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Eric McCandless/Getty/CBS Broadcasting Inc.
On Monday morning, hours after Gorham High School physics teacher Bob Crowley won national fame and the million-dollar prize on the CBS show "Survivor," his class was scheduled to take a test.
Surely, students thought, their teacher would be too busy with his newfound fame and fortune to give an exam.
He was.
But he had arranged for a substitute to give the test, an indication that Crowley hasn't changed much.
"My phone is vibrating right now, and I'm sure it's kids complaining they still had to take the test," Crowley said by phone Monday morning while riding in a limousine in New York City just after appearing on "The Early Show" on CBS. "But they have to learn that life goes on."
It was that kind of no-nonsense approach to even the smallest details that helped the 57-year-old South Portland resident survive 39 days in the African wilderness on the hit reality show. He ended up "outwitting, outplaying and outlasting" opponents with a combination of Maine-honed survival skills, ingenuity and physical agility.
Besides being a physics teacher, Crowley is a lobsterman, a tree pruner, a wildlife handler, a handyman and an outdoorsman.
"I think he'll be the same guy. He just might joke about money a little more now," said Clayton Loubier, a senior at Gorham High who took Crowley's test on Monday. "The guy you saw on TV is the guy we see in class, but he's a lot funnier in person."
John Caterina, a chemistry teacher at Gorham High, was even more confident that Crowley would not change.
"He'll still be the ultimate penny pincher," Caterina said. "Hopefully, he'll fix his lobster boat so he can finally haul his traps from a real boat instead of from a canoe."
Crowley didn't engage in the name-calling so often seen on "Survivor," which was an important factor because the winner is chosen by contestants voted out on earlier episodes. Crowley's good-guy image came through on TV, and he got an extra $100,000 for being voted a fan favorite.
"I think he was very respectful to others and didn't alienate people," said Glenn Cummings of Portland, a former teacher who was a colleague of Crowley for 10 years. "But in the end, he didn't win just because he was a nice guy. It was because the others really respected his resourcefulness and cunning. A little bit of cunning is not uncharacteristic of Mainers."
Crowley has no immediate plans for the money. He thinks he might take his wife, Peggy, on the honeymoon they never had when they got married 28 years ago.
"I'd like to take Peggy back to Gabon (where 'Survivor' was filmed) and see it like a real tourist," he said.
Crowley said part of his strategy was to keep his weight up so he could keep his energy level high. While other contestants lost weight on a diet of ants and plants and saw their energy wane, Crowley gained more than two pounds. He said he gathered dozens of lemon-sized fruits known as "Gabon pears," and tried to eat 40 to 50 a day.
On the show, not everyone had nice things to say about Crowley. Randy Bailey, a wedding videographer from Missouri, was furious after Crowley gave him a fake "immunity idol" he had made, and it led to Bailey getting voted off the show.
Crowley said he liked everyone he met on "Survivor," and plans to keep in touch with some of them, including Bailey. (For all his bluster on the show, Bailey voted for Crowley to win.)
Crowley also said he didn't understand why so many other contestants disliked his fellow finalist, model Sugar Kiper.
"I didn't see her as being mean. She was playing the game," he said.
On Sunday's finale, Crowley lost a challenge – after winning five in a row – that some people thought was tailor-made for him. It involved building a 10-foot-tall house of cards using tiles. But the physics teacher flopped badly – his house kept falling over.
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