My Trivial Pursuit
With Alex Trebek at my one shining moment in 2011.
In 2011, I achieved a lifelong goal by appearing on Jeopardy!. My stay was…brief. People have a lot of questions about it to this day: what was Alex really like? Do they tell you what to study? Why didn’t you ring in more? I wrote this memoir of the experience just after returning from Culver City. My nerves were still raw, but years later it remains a fair recollection of the whirlwind experience.
The Kindle rested on my lap, Fitzgerald going unread as the minutes trudged their way around the clock. Somehow there were still three hours before I could escape from L.A, and the seat in the fading terminal wasn’t getting any cushier.
Oh, there had been some excitement during the wait for the red-eye out of LAX. The paparazzi had rushed to shoot an arriving Gwen Stefani (“No Doubt lead singer, had a solo career, married Bush’s Gavin Rossdale,” I had told myself, unable to turn off the auto-recall that had become second nature over the past few years). And I had spotted Harry Shearer (who happens to star in both my favorite TV show and movie, The Simpsons and This is Spinal Tap), exiting a flight from New Orleans.
But as I waited to board that flight back home, exhausted and disappointed, there was mainly silence. Normally, I’d be memorizing airport codes, but not tonight. After the stress of the past three days, there was nothing left to say.
The odyssey was over.
Jeopardy had been a constant in my life for as long as I could remember. I’m slightly younger than the syndicated version of the show that debuted in 1984 with new host Alex Trebek, and I can’t remember a time when I didn’t watch it. At 7:30, you watched Jeopardy. It was a given. I can even remember getting my first correct response, which was about Benjamin Franklin and was probably a $100 question (in the game show’s parlance) when I was in first grade.
Time keeps moving, but Jeopardy stays — that blue set, the think music, Alex Trebek’s alternating encouragement and reproach, the awkward contestant interviews. The culture might continue to devolve, but Jeopardy is always there, rewarding the well-read and curious.
My first week of college, I went around the dorm and invited my new friends to watch Jeopardy, thinking my fellow presidential scholars would bond over one of television’s last bastions of intelligence. We did, and by the end of junior year, my roommates were competing with scoreboards and pads of paper and season standings.
Were we any good? It was hard to say. Compared to my peers, I figured I was strong enough to watch at home and impress anyone who happened to be in the room. But compared to, say, the kids in the college tournament? I was light years (a unit of distance, not time) behind.
By that third year of college, I was taking the online contestant test for the college tournament. The test consists of 50 clues in rapid succession, 15 seconds per clue. You either know it or you don’t. The categories are as varied as in a regular game; you might type Ibsen and Lady Gaga on successive clues. Jeopardy lore says that 35 is passing, but you never find out your official score.
I took the online test (eventually moving on to the adult version) for three years before I was confident that I had passed; even then, I squeaked by with a 37 or 38, and I never heard back for an in-person audition and test. You can only take the test once a year. Like every step of the Jeopardy process, you’ll never hear a peep back from the powers that be in Culver City unless they want you to advance. And with untold thousands of people taking the online test for roughly 400 contestant slots a year, your chances of even getting past the online test are less than slim.
It was around junior year of college, in 2005, when I began to get obsessive about Jeopardy. I devoted free time to memorizing obscure world capitals, ingesting presidential facts, and cramming British royalty. Final Jeopardy felt like a nightly test on a par with my schoolwork. An incorrect Final Jeopardy response became an added homework assignment.
I got an early 90s CD-ROM game (later versions became far too easy) that helped me improve my weaker categories, like sitcoms and art. I played old games on the magnificent J-Archive, a fan-created compendium of more than two decades of Jeopardy clues. I read Ken Jennings’ book on trivia nuts and Bob Harris’ Prisoner of Trebekistan. I learned about betting strategy on the show’s message board, reminding myself why math categories aren’t my favorite. Heck, I even made Jeopardy my computer wallpaper.
Mostly, I tried to memorize the one-to-ones, as I call them: the clues that lead to automatic responses. If Alex mentions Tahiti in an art category, stop right there and respond with “Who is Paul Gauguin?” Some devotees call it Pavlovian Jeopardy. Swedish playwright is always Strindberg, Polish astronomer is always Copernicus, Finnish composer is always Sibelius, nonsense poet is always Lear, Menlo Park is always Edison, Catholic president is always Kennedy, not being able to go home again is always Thomas Wolfe, Doge and St. Mark’s is always Venice, and so on.
It’s a kind of shorthand that, admittedly, amounts to a Cliff’s notes version of world history — but for Jeopardy, that’s exactly what you need to master. It doesn’t matter if you’ve read the complete Twain, but you better be able to come up with Langhorne as his middle name.
Learning the entire Jeopardy canon is impossible, because there is always a new batch of world leaders or a fresh Oscar season. Anagrams or other word play categories are a major wild card. Moreover, studying became a giant loop. I’d learn one royal house and realize I was woefully ignorant about another. I’d learn five African capitals and remember that many of them have former colonial names that could come up in a game. The process was daunting, and often overwhelming.
As every home player does, I’d often wonder if I was good enough to compete on the show. Although I studied feverishly, it was easy to get discouraged. On even a good night of Jeopardy, I was still stumped on entire categories. And the fact that the average player gets only half of all Final Jeopardy clues right…well, that wasn’t at all reassuring.
Two online tests ago, I was finally performing well enough to entertain thoughts of heading to New York City for an in-person audition. I passed (the test transcripts posted on the message board are invaluable), again hovering just above 35, but as the weeks went by, I never got an invitation to the next round.
The odds of making past it even one round are astronomical, I tried to remind myself, but I had to admit: the years between online tests were getting long. I wondered if I was wasting my time. It’s believed that passing scorers are randomly selected to go to an in-person audition (otherwise the show could spend a month in New York interviewing candidates), so even if you’re confident you passed, in the end, Jeopardy guarantees you nothing.
And yet — I was enjoying the process. It was an open-ended and noble goal, as I saw it, and there was no rush. I’d watch the show and surprise myself, coming up with some name or date I’d tried to cram — El Cid or astronomical redshift or Chopin or the Orinoco River or Giuseppe Garibaldi or Mary Baker Eddy. It was addictive. I craved new episodes of Jeopardy, always with an eye on the future. At some point, your age starts to inhibit your ability to recall information quickly, but that was still decades away.
There was plenty of time.
By the winter of 2010, it was time to try the online test yet again. If anything, I had only become more devoted. I played 10 games a week (reruns were valuable, contrary to what you might think, because I could learn clues by rote). Taking a cue from a past Jeopardy great, I outfitted my bathroom with a world map shower curtain. I thumbed through Trivial Pursuit cards and reference works. I plowed through Oscar nominees on Netflix. I read every day. I played NPR’s Sunday Puzzle, even though, as a WAMC employee, I’m ineligible to participate on air. I tried to distill every piece of knowledge I came across into Jeopardy prep.
When I took the 2010 version of the online test, I had hope. It was five years into the quest and I hadn’t missed an episode in memory. The online test is known to be more difficult than the in-person version — the contestant coordinators want to weed out people who can’t compete as early in the process as they can — so when I scored around 40, I had a sense that it might be now or never. As hard as I was working at it, I was never a genius, and it was unreasonable to think I could do much better.
A few weeks later, the email arrived, inviting me to an in-person audition.
I was heading to New York City.
I always considered myself a blue-collar type of player. Never did quiz bowl, never won a spelling bee. I went to a state school, not Dartmouth. I was a decent student because I always went to class and stayed home reading on Fridays, not because I could coast thanks to natural intelligence. Anyway, there were plenty of Ivy League-caliber wannabe champs in the basement of the Sheraton in midtown Manhattan last April, where Jeopardy was in town for a week to audition groups of about 40 players in shifts all day.
I had studied my one-to-ones on the train down from Poughkeepsie (New York’s second capital) and in Times Square (named for the newspaper) before heading over to the hotel, but getting on Jeopardy isn’t all about what you know. Once you reach a certain level, everyone knows the vast majority of clues. The great contestant coordinators — who make a stressful experience as fun as possible at every step — are looking for bright people who won’t wilt on national TV, and who can speak up and enjoy themselves.
All the Jeopardy literature about trying out said to be personable and assertive. And smile. So that’s what I did, even though I was intimidated by almost every other hopeful. I felt like the dumbest person in the room. There was the bilingual lawyer who moved here from Russia, the female rabbi who had been to previous tryouts and already knew the drill, the environmental lawyer, the college professor, the bilingual brother of a former champion. At 24, I was the youngest person in the room. Still, I never thought I’d make it as far as the in-person test, which gave me a boost of confidence. I scored at least a 45, and the coordinators told us (in so many words) that the written test was a major factor in our reaching the show.
The mock game didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. I took too long to say “Leatherstocking Tales,” and I blanked on where Dubrovnik is. But I smiled and spoke up and told them about myself in a mock interview. After a few questions, I sat down. They let us keep our Jeopardy pens, had us fill out reams of paperwork, and sent us on our way. We were all considered “in the pool” for the next 18 months. “Don’t call us, we’ll call you,” is the coordinators’ mantra. You can only try out in person once every 18 months, and if you’re not called, it’s back to square one: taking the online test along with the rest of America. I got on the train, my suit now damp with a mix of nervous sweat and Manhattan grime, wondering what would happen next. If anything.
The months went by. I recognized a couple of people from my audition group on the show. I wondered if I hadn’t played well enough in the mock game. I assumed I might be trying out for the next decade. Though I kept studying as much as possible, I started to write myself off for this dip in the pool. One man in my audition group was trying out for the 14th time — and if I had scored a 45, then everyone else must have done at least that well.
Almost a year passed. I went to trivia nights. I played Ken Jennings’ weekly email quiz. I visited the Baltic, noting features of the world capitals (a whole category on Estonia greeted me when I returned). I read story after story by Jeopardy players, and would-be Jeopardy players, many of whom consistently scored in the top percentile on the tests but waited for years, often fruitlessly, to get on the show. Many of the message board’s most dedicated and intelligent players had learned almost every Pavlov, but they waited in vain for the call. I was only 25; I could chase this dream for the next 30 years if I wanted. But would I lose hope before then?
Turned out, I wouldn’t have to wait at all. One day, my phone lit up with a voicemail from an unfamiliar area code. I called back and found out I was expected at the Jeopardy studios in one month. Could I make it?
During this entire quest, it was the easiest answer I’d given.
The Culver City Radisson has seen so many Jeopardy contestants, the congratulations at the front desk are perfunctory. But at least you get a discounted rate if you’re on the show. I flew out with my partner in training, my longtime girlfriend Erin, and my dad, who, along with my mom, introduced me to Jeopardy, and played anytime I wanted while I was living at home during my year of grad school. My parents never questioned the notion that Jeopardy was an important, worthwhile venture. And Erin — well, she unfailingly encouraged this cockamamie dream. She told me she wouldn’t miss the trip to L.A. for anything.
On the flight, I pored over the World Almanac and the out-of-print but invaluable Secrets of the Jeopardy Champions, which I bought off Amazon years ago. Was it too late to learn a few more popes? I wondered if this all was happening too soon, whether I was really ready. At 25, my reflexes would be an asset, but ask me about 70s TV, say, and you might as well turn my microphone off.
But the truth is, you have to go on Jeopardy when they invite you. There are thousands of people in the pool for a precious few hundred spots a year. You can’t control who you’ll play, what kind of luck you’ll get, whether someone in your game will flame out and finish in the red. There are so many variables and so much luck to the game, you have to take your shot while you can. (Although I’m glad I wasn’t called during Ken Jennings’ run; he sent home an astounding 148 competitors.)
Jeopardy, for most players, isn’t about the potential money. Rather, it represents an unrivaled opportunity to show off on national television. And the game itself is the ultimate mountain for trivia nuts and other geeks, the blue ribbon of competition. Most Jeopardy players wouldn’t want to go on any other game show. They want to go on this game show.
I had spent the month of boot camp before my taping practicing every facet of the game. I caught up on all the games on my DVR, using my chair as a makeshift podium and practicing my buzzer skills with the Jeopardy pen I got at the audition. Any Jeopardy fan knows just how fickle the buzzer can be; that’s why you see some players frantically trying to ring in while great champs seemingly time it with ease. What you can’t see at home is that the board is surrounded by activation lights that come on after Alex is done reading the clue, and if you ring in before those lights come on, you’re locked out for a fraction of a second – long enough for someone else to swoop in.
Therefore, a major focus was getting the timing down as best I could and cutting down on guesses. Before bed each night, I studied the one-to-ones, focusing on classical music, Shakespeare, presidents, astronomy and whatever else came up on the show that scared me. Erin kept my Coryat score — a type of raw scoring that allows you to see how well you’re performing — and spent untold hours peppering me with questions. The more I studied, the more impossible the task felt. How can you narrow down information on a show that considers the whole history of the universe fair game?
The morning of the taping, I ate breakfast with my dad and Erin as the other contestants filed in. There were nervous smiles and quick hellos, but a mix of anticipation and competitive angst kept us from talking too much. We boarded the shuttle to the studio in silence; I introduced myself to a pleasant man named Chuck from Hawaii. It struck me then just how special Jeopardy is: 15 people from around the United States – from the far reaches of the Northeast to the islands of the Pacific — had arrived in Hollywood to take a shot at greatness, greatness not based on athletic gifts or good looks or reality TV gimmicks but knowledge. It is as pure a competition as we have left, and it inspires people from all walks of life. In my group, there were journalists, professors, businesspeople, medical students – but all of us had been drawn to this cultural institution that asks nothing more of its players than for them to use their brains. No one said much on the bus until the driver told us we were a particularly quiet bunch. “I know a Weird Al song we can sing,” one guy said. I laughed at the reference, which was becoming a distinct possibility for all of us.
There was no turning back now.
Jeopardy runs a tight ship, still haunted by the quiz show scandals of the 1950s. They tape five games a day two days a week during the season, and that means bringing more than two dozen players to the studio every week and sticking to a strict schedule. You arrive on the lot (where some of cinema’s most beloved films were shot) and go through a metal detector, accompanied by one of the contestant coordinators. You’re reminded not to talk to anyone but your fellow contestants and the coordinators. You’re then sequestered in a green room. I hung up my extra clothes (everyone brings two changes in case they win) and started filling out more paperwork. The coordinators knew everyone’s name and hometown by memory, an impressive feat they repeat each taping day. Then we listened to a nearly two-hour spiel about how the taping works: what to expect, how to phrase your responses, what happens if a ruling is changed, common mistakes to avoid. You practice your interview with Alex, because the first time you actually speak to him, the cameras will be rolling.
Everyone gets a dab of makeup and then, finally, it’s on to the practice game.
The moment we walked out to the set for the first time is an experience I’ll never forget. All the years of practice, the studying, the cramming – all of it was prologue now. Here I was, standing in a sea of blue, the game board looking farther away than it does at home, the podiums imposing, the chilly studio mostly empty. We signed our names with the cool light pen and took turns playing a few practice clues apiece as we tried to hone our signaling device timing. After the coordinators warned us several times to watch our step, one woman tripped in epic fashion off the stage. “Happens every time,” someone muttered. What kind of omen was this?
The waiting was excruciating. Contestants and game boards are chosen at random, so you never know when you’re going to play until it’s your turn, and there’s even a chance you could go through the entire day of preparation and not tape until the next day. Once you’re selected, you head up to the stage to tape your hometown howdy – kind of a corny promo that’s aired on the local affiliate. Johnny Gilbert, Jeopardy’s longtime announcer, warms up the crowd, which is split into two sections. The section he and Alex address during commercials is made up of tour groups and seniors, mostly, while the other section seats the ever-dwindling contestant pool and their families. But you’re explicitly told not to speak to or even make eye contact with your cheering section.
Waiting to find out if you’re playing reminded me of a scene near the end of the recent War of the Worlds remake (author H.G. Wells, caused a panic when read on the radio by Orsen Welles), where Tom Cruise is stuck in an alien tripod with a robotic arm that keeps picking a human at random to kill. Everyone in the group was anxious to play, but no one wanted to play first. And to think – the returning champion has already been through this agony several times.
I wasn’t selected until the last game of the day. Watching the games unfold — three in the morning, two after lunch — was a mix of regret and relief. I sometimes felt like I had dodged a bullet by missing certain Daily Doubles; other times, I cursed the game show gods for keeping me on the bench while sure Final Jeopardy clues went unanswered. I watched the first four games of the taping day and knew three of four Finals. The four-time champion was sent home. Poor Chuck played his heart out and was on a plane back to Hawaii after the first game of the day. It wasn’t until I had a chance to watch my favorite show — a show I’ve watched thousands of times at home — in person that I realized how much luck it takes to win.
When you watch the show at home, you are the constant. The contestants change every day. If you have a bad night, you switch off the TV, make dinner and forget about it. You might not even think of the contestants as people, because except in extreme cases — the superchamps who become Jeopardy greats and D-list celebrities — the contestants are forgettable. You have nothing riding on Final Jeopardy.
But in person? Every one of the players had the same dream, but every single episode sends two people home. It’s ruthless, it’s absolute, and it’s just one cog in the gears of producing a top-rated syndicated game show. So when the guy who made the joke about Weird Al says in his interview with Alex that he collects TV theme songs, and the Final Jeopardy in his game comes up “TV Theme Songs,” all you can do is shrug.
My game of Jeopardy — and unfortunately, yes, it was only one — is a blur. Before watching the game on TV this past Friday, exactly one year to the date from my audition, I could remember only bits and pieces, almost like a bad dream. There was the Daily Double that got me out of the red early in the game, the incorrect “malt” instead of “brandy” in potent potables, and the “Stephen Douglas” and “agave” responses that bailed me out of a distant third late in the game. There was no time to enjoy the game; I barely even remembered making the wisecrack at the close of the first round.
Alex even asked me a different contestant story than the coordinators had highlighted for him. At the first commercial break, my knees were shaking and my throat dry. When Maggie the coordinator handed me a bottle of water, I felt we were recreating that scene in Ben-Hur. The game itself is little more than gray matter muscle memory. There’s precious little time to come up with a correct response, and even less to strategize. I did find myself watching the scoreboard, but that was mainly out of frustration when I was locked out.
I didn’t hit either Daily Double in Double Jeopardy, which can swing any game. As strong as I thought I would be on the buzzer (especially against two older players), I can’t for the life of me explain how to the time the lights. The truth is that the lights barely illuminate at all. A person sitting just off stage activates the board as soon as Alex is done speaking, so you can either wait for the lights to ring in or start thumbing as soon as he stops reading. Neither strategy worked especially well for me.
The only time my red countdown lights on the podium seemed to turn on was when I felt I was buzzing early. Afraid of being locked out, I had assiduously tried to avoid early buzzing during my home practice. But it seemed like waiting for the lights or for Alex to stop was a losing strategy. It was a Catch-22 (written by Heller, later a Mike Nichols film featuring Art Garfunkel). If I waited for the lights, it was already too late. But if I went ahead of the lights, I’d be locked out. And my brain locked up in strange moments. Shel Silverstein? I’d have remembered that one in almost any other setting. But the fear of blanking or guessing wrong, especially after I’d played with fire in the first round, weighed heavily. Still, it was a neck-and-neck game most of the way. The scores heading into Final Jeopardy bore that out; all three of us were effectively evenly matched on the buzzer.
After a long day of nerves, I was already spent. That feeling was also on display in the family section.
“I thought I was going to have a heart attack,” my dad said.
“I wanted to throw up,” Erin said.
Every Jeopardy player’s hope is to have a runaway, as Alex calls it, heading into Final. I call them lockouts, because if you have more than double your nearest competitor’s amount, you’ve won, as long as you don’t do something foolish on your wager. As it turned out, I was in third — I had $11,000, Grant had $13,400 and Joe had $14,200, an incredibly tight game — but in a strong position to win if it was hard a Final Jeopardy clue.
It was hard — for me.
One of my weakest categories in the whole Jeopardy universe is art. I’ve made strides since this project started, but if I had to list the categories I’d least like to see in Final, anything art related would rank just behind “Stuff Ian Doesn’t Know,” “Being Tall,” and “American Idol.” It has always been a weak point, but leading up to my taping, I borrowed some art history books, and I even visited an art museum, making mental notes all the way. But I never took an art history class. I was always playing catch-up, same as with opera and ballet. On a Final I played before leaving for California, I was able to come up with a correct response of Pollock, but it was far from a strong category.
“American Artists,” Alex said.
My heart sank. I needed a miracle I wouldn’t get.
I decided to wager $3,202 of my $11,000, giving myself enough to pass second place and the leader on the off-chance that I got it right and they both missed it. It also gave me enough to win if we all were wrong, since I’d have more left than they would if they were betting rationally. (For more on betting strategy, check out the J-Archive’s glossary; it’s invaluable for aspiring players).
The opposite happened. The clue effectively asked for an American artist known for seascapes; I had no idea and wrote Rockwell just to give myself a prayer, even though I knew I was a half-century early. They both knew Winslow Homer, and the returning champ covered second place to become a two-day champ.
I had no chance to win, right or wrong, which is some solace: I won’t be a YouTube sensation for going down in a ball of flames. I played well enough to win with some more luck. It wasn’t my day. Unfortunately, on Jeopardy, you only get one day. Derek Jeter can start the day with a strikeout and finish 3-for-4.
Different game, Jeopardy.
And just like that, it was over. It may have been the quickest 22 minutes in recorded history. We took our marks at center stage and kibitzed with Alex over the final credits. He told the two losers that he hoped the trip was worth our while, and even though I lost money on the trip (airfare, rental car, hotel, meals), what could I say? Here I was, standing next to Alex Trebek after a respectable if not successful effort on American’s favorite quiz show.
I had gotten all the way to the Jeopardy set, against exponential odds, and I hadn’t completely embarrassed myself — although having to stand behind the podiums after the game so Alex could overdub his segue after the contestant interviews was a final insult. I signed for my third place money of $1000, which I won’t receive until later this year, and a coordinator handed me a Jeopardy tote bag. (No Rice-a-Roni or home version these days.)
And then we had a free day in So-Cal that no one wanted. The vast emptiness in my stomach was a sensation I had felt just a few times in my life: when my 12-year-old all-star team was eliminated, ending my Little League days, when I packed up my room to head to college, when I left college and my friends four years later. And as in the past, the sense of loss wouldn’t subside for days. It was all I could think about. It wasn’t life and death, to be sure, but the end was so abrupt. So final. Think of it: 10 people a week — 40 a month — lose on Jeopardy. The show keeps churning contestants out, all of them bright and interesting and hopeful, all but a lucky few of them quickly forgotten.
I had hoped to be back at the studio the next morning as the defending champ. Instead, I was an also-ran, a Jeopardy footnote consigned to history, a statistic walking around Santa Barbara like a zombie when I could have been shouting facts at Alex and winning money.
Trying to cheer me up, my dad bought Necco Wafers, candy dots and bubblegum cigarettes from a quiet candy store on the pier.
What makes us care about what we decide to pursue? Some of us collect vintage comic books or vinyl records. Some of us care about batting averages and college basketball brackets. Some of us obsess over crosswords. Some of us become single-minded about home improvements or work. I chose Jeopardy, and for the better part of a decade, I pursued it doggedly. I regret losing, but I do not regret the process.
As much as it hurt to fail in my quest to become a champion, Jeopardy is still my favorite show. It took me a couple of weeks to start watching again, and there’s none of urgency I used to feel when watching. We don’t keep score or buzz in using a pen. I sit down to play. Final Jeopardy clues go by that I’d have killed for. I sigh.
But I still haven’t reconciled my inability to learn for the sake of learning, appreciate art for the sake of art, watch movies for the sake of movies, newshound for the sake of newshounding. All these years, my life experiences, my reading, even my vacations, were building toward some vague future game of Jeopardy when I might be able to recall some bit of information from deep in my brain’s recesses and nail a crucial Daily Double.
Which is why, waiting to escape Los Angeles, I had no interest in reading Fitzgerald. I had — temporarily, I hope — lost the motivation to add any more information to my brain. I couldn’t think of a reason to.
The rule is that you can never go back on Jeopardy if you’ve ever been on this version of the show, and as far as I know, Art Fleming ain’t coming back. Maybe one day I’ll try Millionaire, an inferior but flashier trivia game show. Maybe one day Alex will retire and a new host will come in, changing the former contestant rule. It’s all out of my control, a feeling I’ve gotten strangely accustomed to these days.
I learned plenty of information for Jeopardy. I also learned a lesson:
You can chase your dreams all the way to Jeopardy’s regal stage, but the real journey occurs before you ever board the plane.
Postscript: For months, I worried that the airing of my episode would be an embarrassment, a point of shame, since most of my friends and family knew about my obsession for years. And after various area newspapers came calling and my Facebook page exploded with well-wishers, the feeling only became more acute.
Would I let everyone down?
Perhaps I did, I was overwhelmed by the outpouring of support, both before and especially after the airing. Hearing from old friends, coworkers, and classmates was an unexpected highlight of this process — I was humbled to find out just how many people watch Jeopardy, and in this case, watched especially to root for me this night. It helped lessen the disappointment when I thought nothing might. Thank you.