sam horrigan

This season on CW's "Beauty and the Geek," premiering Tuesday night at 8 on WLVI [website] (Ch. 56), one Tufts University student will challenge the stereotype.

"A woman would be attracted to a guy geek more so than a guy to a girl geek. In dating, that is kind of a raw deal," said Nicole Morgan, 25, the first female geek cast opposite a male "himbo" on the popular series.

The show pairs male brainiacs with gorgeous women in a "social experiment" that tests their ability to work together for a $250,000 prize.

Morgan and her partner, Sam Horrigan, are part of this season's surprise twist - so much so that the network wouldn't release a clear picture of her.

Morgan felt out of her comfort zone while working with Horrigan, 26, an exercise nut with dreams of becoming a club owner.

"When I first met my partner, I was very intimidated. I was wondering what he would think of me. It made me feel weird because I never think about stuff like that," Morgan said.

The San Francisco-area native is a trained vocalist who studied engineering at Caltech before transferring to the University of Southern California to major in music.

"What I found when I came in was I was really intimidated by the beauties. I felt completely overwhelmed. In my one-on-one interactions, I found we had common experiences and feelings," Morgan said.

Now working on a degree in musicology at Tufts, Morgan said, "I think there's definitely a passion for academics, which can lead to a more introverted person. I've always been very school-oriented. I'm sheltered. I have missed the typical person's life."

Romance is not one of the program's goals, but it has found its way into the show in previous seasons.

"I have a lot of male friends who you could say are geeks. CalTech was like 30 percent female. I was used to socializing with guys on a platonic level," Morgan said.

"I call my ideal guy the alpha geek. If you compare him to other geeks, he'll be the funniest of the geeks. He'll be the life of the party, not just a wallflower," Morgan said.

A night on the town for Morgan involves having a beer at one of Davis Square's laid-back bars.

"I think I went to a club once when I was in Boston. My friend is more of the dancing type. I hate the noisy clubs. I like sitting down and being able to hear (people). I just don't do well (in those situations). I have this big personal bubble. It is hard to be at a place that is so packed," Morgan said.

She said working with Horrigan helped draw her out of her shell.

History's most renowned conversion was Saul of Tarsus, the notorious persecutor of early Christians, who, knocked from his feet on the road to Damascus, became Paul the Apostle.

The conversion of John W. Dean perhaps comes in second.

Watergate knocked Dean off his horse. He was President Richard Nixon's White House counsel, the paymaster for the Watergate burglars of 1972, the man who tried to keep the cover on. A year later, when he deduced he was being set up to take the fall, he flipped.

People of a certain age (ahem) still remember where we were when Dean testified before Sen. Sam Ervin and his Watergate committee, ripping the cover off the cover-up. Advertisement


After helping the government prepare its cases against his former colleagues, Dean's four-year sentence for obstruction of justice was reduced to time served. He moved to California and became mildly rich as an author, investment banker and a regular on the talking-for-dollars circuit.

Of late, he's emerged as a political commentator and the author of a trilogy of books, condemning the Bush administration in particular and Republican conservatives in general.

The latest is "Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Branches." That's a bit of hyperbole, but you get his drift.

Presumably Dean's books are conscience-driven; he calls himself a Goldwater Republican by training but an independent at the polls.

"Broken Government" argues that the Republican Party of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and their ilk betrayed conservative principles. How? By undermining the processes of government in the pursuit of power.

The book is mostly what is known at newspapers as a "clip job" ― look up the clips of what other people have written and recast it. Dean assembles his clips like a good lawyer preparing a brief; sadly his book reads like a legal brief as well. MORE BOOK REVIEWS
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This is not to say his book isn't valuable; it's a careful analysis, with footnotes and citations, of what has been argued about Iraq, the war on terrorism, the administration's penchant for secrecy, Congressional lobbying scandals and Supreme Court appointments. But there's not much original in it. Dean is a wizard with Google, and the well-informed reader will find himself going over well-plowed ground. Think of "Broken Government" as a sort of CliffsNotes on the Republican Revolution.Kelly on the hit ABC sitcom Grace Under Fire.

Sam played Spike Hammersmith in the movie Little Giants and also has made guest appearances on TV shows like One Tree Hill, Joan of Arcadia, Desperate Housewives, and 8 Simple Rules. Also starred in Accepted as one of the Frat Brothers. He played Val in the 1998 Disney Channel Original Movie Brink!. In 1995, he played Xander in the movie Escape to Witch Mountain.