My appearance on Jeopardy!

Jeopardy!

I appeared on Jeopardy! in 1990. It seems like yesterday and also a long time ago. When I lived in New York, I tried to send in postcards to get to try out but was always unsuccessful. My wife, who always encouraged me to keep trying, really got on my case once we moved to San Diego.

We took a vacation up to LA and I took the tests (a 50 question test, a mock game and some extemperaneous speaking). I passed them all but never receieved a call back. The second time, I didn't make it past the second test. But a month later, I passed all the tests again (1 of 3 contestants of about 70 people who took the tests that day). Then several months later, I got a call at home, that I was chosen to be on the show!

I arrived early on Feb 13, 1990 and all the contestants were well prepared for the taping by playing pretend games and getting familiar with the signaling button. There were five shows being taped that day and it was the last taping day of the season. I was the next to last person picked for the last game that day.

I was at the third lectern and very nervous. At the beginning of the game, I couldn't buzz in quickly enough to answer but I told myself to relax and do the best I could. Finally I started getting in and answering and by the end of the Jeopardy round it was a close game with only a few hundred "points" (that's what they call them on the show because they only have monetary value at the end of the game) separating the three of us. In Double Jeopardy! I was able to answer a 1000 point Theatre question and wound up in second place at the end of Double Jeopardy!

The Final Jeopardy! Answer was "The President who appointed the first African-American (Robert Weaver) to the Cabinet?" My first instinct was LBJ because of all the Civil Rights Legislation passed during his term, the others picked FDR and Grant respectively, and wonder of wonders I got the correct question and was a Jeopardy Champion!