1. The Journey to ‘Jeopardy!’

With an hour to kill in duPont Hall, TJ Fisher '15, then a senior at Washington and Lee University, opened his laptop and saw that the online test for "Jeopardy!" was live. Though a lifelong lover of the show, he'd never tried to earn a spot. But in that Washington and Lee University building, prior to his next class, curiosity took hold, and he decided to take the contestant test for the first time.

"I was like, "Well, OK, I'm here. I might as well do it," said Fisher, who works as a marketing specialist for top-producing realtor Sherri Howe in San Fransico. "And I remember doing it there and thinking, 'Oh, I did really well. Maybe they'll call me soon.' It only took 10 more years."

Individuals can only try once a year - except with the new invention of JeoparDAY!, which allows for an extra chance on March 30. So every year henceforth, Fisher, a history and theater double major at W&L, took the test at home - one time even on a Greyhound bus. He never progressed to the next round, though, until this year. On Oct. 2, he debuted on the show, winning his first game with $15,089. He maintained that momentum for an impressive five games and earned a spot in the "Jeopardy!" Tournament of Champions, a yearly tournament of the top 21 players from the last season.

Where does your love of "Jeopardy!" come from?

It was on at 7:30 p.m. where we lived, and so we would always be hoping that our dad would come home from work either before that, so he could watch it with us, or right after - but never during.

That was our family time. My parents have always encouraged curiosity in our family. There was never a book I wanted that they said no to, and that manifested itself in big ways and little ways. Getting together to watch game shows was just a daily way we could learn a little something.

When did it become a goal to get on the show?

We had a local quiz bowl program on television that I was on a couple times with my high school friends. Then, when I was at W&L, I had a lot of opportunities to be in front of the public, leading campus tours and being involved with the theater and the music departments, which I think made me interested in seeing if I could prove myself on this national stage and also have a little bit of fun and make a fun show.

Has recalling facts always come easily to you, or was that something you had to work on?

Sometimes yes and sometimes no. If I was really interested, I found it fairly easy go over things two or three times and retain them. But for like the periodic table - God bless it - it was never something that I connected to organically. It really took - if I wanted to retain those things - a lot of flash carding, a lot of repeat work.

You were a history and theater double major while at W&L. With the liberal arts, do you remember times when you stepped outside of your comfort zone academically?

I took a great psych class with Dr. Megan Fulcher. I took The Science of Art with Dr. Erich Uffelman. Dr. Shane Lynch taught us about the acoustics of music - he was my one of my very favorite professors and the University Singers' conductor. … I would always look at the catalog and think, "I just wish that I had time for one more thing."

I remember [Science, Society and the Arts] every year. I was a member of University Singers, and we had all kinds of majors in all kinds of departments. So, I would go around and see what they were working on and find it so interesting. One of my fraternity brothers, Michael Bronstein [Class of 2015], who is a real, honest-to-goodness science professor now, he and I did an SSA inquiry about psychology, and we built something together. I was able for a couple weeks to live in a bit of that world.

Now that I have many friends whose kids are starting to get up to college age, I always tell them that I strongly believe in the liberal arts philosophy. Whether you're in STEM or whether you're in the humanities, I think it's so important when you're looking at schools to consider a place that really does make it easy for you to do interdisciplinary work, both in classes and in things like SSA and other opportunities you have to make those connections. … SSA is about making it available to others. Even when I didn't contribute anything that year, I would go and look at what everybody else was doing, and I would find it so amazing that we had all of that on our campus.

Can you go through the process of getting onto "Jeopardy!"?

I didn't really prepare for the online test because I thought I'd let my knowledge so far speak for itself. They don't tell you what your score is when you've taken it. Some people will record their screen and go back and check, but I just figured, leave it in God's hands. They don't tell you what the passing score is, and they don't give any feedback unless you're contacted to progress to the next round, which is another test that they administer on Zoom - I assume just so they can be sure that you're giving an authentic result, and you're not just Googling everything. The thing that I know now that I didn't at the start is that they just have so many qualified applicants every year that you not only have to pass but you also have to be randomly selected from the group that has passed.

This past year, I took the initial test, and I got a call inviting me to take the second proctored one, which I did. Then again, it's a circumstance where you don't know how you've done; you don't know what the passing score is; and you don't know when you'll be called. Then they called me again for an audition where it's a test game that every everyone plays in groups of three - as if you were on the show, but you just click with a little pen for your buzzer. They also ask you some questions about your life. I did feel I had some of my theater training kicking in because I was imagining being in Owen Collins' lighting class. I was thinking, "I need to be in a well-lit room. I need to have myself at the least jowly angle," - all those kinds of presentation things. And "I need to be prepared with the 30-second elevator pitch version of this story."

I felt pretty well prepared on the day, and then there was a little bit of a problem. The contestant team had some trouble; their Zoom gave up on them, so we had to reschedule. I was all ready to go on that one day, but they rescheduled it pretty quickly. By that point I was really raring to go, and I guess they must have liked the number of answers I gave. … Then I heard from them on a Monday, of all times, at 9:30. And they said, "Since you're here in California, maybe you can come down pretty soon. We'd love to have you tape in about a month." And I was like, "OK, all right, let's do it."

What was your preparation like?

I didn't know when or whether I would be called, and so, other than watching the show daily, keeping up reading the paper and finding articles online, I didn't really do anything in particular. And then as soon as they did call me and let me know that I really would be on, naturally, I instantly regretted not having spent the last six months studying daily. But I said to myself, "Now's the time to really buckle down." I made flashcards for sort of finite lists that I figured I had no excuse not to know, for instance, Olympic host cities or the years of all the presidents' terms. Of course, none of those things came up.

One of the tools that really helped me was that some fans have put together a database online that has well over 500,000 clues that have been used on the show. You can go back and see the game from, say, July 10, 1998, and see what they asked about then. So, when they would mention something on an episode I was watching, and I didn't get the answer, I could go back and see, [for example,] this is about Panama. And I'd think, "What other questions have they asked about Panama? How did they phrase them?" And so, you could get to recognize keywords. I would end up with some cards that would say, "Here are the three or four key words or phrases associated with this subject." … I tried to internalize all those kinds of things, and then I was on the treadmill at the gym listening to a 12-minute explainer video about the War of the Roses and then the Spanish-American War.

Do you have a specialty category?

[When I was on the show] I was thrilled to see the "Peanuts" category because my theater teacher in high school was a huge fan of "Peanuts." We did "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" one year. He really admired Charles Schulz's Christian philosophy and thought he had a lot of good lessons in the strips about life. So, we were always talking about "Peanuts," and when it came up, I was like, "Oh, my God, wonderful."

There was a category about saints, too. Before I was at W&L, I was Catholic-educated from kindergarten to high school. So, when I saw saints, I was like, "Well, here we go."

The other one that seemed really tailor-made for me was the Monopoly one. … I love board games. I love Monopoly. I'll play it online just to destress before bed.

How did it feel to realize your "Jeopardy!" dream and then qualify for Tournament of Champions?

I tend to be a pretty confident person, but I knew going in that everybody there is the top 1% of the top 1%. I was just hoping that I wouldn't say anything that my parents would have to explain to their friends at church or that I wouldn't fall off the stage. And when we got going, I was really shocked at the first ad break, and then at the second ad break, that I was so far ahead. … I had also studied how to make wagers and different scenarios for how your score relates to the other players', but I was not confident in that, and I'm not confident doing pen and paper math at all. So, I was thinking, "If I have twice as much as the second-place player at the end of the game, then I don't have to worry about the very high pressure wagering in Final Jeopardy." I couldn't believe it when we got to the end of that first game, and I was that far ahead that I didn't have to worry. I just couldn't believe it. I really felt euphoric.

You mentioned on the show that several of your University Singers and Washingtones a cappella group members also been on "Jeopardy!" - what's the secret sauce?

We're not a music specialist school - we're not like the Peabody [Institute] or something. Although I do know several people who were at W&L with me who are performing musicians or music teachers professionally, most of us are not there to do music 100%, to have it at the heart of our future careers. So, I think the people who chose to spend time in University Singers or in the Music Department or in an a cappella group were people especially dedicating themselves to this idea of the liberal arts where you pursue all different fields. We had members of University Singers from very serious hardcore math and science majors who are doing that work now to theater, music and visual arts students.

What's your advice for an average person to continue to learn new things?

Travel time is one of the best times that you can devote to learning - whatever that means for you. … School-age learning material may sound like a strange thing to recommend to adults, but it can make a great primer on a subject about which you really know nothing, so you know what you want to focus on next. Give yourself a very basic taste - just something that you can read very quickly or listen to in the length of one car ride, say. Then you'll know what you want to explore in greater depth, and librarians are so great to turn to. And the other thing is just the close friends that I'm talking to every day, I'll just say, "Listen. I'd really like to learn something. What have you found interesting lately?" I've gotten recommendations about glassblowing. I've gotten recommendations about Argentinian politics from a friend.

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The W&L "Jeopardy!" Legacy

Just after TJ Fisher '15's reign on "Jeopardy!" fellow alumna Amanda Tholke '08 was a contestant on the Oct. 20 episode. But Fisher and Tholke aren't alone.

• Brian O'Riordan '85 competed in 2002.
• Margaret Pimblett Rhodes '89 competed in 2005.
• Trevor Norris '94 was a "Jeopardy!" champion in 2001.
• Caley Anderson '06 appeared on "Jeopardy!" before attending W&L.
• Alexis Hawley '09L appeared on the show in 2010.
• Neville Fogarty '10 competed in a teen tournament in 2000.
• Danielle Maurer '12 took down super champion Mattea Roach in 2022.
• Charlotte Cook '19 competed in 2022.

If you are a fellow W&L alum and you've also competed on "Jeopardy!," please reach out to us at [email protected].

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