LOS ANGELES -- Mark Cuban, who grew up in Scott and Mt. Lebanon, is following in the footsteps of another billionaire turned TV star. Just don't let him hear any of those comparisons to Donald Trump, even though Cuban's "The Benefactor," premiering at 8 p.m. Monday on ABC, follows the success of Trump's "The Apprentice."

		"The Benefactor" WHEN: 8 p.m. Monday on ABC. HOSTED BY: Mark Cuban. Craig Sjodin/ABC

"The show will stand on its own," Cuban said at an ABC press conference in July. "They're nothing at all alike."

Cuban said he was approached about replacing Trump on "The Apprentice" when there was some thought given to having a different businessman host each season. That was before Trump became a TV star.

"I just told them, 'Look, you don't come after dogs. And you don't come after kids. And you don't come after The Hair,' " Cuban said. "I don't want to do anything like his show. His show is his deal, ours is completely different."

That it is.

Cuban, who made his billions selling broadcast.com to Yahoo! in the late '90s, will pick one of 16 contestants to win $1 million after putting them through a series of trials -- and gleefully toying with them through a few mind games -- but to what good end isn't entirely clear.

"The show is about the contestants. The show is about me finding the right person and opening up a door for them," Cuban said. "It wasn't about who I liked the most. It wasn't about somebody who I felt just puppetted or lived up to a specific template that I was trying to create.

"It was the person I thought was themselves. It was the person I thought that best went through all the challenges and who literally was the type of person that I could believe in, I could support and I would be proud of going forward."

Among the contestants vying for Cuban's million dollars was Pitcairn native Shawn Wallace-Baiza, a second-grade teacher and mother of two who resides in Hemet, Calif. Christine Agosta, a 1996 graduate of Butler High School and 2000 Clarion University grad, is also a "Benefactor" player. She lives in Boise, Idaho.

"I don't want to just be the pretty beauty pageant girl that nobody takes seriously," Agosta, 25, says in Monday's premiere.

Wallace-Baiza, 30, has already been set up in commercials as the show's requisite rhymes-with-witch character.

"I'm the cute, sweet one everyone looks at and says, 'She's so adorable,' " she says in Monday's episode. "Uh-huh. I'm also the sneaky, conniving one. Either you like me or you hate me, and I'm OK with either way, 'cause I love who I am."

In an interview this week, Wallace-Baiza said she's already had to meet with angry parents who have seen her portrayed in an unflattering light in commercials for "The Benefactor."

"I had parents come full on, ready to get in my face ... because I looked like a [witch] on television," the teacher said. "I had meetings with them and my principal and had to explain it's a reality show, that's doesn't mean it's real. It's still very sensational and fictionalizes and takes parts of who you are and turns you into a character. That's so difficult for them to understand that I'm not like that everyday."

Wallace-Baiza, a 1996 graduate of Duquesne University who has a master's degree in education from the University of Pittsburgh, said she has no regrets about appearing on the show, although it was actually her husband, Mike, who really wanted to be a contestant.

"They went with me because I was a teacher, the feel-good kind of thing. Everybody needs one of those on a show," she said.

At ABC's July press conference, executive producer Clay Newbill said Wallace-Baiza surprised Cuban and producers.

"When she actually showed up and started competing on the show, her persona changed somewhat," he said. "It was a surprise to Mark and to all of us as much as it will be to you."

"She was incredible," Cuban added.

Newbill said producers were intrigued by Wallace-Baiza because she asked her students to write a paper about what they would want if she won the million dollars and she promised to give them what was on their wish lists if she were the show's winner.

"When she got on the show, you saw less and less of the sweet second-grade teacher that we liked and more and more the person that [said], 'I've got to get this. This money is going to be mine,' " Newbill said.

(ABC accidentally sent out a review tape that reveals which players are in the final four, but we won't spoil the fun here.)

Both contestants spoke highly of Cuban.

"He's very laid back, down to Earth also," Agosta said. "I think he legitimately wanted to get to know each one of us. It was also a game and a challenge."

Cuban has been sparring with Trump in the press for months now (e.g. Cuban slams Trump's financially troubled casinos, Trump disses the Dallas Mavericks, which Cuban owns), but Wallace-Baiza is standing by her show's leading man.

"There is so much hype between Donald Trump and him, but Mark Cuban blows him out of the water," she said. "He is such an amazing person. ... Just to sit with him is so enlightening. Trump is so arrogant and he wants everyone to know how much money he has and how wonderful he is. You sit with Mark and he wants you to know he's a real person and it's not about the money. It's really cool to be with him."

Cuban said his war of words with Trump is just good-natured joshing.

"I don't want to call it shtick because there's always a basis of fact underneath it ... but that's the way the media works. It's playing softball with the media," he said. "It's just barbs, it's just wit, it's just a lot of fun."