An Interview with a Jeopardy Champion

Nicholas DiGregory If you tuned in to Jeopardy! on December 3, 2015, you would have seen Rocky Ridge’s own Kelly Wright crowned a Jeopardy! champion. The twenty-six-year-old, who graduated from McDaniel College in 2011, earned a total of $7,700 in winnings, with a first-place victory on the December 3 show and a third-place victory on the December 4 show. I had a chance to ask Wright a few questions about her experiences on the show; here is what she had to say: How were you chosen to take part in the Jeopardy! game show? I initially took the Jeopardy! online test in April of 2015 and found out I had an audition in early May. The audition was in Boston on June 10, so I flew up for the day and had my audition. It consists of another fifty-question test, and then you do a little mock game so they can find out if you’re going to freak out and pass out or anything like that once you’re holding the buzzer. Then there’s a little impromptu interview, so they can get a feel for the possible contestants. After all that, you find out that you’ll be in their contestant pool for the next eighteen months, and you may or may not hear anything back during that period. So I was pretty shocked when I got a call from them in late August that they wanted me to come out and play. I guess I figured it would be a much longer wait, if ever! What was the game show experience like? The whole experience was completely amazing, and it was a great day. They tape a week’s worth of episodes in one day, and the two challengers are drawn randomly. The other contestants sit in the audience and watch the taping, just like everyone else. Everyone who works at the studio and with the show, and the other contestants, were awesome; there wasn’t any real feeling of super competitiveness since I think we were all just stoked to be there. When I initially found out I was going to be on the show, I was kind of terrified, but once the day was actually happening, the contestant coordinators with the show do such a good job at keeping people calm, I was never really as nervous as I thought I would be. There were definitely some jitters once I was actually standing behind the podium, though! Do you have any favorite memorable moments? The best thing about going on the show was that my ninety-one-year-old grandfather, Horace Wright, got to come along and watch me play. He’s the one who really pushed me to try out for the game, and getting to make him proud was the best possible outcome. One other cool thing was, after the taping was done, I got to go see the RV from Breaking Bad that they keep on the Sony studio lot. I’m a huge fan of Breaking Bad, so getting to see that in person was a great finish to a fantastic day. How was interacting with Alex Trebek? The best stuff with Alex comes at the end of the show, when the contestants and him are standing on the stage, just chatting. That’s when you really get to find out that he has a hilariously dry sense of humor. During my first show, we all chatted a little bit about hockey and the then-upcoming NHL season, and during the second show, he gave me a little bit of ribbing about my bone-headed final Jeopardy answer, and it was hilarious. How many people get to say that Alex Trebek made fun of them? Rumor has it that you wore a lucky t-shirt on air? Is this true and, if so, what was the significance? So, when I auditioned for the show in Boston during the summer, I was wearing an Alex Ovechkin shirt under my auditions clothes for good luck. When I found out I was going to be on the show, I figured I had to up the ante and I ordered a shirt from “Russian Machine Never Breaks”—it’s a Capitals blog run by guys from Frederick—that commemorated when Alex Ovechkin famously acted like his stick was on fire after scoring his 50^th goal of …the 08-09 season. I knew I wanted to rock the red under whatever I was wearing for the show, and I like to think it brought me enough luck to join the ranks of the Jeopardy! champions. How has life been since the show? Since the show, everything has gone back to normal, thankfully. The week leading up to my shows was absolutely crazy; so many people were wishing me good luck and things really blew up. I’m very grateful that I had so many people rooting for me, but I’m even more grateful that everything died down quickly as well.

Kelly Wright of Rocky Ridge, crowned a Jeopardy! champion, is pictured with Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek.