'This is where I'm supposed to be': Tucsonan Nadi Carey takes on the best in 'The Titan Games'

While late November is the point in the year when the holiday season is kicked off, it’s also primetime college basketball season for Nadi Carey.

Carey, a Tucsonan and former Pima College women’s basketball standout, is an NCAA Division I basketball referee and travels around the eight Western states that have Big Sky Conference schools.

Between October and March, Carey is booked.

But Carey’s aunt, Latoya McCord, watched the first season of “The Titan Games” prior and formed an idea. That TV show on NBC, founded by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, features top amateur athletes — male and female — competing against each other in a number of exercises and obstacle courses for $100,000.

“‘Well, I was thinking you should go on that show.’ I started laughing,” Carey said of the conversation with her aunt.

Carey thought the suggestion was outlandish. Remember, this was well before the novel coronavirus stretched overseas and plagued the U.S. so the sports world hadn’t abruptly ended yet. Carey had an overloaded schedule and hadn’t competed in an organized setting since her college basketball playing days at NCAA Division II Texas Permian Basin in 2013.

Plus, she hadn’t power-lifted, so training before filming the second season of “The Titan Games” didn’t seem plausible.

“Two months later, I got an email from NBC producers and they’re like, ‘We got your application and all your information. We love you and want to do a phone interview,’” She said. “Come to find out, she put in an application for me and I had no idea.”

Carey was an athlete and basketball star her entire life. Before leading Pima College to the NJCAA championship, she won a state championship at Canyon del Oro High School. Carey had been in a competitive setting on a weekly basis during the college basketball season, but officiating has a different mindset, which is why she hesitated.

“I had a little bit of doubt in myself. When you haven’t competed in a while, you start to doubt yourself,” Carey said. “You’re like, ‘Do I still got it? Is this going to work?’ Luckily, I have family members and a trainer to motivate me.

“My mom, my grandma, my aunt, my dad, my brothers and sister and my trainer were like, ‘Hey look, this is a once in a lifetime chance. Even if you lose, who cares? There were hundreds of thousands of people who applied for this show and they want you to come, they want to see you and they love you.

“They fell in love with your story so who cares if you win? Who cares if you lose? This is an opportunity that 1% of this world has and you’re that 1%.’ I didn’t even think of it like that. It’s like they got into a group message, because they all were saying the same thing.”

Challenge accepted.

With just over a month until Carey flew out to Los Angeles for the 60-person combine, she turned to her personal trainer Tim Adams for guidance. For six days a week, Carey strength-trained in Adams’ garage in preparation for Season 2.

At the combine, Carey completed a number of tests, including hanging from a bar, a three-minute push-up challenge, how long she could run on a treadmill with the speed and incline of the machine maximized and powerlifting exercises. Carey’s all-time best deadlift was 460 pounds, but she recorded 420 at the combine.

“A week later I got a phone call — ‘Hey, we love you. You did well at the combine and we want you to be a Titan,’” Carey said.

Carey was selected to be one of 36 contestants to compete on the show. The other Titans, which also included Tucson native and Mountain View High School graduate Robbie Rodriguez, have varying occupations ranging from middle school social studies teacher, Cirque Du Soleil performer, security officer, winemaker, strength coach and college basketball referee, which is Carey. Rodriguez currently works as a nurse in Miami.

Season 2 of “The Titan Games,” which premieres on Monday at 5 p.m. on Channel 4, added a twist: professional athletes will also compete against the contestants.

The list of pros include boxer Claressa Shields, former NFL offensive lineman Joe Thomas, ex-Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz, stuntwoman Jessie Graff, snowboarder Hannah Teter and former UFC fighter Tyron Woodley.

If a pro athlete wins the $100,000, the money will be donated to charity.

Competing against pros isn’t foreign to Carey. Her entire life, she “was always the one who set the example and led by example” as the older sister with three younger siblings. Her brother Elijah and sister Evasia are the youngest of the Carey bunch. The second-oldest sibling in the Carey household? Her brother Ka’Deem, former Chicago Bear and All-American running back for the Arizona Wildcats, who is currently under contract with the CFL’s Calgary Stampeders.

“We’ve always competed ever since we were little. … She always pushed me to be who I was,” Ka’Deem said.

The sport in which Ka’Deem and Nadi battled against each other the most was basketball.

“Basketball was me and Nadi’s thing. I beat her one time my whole entire life and we had to have played at least over 100 times,” Ka’Deem said.

There was only one rule in their basketball bouts: they couldn’t play 1-on-1 until the brutal Arizona heat cooled off in the evening.

“She set it straight. I would have to play her two times that day. I had to wait all day until I played my big sister and I would always say, ‘I’m going to beat her today,’” he said. “She gave me two chances. ‘If you don’t get it in those two chances then you better wait for the next sun to go down.’”

The younger Carey didn’t beat his older sister until he was 16. Looking back, those years for Ka’Deem to try to beat his sister at their go-to sport was what drove him to excel in athletics.

“It all started with Nadi. I just wanted to be a winner like her at the end of the day,” he said.

The competitive and win-at-all-costs mindset developed studious habits such as watching film of opponents to pinpoint strengths and weaknesses and develop a game plan. Unfortunately for Carey, she didn’t know about who she was competing against in “The Titan Games” until the night before and was informed about the competition just before it started.

“That was the toughest challenge for me, because I didn’t know how to prepare,” Nadi said.

Did she win? Did she lose? The world will have to find out starting Monday.

“I kind of felt like a small fish in a big pond, because there were a couple of CrossFitters that compete and do this for a living and then there’s little Nadi, who’s a referee and basketball player,” Carey said.

“It felt like a bigger arena than what I was supposed to be in. But once I got there, I realized, ‘I’m supposed to be here. This is where I’m supposed to be. … I just feel blessed to be the 1% of people that get to be on ‘The Titan Games.’ Win or lose, it was an awesome experience and I got to meet a lot of great people. I would compete again.”

All thanks to Aunt Latoya.