S33: Anthony Sadler & Spencer Stone

[Whimsy]

Just like in previous seasons, there will be a team who are best friends from childhood. Anthony Sadler and Spencer Stone both hail from Sacramento.
 

[theschnauzers]

They’re also two of the three childhood friends who stopped a terrorist on a train from Belgium to Paris in 2015. That incident was the subject of a 2016 biography and a 2017 film directed by Clint Eastwood.

 

There’s more to the story, especially with Spencer, but that will have to wait for another time.

Edited December 18, 2021 by theschnauzers
Typos

[pezgirl7]

I just watched The 15:17 to Paris on HBO Max. I questioned having the real life guys play themselves, because the acting wasn’t great, but seeing them re-enact what they actually went through made it more touching. I was crying for about the last ten minutes. lol I think Spencer got very lucky with the gun jamming. I’m definitely rooting for this team now!

[theschnauzers]

The “more to the story”

Spencer was the victim of a knife attack in Oregon in 2016, which damage to several organs and required emergency heart surgery, but he did fully recover.

In the late summer of 2020, after the production suspension started, French newspaper reports that Spencer was hospitalized in Paris while waiting to give testimony in the trial of the terrorist and their accomplices. Nothing further about that was ever reported.

This past week, Lulu and Layla posted a video podcast with Anthony and Spencer, during which Anthony explained that he had just begun a new job in the finance field just before teams were being alerted that production was about to resume, and that is why they did not return to restart the race. (In other words, Spencer’s health issues were not a factor at all.)

For me, it’s definitely regrettable that they weren’t able to return. They were clearly a very strong team, and their experience backpacking in Europe was a strength with the way this season played out,

[ProfCrash]

Thanks for the report. I knew there would be a good reason for their not returning and I was pretty sure it had to do with a job. I hadn't even considered a health reason. 

[Netfoot]

20 minutes ago, theschnauzers said:

Spencer was the victim of a knife attack in Oregon in 2016, which damage to several organs and required emergency heart surgery, but he did fully recover.

So... he's been stabbed twice? Wow.

[ProfCrash]

30 minutes ago, Netfoot said:

So... he's been stabbed twice? Wow.

Yup, I vaguely remember the attack in the States. He was out with some friends and there was an altercation and he was helping a friend. The dude who stabbed him plead guilty and had a record of violence. 

https://www.cnn.com/2015/10/08/us/california-spencer-stone-stabbing/index.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stabbing_of_Spencer_Stone

 

[AZChristian]

Just watched their movie.  Wow.  I hope they get to come back to TAR.  They obviously know their way around Europe!  (But let's not put them on a train.)

[chaifan]

I watched the clip of Spencer talking about why they didn't return, and it was mostly because Anthony's new job.  And I am just thinking, really?  This show can be marketing gold.  Why wouldn't a company let someone delay starting a job by a month?  It's a finance job, not some mission critical position that can't wait a month.  Let him go, and ask him to mention his job as Finance Manager for XYZ Company in every post-race interview.  Put his race bio on your website so every search for Anthony results in the company website popping up.

I hate to be so cynical, but I think something else was at play.  There were other reports about one of them having an injury, but maybe they don't want that to be the "official" reason. 

[ProfCrash]

43 minutes ago, chaifan said:

I watched the clip of Spencer talking about why they didn't return, and it was mostly because Anthony's new job.  And I am just thinking, really?  This show can be marketing gold.  Why wouldn't a company let someone delay starting a job by a month?  It's a finance job, not some mission critical position that can't wait a month.  Let him go, and ask him to mention his job as Finance Manager for XYZ Company in every post-race interview.  Put his race bio on your website so every search for Anthony results in the company website popping up.

I hate to be so cynical, but I think something else was at play.  There were other reports about one of them having an injury, but maybe they don't want that to be the "official" reason. 

Having an employee appear on a reality show is not an opportunity for most employers. What would a Finance Management company do with Anthony who appeared on the Race? Advertise that an employee ran the Race? What does that do for the companies clients? I don't think that the Racers drop their companies names on the show. 

All the company sees is that an employee is going to be missing a month worth of work. Spencer said this was a promotion, the company wants to have that person working and doing their job. Jobs are one of the reasons why lots of people will never attempt to participate in reality TV shows, they are not easy to leave even for 30 days. 

[Rootbeer]

1 hour ago, chaifan said:

I watched the clip of Spencer talking about why they didn't return, and it was mostly because Anthony's new job.  And I am just thinking, really?  This show can be marketing gold.  Why wouldn't a company let someone delay starting a job by a month?  It's a finance job, not some mission critical position that can't wait a month.  Let him go, and ask him to mention his job as Finance Manager for XYZ Company in every post-race interview.  Put his race bio on your website so every search for Anthony results in the company website popping up.

I hate to be so cynical, but I think something else was at play.  There were other reports about one of them having an injury, but maybe they don't want that to be the "official" reason. 

Racers are told they cannot tell anyone they are going on the Race, even their bosses.  Therefore, good PR or not, Anthony's new boss would've had to have granted him a 30 day LOA with no information as to what he would be doing with the time.

Also, do we know anything about Anthony and his life?  Maybe he lost his previous job due to COVID or the economy and was unemployed for a while.  Maybe he couldn't afford a month's unpaid leave from his job at this point in his life.

[theschnauzers]

The issue for Anthony was that he had just been promoted into the new job, and was in an essential role where he couldn’t be away for a month (which included the time for the show’s quarantine for Covid-19 testing and protocols and the changes being made .) That probably was even more so in this pandemic era where a lot of remote work was going on and supervisors needed to be available. Spencer was about to start classes (he’s in college) but I was left with the impression that if Anthony could return then that wouldn’t have stopped him.