Cody Kennedy knows he is not the biggest, the fastest or the strongest, but tomorrow the Olathe senior travels to Austin, Texas to try out for NBC’s American Gladiators.

Kennedy, who is 6-foot and 190 pounds, said some of the gladiators and contests on the show outweighed him by 80 to 90 pounds, but Kennedy said he was not worried.

“If I start worrying about other people, I’m only going to stress myself out,” Kennedy said. “I’m going to view it as I’m my only competition. I believe I’ve got a chance, a small a chance as it might be. If I turn it on, I might be able to turn some heads.”

Kennedy said he used to watch the original version of American Gladiators, which aired from 1989 to 1996, as a child with his father. He said he saw an advertisement for the new American Gladiators on NBC’s Web site a year ago, but casting calls were only a week away. He said he decided he would try out for the second season and trained ever since. Kennedy said he never had the desire to be on a reality TV show, but he thought the show would be a good opportunity to make a new start. He said when he first told people he was trying out for the show, they thought he was joking. Now, he said, they were extremely supportive.

Kennedy said he knew he would be tested on strength and conditioning and agility at the tryout, but he did not know how he would be tested because the show has been very secretive about the tryouts. He said he ran and lifted in preparation and he has pushed himself harder than he ever had before.

“Part of this is just about proving to myself that I can do something on short notice,” Kennedy said. “I guess that is what is kind of exciting about it. I’ve never been one to just do this on a whim.”

Kennedy said he and three of his friends would drive to Austin for the tryout. He said there were also tryouts in Chicago and Denver on the same date, but he chose Austin because the weather there was more favorable than in the other two cities.

Kennedy said he and his friends would take turns driving, but that they hoped to arrive at 3 a.m., so he would have several hours to rest before he waited in line for the competition. He said the competition would begin at 10 a.m. and end at 4 p.m. He also said he expects at least 1,000 people to be at the tryout, so it would be important for him to arrive in Austin early.

Kennedy said he was unsure how many contestants the show would take from Austin because it had one more tryout in New York the following Saturday. He said contestants could also try out via video, but that he thought he had a better chance of making the show if he participated in a live tryout.

In the past, contestants on the show broke bones and tore ligaments, but Kennedy said he was not worried about being harmed. He is only nervous about his performance.

“I know I’m going to have butterflies,” Kennedy said. “When I go to the gym and stuff like that, that is all I think about it. But I think when I get down there and my name is called, I think I’m going to be able to push all that aside, and really turn it on.”

Kennedy is not worried about his safety, but he said his mother was.

“When I told her I was going to Austin in two weeks, she was like ‘you’ve got to be kidding,’” he said. “She’s starting to come around and kind of go for it more. My dad just thinks I’m a kook.”

Kennedy’s friends said they were excited about Kennedy’s tryout as well. Ryan Colston, a former KU student and Olathe resident who was friends with Kennedy since junior high school, said Kennedy told him to use the opportunity to sightsee, but that sightseeing was out of the question.

“He said numerous times, ‘you can just take my keys and do whatever you want,’ but that is not why I am going,” Colston said. “I’m going down to support my friend and that is what I’m going to do.”

Colston said he would wait in line with Kennedy, but he was not yet sure whether he would be allowed to watch the tryout. Colston said Kennedy was not very muscular in high school, but Kennedy buffed up quickly after he and Colston became security guards at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Bonner Springs.

“People called us the bash brothers,” Colston said. “We went through a span of two concerts where we put two people in the hospital. That was when the Bash brothers came out.”

Colson’s girlfriend, Spenser Kultala, a former KU student and Kansas City, Kan., resident said she thought Kennedy would be selected because he put his entire heart into the preparing for the tryout.

“He’s bulked up a lot since I first met him and he’s really training hard, and he’s got his mind focused on it,” Kultala said. “What more could he ask for?”

Kultala, who has known Kennedy for more than two years, will also travel with Kennedy to Austin. She said she hoped he made the show because she never knew anyone who was selected to be on a reality television show.

Kennedy said he thought it would be funny if he made the show, because when he is 50, he would be able to tell his grandchildren he was on American Gladiators when he was young and dumb.

“The old one is on ESPN classic. I remember as a kid I watched it and said, ‘I wanna do that! I wanna do that!’” Kennedy said. “I would have never once thought as I kid I would have the opportunity to do that, and now I do. So it has kind of come full circle.”

Kennedy said he has not put much thought into what he would do about finishing school if he was selected as a contestant for the show. He said he was presently completing an internship for credit, so he did not think it would be hard to obtain permission to take time off to tape the show.

He said he did not know when he would find out if he was selected, but that the show would begin taping in late April or early May in Los Angeles.

—Edited by Samuel Lamb