Summer 2004
PEOPLE
Alumna
to Star in ABC Reality Show "The Benefactor"
Kathy
Whipple, a 2003 graduate, is one of 16 finalists in a new ABC reality
TV show titled "The Benefactor," set to air Sept. 13
Whipple, who grew up in Webster, N.Y., took a leave from New York Medical
College in Valhalla, N.Y., to take part in the show, her mother confirmed.
Whipple, the daughter of Robert and Rosemary Whipple of Webster, is a
1999 graduate of Webster High School.
A biochemistry major at Geneseo, the 23-year-old soon-to-be-TV star also
played on the College’s softball team for four years. She tried out
for the show on a "fluke" while she and her mother were in Las
Vegas for a spring break of sorts – a getaway for Kathy, in her first
year of medical school, and Rosemary, a Rochester nurse, said Rosemary
Whipple.
After the mother-daughter team booked their plane tickets to Las Vegas,
they heard the news that a new reality TV show was holding auditions in
Las Vegas on April 3 – when they would be in town – at a nearby
hotel, Rosemary Whipple said.
Intrigued at the news that dotcom billionaire Mark Cuban, owner of the
NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, would give away $1 million to one of the
contestants on "The Benefactor," they decided to check out the
auditions – if they could make it there on time – "we weren’t
even sure we’d make it over there," Rosemary Whipple said.
While waiting in line, in which they were No. 287 out of about 300 to
500 people, the Whipples enjoyed chatting with the other folks, so they
decided to wait it out. The audition lasted all of a few minutes and consisted
of Kathy talking for a few minutes on videotape.
Whipple beat thousands of candidates to make the show. Open auditions
also were held in Idaho, Massachusetts, Georgia and Texas, and people
also sent in audition tapes.
Now, Kathy is in Dallas on location, Rosemary Whipple said. Filming is
expected to take three weeks, and she didn’t know if filming would
change locales. The six-episode series is expected to be broadcast in
late summer. The series will aim to answer, "what would you do for
a million dollars?" ABC and Cuban have not released details about
the show other than it will have a sense of fun and adventure. ABC did
not return calls for comment.
ABC announced plans for the show in February, on the heels of Donald Trump’s
successful "Apprentice," in which Trump awarded one person a
job for a year at a salary of $250,000. Cuban co-founded Broadcast.com,
and he and his business partner sold it to Yahoo! for $5.7 billion at
the height of the Internet boom in 1999, according to the Mavericks’
Web site. In January 2000, he bought the Mavericks franchise and brought
a party atmosphere to the games, and helped lead the team to the playoffs.
Cuban stated in the network’s press release: "Everyone has dreamed
of getting rich, and I want to help one lucky person get there. This isn’t
a traditional contest. You don’t need special talents. I’m not
looking to find out who is the grossest, funniest, prettiest, smartest,
or able to go without food or water the longest. The right person is going
to get on my good side at the right time and, whoever that is, is going
to walk away with a check for one million dollars."
The Geneseo community is rallying around its scholar athlete. Tony
Ciccarello, head coach of the Geneseo women’s softball team,
not only coached Whipple two years on the Geneseo Knights, but also two
years on the Webster High Warriors.
Ciccarello recalled a road trip during Whipple’s junior year. When
he checked to see how the players on the back of the bus were doing, he
noticed Whipple was studying for her medical school exams – taking
advantage of every spare moment she had.
"She
was very detail-oriented, even on the field. She really worked hard, gave
it everything she had," Ciccarello said. "She’ll go at
it a hundred percent. She did everything to win," he said, adding
that Whipple is a likeable and focused young woman.
Ciccarello also coached Whipple’s sister, Elizabeth, at Webster.
Elizabeth Whipple graduated from SUNY Geneseo in 1999.
Ciccarello said his approach toward coaching is to provide his players
life lessons and to prepare them for the harsh realities of the world.
"Nobody’s going to make a million dollars from playing softball,"
he said.
But perhaps Ciccarello’s coaching style will help Whipple win exactly
that.
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