BY DC CUEVA
Here, we always like to think of ourselves as a supplement to other sites that cover these shows so many of us watch every week and discuss online and around the water cooler. While you might go to other sites to read, watch and hear discussion and recaps on the episodes every week as well as interviews with castmates, we offer you a supplement in focusing our coverage on all the social reaction to every episode, and bringing you those kinds of stories relating to the people and these shows that might otherwise not be told. ExtraTime enables us to bring you those stories, long & short and on & off-camera, at the end of all of our multiple weekly posts, and often in these dedicated, long-form's we call ExtraTime In-Depth.
We have brought you a number of these In-Depth posts since we began covering MTV shows back in 2013. This includes the pinned tweet I had up for a few days this week of the inspiring story I did on the bond between Johnny Bananas & Kasey Harvey which was originally posted on Thanksgiving last year and for whom he gave a shoutout to this week. And as a consequence of this week's episode of The Challenge: Invasion of the Champions ending with a cliffhanger in the middle of one epic elimination between Bananas and Darrell - which by rule we will be discussing that here on next week's posts, this week we are presenting two of those stories here.
First, one of the most fascinating stories to come out of the Trifecta in the past decade has been of the struggle of one of one Challenger who personified what a lot of people in Generation X and Y have had of spending more time doing anything but be active and having a healthy lifestyle. Then, after being a central figure to one of the most memorable moments in Challenge history, it served as a reality check for him to finally get down to business, lose the fat and become more active, no less be able to compete more on the show considered by many the "fifth major pro sport."
This is one person's story of someone who was able to make a not so easy transition from the guy who weighed 300 pounds at the time we first saw him as part of a renowned Challenge class of Fresh Meat, to one who's made a strong transformation by losing nearly 100 pounds. He's one of the most unique and well-liked people in the Challenge community and has gained a ton of respect for being able to overcome one of modern life's greatest obstacles and biggest challenges. On this edition of In-Depth, the story of Eric "Big Easy" Banks: A Challenge Against the Odds.
Last month, this site took a trip to the South Texas resort town known as South Padre Island, population under 3,000 and just on the Mexican border. In a way, this place is much like Augusta National or the All-England Club - normal golf and tennis clubs, except when the world's attention are on those sacred grounds for The Masters and Wimbledon tournaments. It's very much the same thing for South Padre, where for ten months out of the year it's a family vacation destination and where it's a place as calm as the breeze coming off of the Gulf of Mexico. But when the circus comes to town in hundreds of thousands of college students each March and April for Spring Break, it becomes one of the largest-populated cities of a state where going big is a way of life.
In that ExtraTime bit, we brought you some portraits from this year's Spring Break activities, where we saw Jay befriend a parrot who loves dance music, and old-schooler Syrus see the Crunk King, Lil' Jon, in action. As those two, as well as AYTO alums Mike and Morgan have partied there over the course of the past month, one person has not only been spending over 30-plus days partying it up with fellow students and representing Team MTV at this grand gathering, but also being one of those helping do business with students who come down to South Padre for a good time. And in a way, he has an inspiring story which helped to change the game of The Challenge.
As this Invasion of the Champions is taking place, there is a particular reason why those who take part in this, the fifth major pro sport, take this game much more seriously these days than when it began as a simple, friendly battle between alumni of MTV's two original reality shows. Back then, those who competed in old-school Challenges had more time to check out the surroundings of the host region, and the missions back then weren't perhaps as highly sophisticated and athletic as the ones today.
In 2006, what was then known officially as The Real World/Road Rules Challenge decided that the time was right to bring on people from outside both of those shows and cast new people...hence, the name "Fresh Meat" joined the Trifecta lexicon. That first installment introduced us to several worthy Challenge Hall of Famers: Kenny, Evan, Evelyn and the late Diem Brown. This was also where Mr. Beautiful's longstanding feud with Wes began while he was dating Johanna, and fellow Austin'ers Danny and Melinda made the trip to Australia too. Of course, this was where we last saw Shane on The Challenge until this season, and was also the most recent win for Darrell... whether he gets his 5th career ring is for now anyone's guess.
And then, there's Eric Banks, who's also known to many as "Big Easy" - a nickname coined to him by Challenge legend Derrick Kosinski for which Eric added, "At the moment I got the name, I was a bigger guy, and I’m a very easygoing person." When we first met him, he was that gentle giant from just outside Lexington, KY who came to Australia weighing 300 lbs. But true to his larger than life personality, he also has a good sense of humor that would give the house something to laugh about in this tense, razor-thin environment. His original bio read something like this:
"If Chris Farley had an MTV love child, it would be Eric: He's a big guy with an even bigger personality. Some may see his size as a hindrance on the Challenge, but there's more than one way to play the game, and his life-of-the-party persona could be enough to endear him to his teammates and carry him into the winners' circle. This single Southern charmer brings a fresh and funny perspective to the RW/RR Challenge." (link)
In a post he penned for the Huffington Post five years ago, Eric described himself as "the chubby, freckled-face kid that could have been on an American Greetings card." He was the embodiment of those growing up at the turn of the century: one who gave up sports after graduating high school, which led to having an unhealthy habit of eating whatever he can grab and not being that much active in his daily lifestyle.
Heading into Fresh Meat, the challenge wasn't just of how he and his partner, Challenge & Road Rules veteran and later Kentucky resident Katie Doyle, would fare, but of if he can hold to the rigors of a game that's suited more to those who are strong and fit. Often the target of possible elimination because of his weight, they had a reasonable showing finishing in 8th place, then Eric made his way to The Duel in Brazil where he improved his standing and finished in 5th.
But neither of those first two appearances prepared Big Easy for what would await him on his third Challenge, The Gauntlet III in Mexico in 2008. Being on a team of Veterans - perhaps the most-stacked ever in a two-team formatted Challenge season, Eric stood out in terms of his size. In a group that included Katie, Robin, Coral, Beth and Johnny Bananas, this team dominated the entire season in winning ten of the season's fifteen challenges. So, with having ten members of that team (him, Adam, Brad, CT, Diem, Evan, Evelyn, Kenny, Paula & Robin) in the final, it appeared that Eric was the weak link in a team with finals berths & titles under their belt as they saw this as a victory lap.
But, as we have seen many times in the final act of any Challenge season, you can't get the money until you earn it and finish the final challenge... That's exactly what happened in the final, Army Strong. In the scorching Mexican heat, Eric would gas out and ultimately collapse to the ground. Eventually, paramedics would rush to the scene, take him out on an ambulance to the hospital and was medically evacuated. The veterans continued on with the reasoning that they would complete this final and collect the $300,000 the winners would split, no matter what.
What they didn't know was that if they had to win the money, all the members would have to finish together, just like the ad campaign of the same name by the U.S. Army, which promoted that no man would be left behind. Instead, when the veterans came back to TJ at final's end, they thought that they had won...only for him to tell them that they had lost, and to add insult - there was no money given to the 2nd place team. All their efforts throughout the season had went for not, and it was the Rookies team of Tori, Frank, Jillian, Johanna, Nehemiah and Rachel who walked away victorious. This was perhaps, until last summer, the most-shocking conclusion to a Challenge that we had seen.
This ordeal that cost his entire team a would be Challenge win and money, and nearly took his life in the process, was a wake up call to Eric to change his lifestyle, break the habits he had and refocus his efforts on being fit and healthy. As he told the Times Union a few years ago, "It was the turning point for me to realize I couldn't run from or ignore the problem any further, but let's face it. I didn't commit right off the bat, I thought I couldn't get by on fad dieting and didn't realize it would have to be a complete lifestyle change."
In conceding that, as he wrote on HP, he was "a fat person, unhealthy and on a downward spiral," it was there that Eric began to take action to improve himself. It did take some time because of work and everything else, but after appearing on The Duel II he asked Jim Laird, a strength & wellness coach and power lifter in Lexington, to come in and help build a custom regimen built around his lifestyle. There was one stipulation, which was that he wouldn't go into the gym until he was ready to work out and make a commitment to change his lifestyle and more than his diet.
Eric added, "That was a big commitment for me, but I really had no other alternative, because at that point, nothing else I was doing was going to get me healthy and in shape." That first training session saw him throw up at first, but he knew that this wasn't just a serious thing, but also the biggest challenge he has ever had, and it didn't take place in front of MTV cameras. Along with tri-weekly workout sessions, his eating habits had to take a total u-turn in which he could have his favorite foods but only in moderation after working out, but also backloading on those carbs.
Though not called a "diet" by any sort, it's a program that has worked for him since he first made that commitment to Laird when he was given the call to be on The Challenge: Cutthroat in 2010. When they first talked, the scale topped out at 310 pounds, and his waist size was around 42 inches. But when he, Camila, Cara Maria and Brandon came in as the surprise team on Battle of the Seasons II two years later in Turkey, Big Easy came in much, much lighter: 240 pounds... a 70-lb loss. And since that last Challenge, he has become 20 lbs. lighter at around 210 pounds.
Eric wrote, "Everything is new in my life again. I love the change. I honestly feel as though I have a new lease on life. I am in the best shape that I have been in and it feels exciting. It is almost as though I have found a new person within myself. I feel better, healthier and have tons of energy. The outlook on The Challenge has changed because now I believe that I can become a very strong competitor once the transformation is complete."
And it's also because of the events of Eric's final that everyone who competes on The Challenge now have to undergo a seismic change to whatever they're doing, and to begin to train daily for as much as a month to prepare to compete, so that they can be in tip-top shape the moment host TJ Lavin sounds the horn to get them going for the first time. In fact, many who compete on this show have CrossFit experience and go to the gym on a regular basis, and those who see their Instagram or SnapChat accounts can regularly see them working out. Challenge champions Cara Maria, Emily and Rachel now devote their lives to fitness because of their experiences on the show.
The ordeal we saw Big Easy go through in Mexico brought into focus the alarming fact that when many kids get older, they tend to eat unhealthy and prefer to play video games indoors instead of going outside to the park nearby on a nice day. Those like the NFL and its Play60 initiative, and the President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition and its greatest cheerleader, First Lady Michelle Obama, regularly remind all of us of how important it is to be active and have a healthy lifestyle. And the success of NBC's The Biggest Loser and the dozens of weight loss programs we see all over town have brought that mission into living rooms and have proved that someone can go from wearing big pants to having a six-pack.
As Eric added on the Post, "I had to deal with a problem that many Americans face: obesity. And that’s why I feel blessed to have been given the opportunity to be on a television show. Now I have a platform to show people that if an average, everyday guy from Kentucky can commit to a lifestyle change, anyone can do it. Hard work does pay off." And when he did return on what was the first season I got to watch extensively, the majority of feedback Big Easy received on BOTS II was mostly motivational and encouraging, knowing that not only were fans pleased to see him back on the show, but also amazed at his transformation and knowing that others were in the same boat as him in having dealt with the same problem he went through.
And when asked by the Times-Union for any advice he would give to those who watch the show who would want to get fit, active and healthy, Eric's advice was simple: "Be your self at the end of the day. You know yourself better than anyone else; if being overweight is something that you deal with, but feel like there isn’t anyone who understands you, trust me. There are a lot of people struggling with the same issues."
As mentioned above, Eric has spent the past month in South Padre for Spring Break, as he coined the month-long mayhem in South Texas with the hashtag #PADRAGE. A weekend ago, this Kentucky basketball fan was, like those in the Bluegrass state, experiencing a roller coaster of emotions in the final minute of their classic Elite 8 tilt with North Carolina in the bars in town, but obviously was agonized when Luke Maye's jumper snatched victory for the Tar Heels. But like any other native of the region, Eric is looking forward to the state's biggest party when he goes to Louisville the first weekend in May for the Kentucky Derby, and it's likely he'll be watching the horse under the Twin Spires with close friend, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
Below is a video from Eric's Spring Break travel company, Easy Travel Agency, as they hosted one of the many events that take place each March down in South Padre.
Below is a video from Eric's Spring Break travel company, Easy Travel Agency, as they hosted one of the many events that take place each March down in South Padre.
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Coming up, ExtraTime In-Depth will focus on another event that happened on a Challenge season of many years past, as with them having just played their last concert this past month, we'll be focusing on the big break the punk pop band Yellowcard had when they performed on a Challenge that includes two Road Rules veterans competing on Invasion of the Champions. That story will come your way sometime this week or during next week's series of posts.
Tonight, join DCNOW @DC408DxNow for the final act of NCAA March Madness: the Final Four in Glendale, AZ, as North Carolina and Gonzaga will battle it out for the National Championship of college basketball. Live tweets begin at 8:30pm ET/5:30PM PT there, and of course tomorrow we'll have MTV Trifecta coverage starting with The Challenge Invasion.
Thanks for checking out this edition of DC ExtraTime, and until then enjoy tonight's game.
- I AM DC
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