At the top of her game off the court
"Let's find Myrna Tangar ! Come on down! You're the next contestant on 'The Price Is Right'!" the announcer calls out in the CBS studio.
Tangar, a University of Massachusetts-Boston basketball player, leaps from her seat, high-fives her teammates, and frantically runs around the entire studio before she sprints down the aisle to play with Bob Barker. What began with a slam-dunk bid on a $1,100 wine cabinet took Tangar on an experience that is priceless. (Spoiler alert: She won big!)
"It was insane. It was surreal," says Tangar, 22, of Randolph, who will be watching the show with her team Monday at 11 a.m. on WBZ-TV (Channel 4) in the school's game room. The episode was taped Jan. 4. Tangar recalls how nervous she was when she heard her name called and then later on stage with Barker. She appears to be in disbelief throughout the show.
"At one point, my team screamed, 'Myrna, breathe!' I freaked out," she says.
Tangar, a junior guard on the Beacons , was traveling with the team in California for three games. The UMass-Boston team lost games to Pomona-Pitzer College and North Park University but finished the trip with a 96-50 win over Life Pacific College . The players headed to Los Angeles on their day off to watch the show. Their coach, Shawn Renee Polk , had arranged for tickets last spring.
Standing in line for two hours, Tangar and her teammates answered questions from the show's producers about their names, hometowns, and what brought them to LA. Producers use those interviews to select the contestants they will call onstage during the show. Each audience member was given a name tag and shuffled inside the 350-seat set.
As soon as the athletes settled into their seats, the game was on and Tangar was called to play.
"I knew someone from our group was going to be called, and I had a feeling it was going to be Myrna," Polk says. "She is just filled with energy. She is almost contagious. When we need a burst of energy on the floor, we would put Myrna on the court."
After bidding $1,100 on the cabinet, Tangar, who wore a UMass-Boston T-shirt and sweat pants, moved up onto the stage to play "Barker's Markers," a match game. She nailed the prices for a treadmill, an electric piano, and a dinette set. She also pocketed $500 in cash that she could have used to change one of her answers but she decided not to. (She can thank her team for shouting out that tip.)
Next up, the biology major had to spin the wheel with two other contestants. Players can't go over $1 in this game. "I stopped at 60 cents," she says. The whole time, the Beacon players were shouting for Tangar to stay on that figure. Meanwhile, the other competitor spun too hard and went over the dollar figure , as did the third contestant.
The win placed Tangar into the final showcase against a Marine from Texas. She bid $25,000 on a showcase that included a 2007 yellow Ford Mustang, a portable CD player, and a jukebox. Tangar's bid was $4,000 less than the prize's retail value, while the Marine's was $8,000 less than the value of his showcase. Tangar was nonchalant as Barker compared the bids and her team began screaming she had won.
"I didn't even know I had won," says Tangar, whose teammates hugged her onstage. She dropped to her knees once the news began to sink in. "I was in awe the whole time."
She then sat in her new car with the studio cheering her on.
Back in Boston, Tangar is still waiting for her new wheels, the $500, and some of the other prizes; she has received the wine cabinet and dinette set. (It can take up to 90 days for the show to deliver the prizes, a "Price Is Right" spokeswoman said.) Tangar says she will have to pay taxes and the registration for the car.
She hasn't decided what to do with the money or the prizes. She's still reeling from the excitement.
"It was like having an out-of-body experience," she says.
Johnny Diaz can be reached at jodiaz@globe.com 
