Diemand-Yauman and Schwartz were competing in the 17th season of the CBS show “The Amazing Race.” Instead of filing out of FitzRandolph Gate on June 1, the team sang a final goodbye to Phil Keoghan, the show’s host, and tossed baseball caps from a Swedish snowscape, having been eliminated in the fourth leg of the race.
“Our last little mini-graduation that we had before we were eliminated from the race was really a special moment,” Schwartz said. “We had kind of a cool connection to each other and to our classmates.”
Over the summer, 11 pairs from varied walks of life followed a trail of clues around the world, completing tasks such as the sledding challenge along the way. The last team to finish each segment of the race was eliminated.
The season premiered Sept. 26, garnering 11.54 million viewers.
A non-disclosure contract signed with CBS prevented the pair from revealing their real reason for missing graduation. It also kept them from sharing their outcome on the show until the episode with their elimination aired Oct. 17.
“If you asked me to name two of the most competitive people I know, I would say Connor and Jonathan,” said Robert Olson ’11, a close friend of the two contestants. “They are both great sports and a lot of fun to play a game with, but there’s no doubt they’re always in it to win. That’s why they were perfect for the show, and why I’m surprised they got knocked out so early.”
To viewers, CBS regularly referred to the pair as “Ivy League a cappella singers.” Diemand-Yauman and Schwartz, who were both members of the Nassoons, often sang for the cameras and were nicknamed “Team Glee” by competitors.
Diemand-Yauman and Schwartz returned to campus for the show’s premiere. At the event, which was held at Campus Club, they sang, answered questions and shared anecdotes.
“It’s very strange and surreal to see yourself on TV,” Schwartz said after being eliminated.
Diemand-Yauman noted in an e-mail that they were being taped constantly during the race.
“Being followed by a camera crew all the time is tough because you get used to it really quickly, which is the last thing you want to happen,” Diemand-Yauman said. “It’s easy to forget that whatever you say or do could eventually be broadcast to 10 million people.”
From the race’s starting point in Gloucester, Mass., the team flew to London, then Ghana, and finally Sweden. Even before leaving America, they got lost on the way to Logan Airport in Boston.
Challenges ranged from paddling across a medieval moat in a small boat to carting a fish-shaped coffin through the streets of Ghana. Their best performance came in the third leg, in which they finished first to win $5,000.
Every week, the Nassoons met to watch each episode.
“Watching Connor and Jonathan on a reality show was kind of strange ... after knowing them for three years and interacting with them in all imaginable situations, from Brazil to Germany on tours, to every night at rehearsal,” said Olson, a member of the Nassoons.
Olson said that while their genuine personalities came through at times, “a lot of the time ... I could tell that the producers were trying to manipulate the situation or the editing of the footage to portray Connor and Jonathan differently, for added drama or an extra laugh.”
Diemand-Yauman and Schwartz’s team page on Facebook has a following of more than 1,400 people. Diemand-Yauman said he has even received some fan mail.
“It’s all been very warm and kind and supportive,” Schwartz said. “Nobody’s camping out in my front yard taking pictures of me.”
Diemand-Yauman said he and Schwartz had been nervous that they would be “portrayed badly or make Princeton look bad.”
“We didn’t want to let Princeton down or give them material to fuel the negative Ivy League stereotypes,” Diemand-Yauman added.
But Olson said his friends were “great ambassadors for Princeton and represented the kind of spirit I feel many Princetonians would bring to such a competition.”
Olson said his favorite moment from the show was a watermelon joust at Eastnor Castle in England. On the castle’s pristine lawn, teams tried to knock down armored knights by catapulting watermelons from medieval weapons called ballistas.
Schwartz and Diemand-Yauman excelled at selling sunglasses in a Ghana marketplace and mushing a team of snow dogs down a forest trail, but they met their match in the Techsled event. After Schwartz made four failed attempts to make it down the Swedish mountain in less than 1 minute, 58 seconds, they fell irrecoverably behind.
Schwartz said he was “pretty embarrassed” by the elimination, but added, “I tried my best, so I’m not beating myself over it, and Connor was incredibly supportive.”
At Princeton, Schwartz participated in Triangle Club and Princeton University Players and held lead roles in a number of University plays. Diemand-Yauman served as USG president in 2009 and received the 2010 Moses Taylor Pyne Honor Prize, which is the highest general distinction awarded to an undergraduate by the University
Michael Yaroshefsky ’12, Diemand-Yauman’s successor as USG president, said in an e-mail that their elimination was “proof that Princeton needs to expand our facilities for sledding education — dining hall trays on Whitman lawn clearly aren’t cutting it.”
“President Tilghman and I have a meeting set up to discuss this pressing campus issue,” Yaroshefsky added.
Schwartz is now performing in the Broadway show “Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark,” and Diemand-Yauman is in South Korea, again in front of the camera for a public television children’s education program.
“I have never been surprised to see them do something extravagant,” Olson said. “And I have no doubt they will both be back in the spotlight very soon.”
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