Doing the Gator Chomp at “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”

While we waited for the family to arrive home, I posed with Jamie Goldman and Lindsay Marten, fellow UF students.

Cameras clicked, mothers dragged reticent children by their wrists and people passed water bottles through the crowd. It was hot and the grass was muddy; particleboard had been spread on the ground, probably in an effort to protect expensive footwear, though it might also have been a shot at saving the neighbor’s overrun lawn.

Shoulder to shoulder and pulsing against the barricades with excitement, the crowd stared across the street toward the house.

It was not your typical Monday morning; this was the final day of shooting for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which was visiting Gainesville. The home of the Wagstaff family had been remodeled and both Julie and I had come to see the finished product – a project on which several University of Florida and College of Design, Construction and Planning affiliates had worked.  

One of the affiliates was graduate architecture student Ryan McGinn, who was working as a production assistant for the show. Neither Julie nor I had ever met him before, but when we arrived around 11:30 a.m., we called his cell phone and he graciously came to meet us.

After the typical introductions he spoke with us for a few minutes and walked us to our places where we, like so many others, stood waiting for the action.

In a way it wasn’t that different from a Gator football game. The dress was a sea of orange and blue, the green alligator mascots Albert and Alberta came dancing down the street and UF cheerleaders led the crowd in rousing choruses of Gator cheers.  People did the Gator Chomp for the cameras, and sang “It’s Great to Be a Florida Gator.”

But the atmosphere was also one of a movie set. Crew members called instructions to the crowd; we practiced chanting “move that bus!” twice and at one point we even practiced looking left as the limo driver rehearsed his drive down the road before parking behind the huge, multi-colored bus.

“Where’s Ty?” people asked.

“Grey shirt, curly black hair!” a woman called, yelling photographic instructions to a young girl perched upon the shoulders of a tall man.

Julie and I stood a few rows back, directly across the street from the house, soaking in the atmosphere as onlookers jockeyed for position. Earlier in the day it had looked like it might rain, but by afternoon people were standing underneath umbrellas in defiance of the unbearably hot December sun instead. Bystanders held the ends of welcome home balloons and handmade signs that proclaimed “We Love Ty!”

Around 4:30 p.m., while we were waiting for the family members to arrive home and view their new house for the first time, Julie and I decided to take a walk up the long row of people to the left.

During a stroll down the long line of people, I was able to meet Paul DiMeo, one of the show's designers.

During this stroll I met one of the show’s designers, Paul DiMeo, for a few seconds, and just minutes after taking a photo with me, he looked up from signing someone’s shirt and announced, “they’re just around the corner!”

The family was on its way.

When the limo rolled down the small street a roar went up from the crowd. Three times they chanted “move that bus,” and minutes later it zoomed forward, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake and revealing to the family their newly remodeled home.

The crowd exploded with cheers and whistles, and it’s a funny thing. The heat, the jostling, the mosquitoes and the exceptionally long wait … it didn’t really seem to matter that much to them.

“I’m happy for the family,” said a lady to my right. And that’s how it seemed to be all around – from the spectators, the crew, the volunteers and the UF students like Ryan.

Happy for the family.