Gallitzin native on reality show
By David Hurst, dhurst@altoonamirror.comArticle Photos
Fact Box
AT A GLANCE
''America's Toughest Jobs,'' an NBC reality series, features 13 men and women doing jobs across the country. One of the participants is Phil Kolarczyk, a 1999 Penn Cambria graduate now living in Orlando, Fla.
The show airs at 9 p.m. Mondays.
GALLITZIN - Until a few months ago, Penn Cambria High School graduate Phil Kolarczyk spent most of his post-college years in a suit and tie.
But the 27-year-old traded them in for a shot at a lumberjack's saw, subzero crab fishing and the steering wheel of an ice road-bound 18-wheeler.
A chance Kolarczyk took on a radio ad put the Florida man on a cross-country job hunt that had him rolling up his sleeves to tackle what NBC calls ''America's Toughest Jobs."
The Gallitzin native was one of 13 men and women picked to take on gritty, sometimes dangerous professions like crab fishing in Alaska, ice road trucking and bullfighting on the network reality series.
The prize: more than $250,000 - the annual sum of the series' jobs - and for Kolarczyk, the chance to start a new career.
''I couldn't pass this up,'' said Kolarczyk, a pharmaceutical sales representative living in Orlando. ''I have stories to tell for the rest of my life from this."
Kolarczyk was on the road when he heard about the casting call and soon found himself alongside 1,000 other hopefuls.
He made the first cut, and during the next few weeks, he went through a series of tryouts before show executives that took him out to California.
In three weeks' time, he'd gone from his first casting call to a jet plane to Alaska - one of 13 people picked for the show, which was created by the minds behind "Ice Road Truckers" and "Deadliest Catch," he said.
''It all happened so quickly,'' Kolarczyk said.
His family felt the same way.
''We thought it was a joke,'' said his sister Lavinia Kolarczyk, 28, who now lives in the Pittsburgh area. ''The next thing you know, he's in Alaska and cut off all communications with everyone."
''Anything with a battery'' - cell phones, laptops and other devices - were off-limits from that point on, Philip Kolarczyk said.
The first episode aired last week, with the cast shipping out on fishing boats in icy Alaska, where they spent two days catching crabs and battling the elements and seasickness.
''I played football, and this was three times harder. It completely drained me,'' said Kolarczyk, a Penn Cambria standout who played guard at Lafayette College in Easton, Pa., after high school.
The show puts Kolarczyk and the rest of the cast under the watchful eyes of real-world bosses for several days of real work. If they fare poorly, they're sent home.
Creator Thom Beers was looking for office workers with blue-collar roots, which fit Kolarczyk to a T.
''I come from Gallitzin, the workers' capital of the world,'' Kolarczyk joked before adding that family members worked for the railroad and in coal mines.
His sister joked that he may put the railroad town ''back on the map,'' and he certainly will have the community and family rooting for him in the weeks ahead.
''Gallitzin shaped him,'' Lavinia added, saying their father was an electrician for Norfolk Southern Corp. and their mother worked in a Gallitzin shirt factory before it closed.
While she described her brother as ''the All-American football type'' eager to try anything, Lavinia also knows he makes no secret about his fear of heights - the younger brother who once got cold feet on the Ferris wheel at the former Bland's Park in Tipton.
With a mountainside rescue listed as one of 10 jobs on the cast's to-do list, Lavinia expects that fear may be tested.
Of course, her brother can't say anything.
Not that he wants to.
''I just tell people [to] watch the show, see how we did and root for us,'' he said.
Between now and then, Kolarczyk isn't saying a thing - except that he'd do it all over again.
''Too many people sit at their desks and let their lives pass them by,'' he said, calling the show ''totally worth it.''
''Just to get out there, travel and try all of those jobs - it was an amazing experience."
Mirror Staff Writer David Hurst is at 946-7457.
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guttertroll
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09-01-08 7:18 PM
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Good for him but, why do they call them reality shows? Hope he keeps all his body parts.
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RobFan530
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09-01-08 7:10 PM
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This is SOOO funny!! I had algebra II with him. Good for him, I hope he goes far in the show!!
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railbuff
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09-01-08 2:29 PM
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BEFORE THE CAMERA CREWS PILE INTO GOOD 'OLE GALLITZIN THEY BETTER GET RID OF THE SH*T BOX THATS IN THE MIDDLE OF TOWN BETWEEN THAT AND THE ATHEIST STATION MY RAILROAD PICS ARE RUINED .
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railbuff
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09-01-08 2:27 PM
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BEFORE THE CAMERA CREWS PILE INTO GOOD 'OLE GALLITZIN THEY BETTER GET RID OF THE SH*T BOX THATS IN THE MIDDLE OF TOWN BETWEEN THAT AND THE ATHEIST STATION MY RAILROAD PICS ARE RUINED .
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jimdandy
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09-01-08 10:57 AM
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I might have to miss Two and a Half Men reruns to watch it! (Tough Decision)
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RedHeadedBon
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09-01-08 10:06 AM
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Monday's at 9:00 PM
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jamsurf
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09-01-08 8:13 AM
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anyone know when it is on
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