Living September 22, 2015
College buddies seemed destined to ‘Race’
Highlights
Contacted by casting directors through Facebook
Chosen despite procrastination and a terrible video
Rivals in high school; best friends in college
North Texas residents Tanner Kloven and Josh Ahern will race around the world in hopes of winning one million dollars on the new season of “The Amazing Race,” which premieres, Friday, Sept. 25 on CBS.
In one episode, Tanner Kloven, left, and Josh Ahern must play a volleyball match on Copacabana Beach in Brazil.
North Texas residents Tanner Kloven and Josh Ahern will race around the world in hopes of winning one million dollars on the new season of “The Amazing Race,” which premieres, Friday, Sept. 25 on CBS. Sonja Flemming - CBS
By David Martindale
Special to the Star-Telegram
Tanner Kloven and Josh Ahern’s presence this season on The Amazing Race defies all logic.
This North Texas duo, best friends since college, did almost everything wrong — practically
begging not to be cast in the long-running competition show. But they wound up getting selected anyway.
Who knew that playing hard-to-get is a viable reality-show strategy?
The 27th season of The Amazing Race begins at 7 p.m. Friday on CBS. Teams will log more than 34,000 miles, racing through five continents and 10 countries, in pursuit of the $1 million prize. But the first step of every journey is getting picked.
Kloven, a 26-year-old pharmaceutical sales rep from Fort Worth, and Ahern, a 28-year-old veterinary medical device salesman from Dallas, walk us through their reckless, don’t-pick-us approach.
Step 1: Don’t even bother to sign up. Every year, reality shows like The Amazing Race invite wannabe competitors to submit online applications. Kloven and Ahern didn’t do that.
“We were contacted out of the blue by one of the casting directors through Facebook.
Tanner Kloven
“We were contacted out of the blue by one of the casting directors through Facebook,” Kloven says. “I wish I could say it was because we did something out of the ordinary on our Facebook pages, but we didn’t. It was just very random.
“He said he likes to find one team every year on Facebook. So he found us that way.”
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http://www.star-telegram.com/living/article36174591.html#storylink=cpyStep 2: Show little or no interest. Of course, the guys ignored the casting director’s inquiry at first.
“I was very skeptical,” Ahern says. “I’ve gotten messages from people online who claimed they were casting for a TV show and none of it ever turned out to be real. So when someone said they’re interested in casting us for The Amazing Race, I didn’t believe it.”
So, they waited a few days before they even bothered to reply.
“Once we finally talked to the guy on the phone,” Kloven says, “we started to believe it a little.”
Step 3: Procrastinate, procrastinate.
The guys were instructed to fill out “80 pages of paperwork,” and they waited until the 11th hour.
Ahern says: “We were texting each other at 11:30 and midnight was the deadline. ‘Have you gotten the paperwork done?’ ‘Paperwork? What paperwork?’ We are both chronic procrastinators.”
Step 4: Make a terrible video. “Other contestants spent a lot of time and effort shooting their videos,” Ahern says. “They told their stories, got them edited, and they were just beautiful. Tanner and I went to Tanner’s house, set two chairs out in a living room with steer horns behind us on the wall, and we filmed our interview on his iPad.
“
We thought, ‘There’s no way they’re picking us. We just ruined our chances by not taking the time to do this right.’
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http://www.star-telegram.com/living/article36174591.html#storylink=cpyJosh Ahern
“We had a blast doing it, but it was the worst thing ever. We thought, ‘There’s no way they’re picking us. We just ruined our chances by not taking the time to do this right.’ ”
Two weeks later, they got the phone call inviting them to be on the show. Now they’re thanking their lucky stars because the guys from “Team Texas” had the time of their lives.
Aside from a 10-day trip to London while in college, Kloven says he hasn’t traveled outside the country. Ahern, meanwhile, made a stop once in Toronto and vacationed in Mexico but “never got off the continent.”
So visiting other countries — the first leg of the journey was Venice Beach, Calif., to Rio de Janeiro — was an unforgettable experience.
Kloven and Ahern became friends when they were students at Texas Tech in Lubbock. Before that, they were high school sports rivals. Kloven, who lived in Aledo, went to high school at Southwest Christian in Fort Worth; Ahern, who lived in Grapevine, attended Harvest Christian Academy in Watauga.
“When you go to a small private school and you’re an athlete,” Ahern says, “you’re playing every sport that you can: basketball, football, baseball. So we kept running into each other.”
“I’m sure at the time we didn’t like each other,” Kloven adds. “Thank goodness we got to meet in college and I got to figure out he wasn’t as bad a guy as I made him out to be in my imagination.”
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http://www.star-telegram.com/living/article36174591.html#storylink=cpy