By Nathan Duke
Last fall McGrath, 23, appeared as a contestant on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” where he correctly answered that Cuba was the first nation to receive a Pan Am overseas flight from Miami in the late 1920s for which he earned $50,000. The episode finally aired on Feb. 13.McGrath, who was unemployed during the show's filming but currently works as a residence hall director at SUNY Stonybrook, said he will invest some of his winnings and use the rest to pay off a portion of the $70,000 he owes in student loans Ð or buy a new car.”If you think about it, it's a yearly salary for someone in the middle class Ð and I'm in the middle class,” he said.McGrath, who unsuccessfully auditioned for the show when he was 19 and again at 21, said he tried out for the show with a friend last fall and took a 30-question exam which tested his knowledge on random topics. A few weeks later, he received a call while walking his dog and found out he would be a contestant.For three weeks, McGrath said he pounded his brain with Trivial Pursuit questions, studied questions on the “Millionaire” Web site and made an effort to retain every piece of trivia that he stumbled upon.”There was really no way to prepare, sort of like the SATs,” he said. “I just tried to absorb every piece of information I came across. I thought, 'What if they ask me about the history of tooth decay?'”McGrath said the six-hour filming of “Millionaire” was exciting but he was surprised when contestants were given a crash course on how to sit down on the show's swivel chair.”It was surreal in the sense that we took a course on how to get into a chair,” he said.During the show's taping, McGrath nailed his $50,000 question. But he ran out of “life lines,” which allow contestants to phone a friend or enlist the audience's help for an answer and stumbled on the $100,000 question: “Created by the Department of Defense in 1969, the precursor to the modern-day Internet originally had what name?”He said he did not know the answer Ð ARPANET Ð and did not want to risk missing the question and losing his earnings, so he chose not to guess. But he said he would like to compete in another game show and plans on submitting an audition tape to “Amazing Race.” He said competing on the show was a rewarding but exhausting experience.”I had dreams the night before about winning no money,” he said. “I woke up at 4 in the morning realizing that I hadn't crammed for nursery rhymes and did not know what kind of pie Little Jack Horner put his thumb in. During the show, the adrenaline kept me awake, but when it was over, I was so hungry and tired. But it was so much fun.”
