‘Dancing with the Stars’ spotlight: Will Noah Galloway’s story inspire voters?

The cast of “Dancing with the Stars” was announced on Monday night, and you know what that means: It’s spotlight season! Periodically over the next couple of weeks, we are going to bring you individual takes on every person who is a part of this season. We’ll tell you who they are (you really need an education for some of them), what their strengths and weaknesses are, and also how they should fare in the season.

We begin with someone in Noah Galloway who is probably the least-famous contestant going into this. He’s currently sitting at under 7,000 Twitter followers, and what is going to be fun about this is watching that number increase throughout this season. He’s very much in the Amy Purdy – JR Martinez inspirational story mode, and given both of them made the finale, you have to think that he is going to have a good shot at this.

Name – Noah Galloway

Age – 33 years old, according to his website.

Claim to Fame – He is currently the only contestant without a Wikipedia page, and he’s not altogether well-known. He is an Iraq War veteran who lost a leg and a arm, but has since worked to become a motivation speaker and has even appeared on the cover of Men’s Health. Just to give you some further insight into who he is, we found a video on YouTube.

Strengths – To be able to be this determined after losing what he has shows grit. Noah has grit for days. He will work very hard at this, and he’s young and clearly in very good shape. Also, don’t discount the fact that he may be able to commit more to this than people like Nastia Liukin, who will be traveling cross-country every week.

Weaknesses – While JR and Amy were able to sell their stories well and convince people to vote for them, there’s no guarantee Noah will. He has no built-in fan following, and he’ll have to make them from the get-go. Also, you wonder if over time you start to become a little more immune to the story when you’ve had contestants with either war experience or an amputee on the show before.

Prediction – Noah will probably make it through the first week or two simply because he has a good story. However, we’re not sure yet if any of his actual skills translate to the dance floor. Right now he’s middle of the pack, since there’s no way to know for certain that he can actually dance. As inspirational as he may be. the judges do not score on that alone.

Have an early prediction for Mike? Vote in the poll, and head over here to see some other spotlights for this season! Also, sign up to score some other news worth dancing about via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: ABC.)