park to get on a ride and you can’t get the safety bar down.”
Now, his weight might cost him his occupation.
“So for me (making the show) is a way to live longer, be a better father and husband and to keep my job,” he said.
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