For This Student, the Price is Right
Engineering major and resident advisor Patric de Boer won big during a March taping of .
How would you like to attend graduation ceremonies in May, be awarded your degree in civil engineering, then drive off in a brand new, totally free Mazda Miata? And hmmm . . . what to do this summer, after school’s out for the last time? How about celebrating with a free trip to the Bahamas?
This isn’t just some pleasant fantasy for senior Patric de Boer. It’s real life.
An eventful spring break
Patric is a resident assistant (RA) in Tenochca Residence Hall, and in his last semester at SDSU. He, along with 30 other students and RAs, boarded a rented bus and drove up to Hollywood to attend a special “Spring Break” taping of The Price is Right in March. (The show aired March 15 on CBS.)
At the show’s opening, they call down 4 members of the audience, and de Boer was one of the lucky ones. Most of the other SDSU participants were dressed in Aztec colors, but de Boer was wearing his gray “San Diego State Engineering” T-shirt.
“I still can’t believe I got picked,” de Boer said. “There were 400 people in the audience. I was wearing a T-shirt that had a calculator on it. They kind of picked up on the nerd element, I guess.”
Lucky winner
On stage, de Boer participated in games like guessing the price of a Toyota Prius, and spinning a large wheel in the “Showcase Showdown,” which won him $11,000 dollars. This was lucky, because it’s just about the amount he’ll need to pay taxes on the other prizes he won: the Mazda and the trip to the Bahamas, as well as a Mac laptop and new surfboards and wetsuits.
“I’ve never had a new surfboard before,” said de Boer, who grew up in Vista and loves to surf. “Only garage sale and hand-me-down ones.”
De Boer hasn’t yet taken possession of any of the prizes, valued at $44,000 total. “They’re going to bring it all down to my house in Vista sometime around mid-May.”
He’s pretty sure they’re going to let him choose the color of the car: “Red, definitely.”
For the uninformed, The Price is Right is largely a guessing game. Contestants are presented with a variety of products, such as refrigerators, dishwashers and computers, and they must correctly guess the price of each item. When they get it right, they keep the item.
For the “Spring Break,” episode, most of the items were gadgets and tech stuff, de Boer said. Things that would appeal to college students. The show’s host is Drew Carey, who joked around with the students off-camera to help put them at ease.
“He was funny,” de Boer said. “Really sarcastic.”
Surprisingly calm
So did he suffer from any stage fright, in front of all those cameras?
“I was a lot calmer than I thought I’d be. I couldn’t really believe it was even happening. So I wasn’t too nervous.”
Besides, he had a whole group of friends out there in the audience, cheering him on.
“Everyone was decked out in Aztec gear while I was on stage. They were all out there doing the ‘I believe’ chant — the one they do at the basketball games.”
In fact, when Carey asked him if he wanted to say “hi” to anyone, de Boer sent a “shout out” to the Aztec basketball team. At the end of the show, his friends in the audience rushed the stage, dressed in Aztec red and black.
“It’s a good episode,” he said. “It’s worth watching.”
And during the bus ride home to SDSU, everyone was congratulating him.
“It was surreal. Very strange. I couldn’t even believe it.”
But 24-year-old de Boer isn’t the only lucky one in the family. His brother Rory will be accompanying him to the Bahamas this summer.
“I told my brother he’s lucky, too, because right now I don’t have a girlfriend.”
