The third time was the charm for SI’s JACK DICKEY, who had auditioned twice previously for “Jeopardy” before finally fulfilling his dream as a contestant on the show. Dickey certainly made the most of his opportunity, raking in a three-day total of $47,802 after a third-place finish Thursday night to end his run. Dickey spoke with THE DAILY about his preparations for going on “Jeopardy” and how his nerves on the show compared to those when writing on deadline.
Q: How did you go about preparing for the show?
Dickey: One of the things that is so frustrating about “Jeopardy” is that there’s no easy way to study for it. The categories vary so widely from show to show. I knew there were a few particular holes of mine -- I don’t know much about opera or Shakespeare. My Latin American geography is also pretty bad, so I knew I should study up on those specific areas. There’s a site that collects all of the games that have ever been played, so I was just going through that and picking random shows and trying to accumulate knowledge that way.
Q: What was the most surprising part of the entire process?
Dickey: It’s not really a surprise because they tell you -- but that they tape a week’s worth of shows in one day. Because of that, everything moves very quickly. The viewers at home see ALEX TREBEK and the champion in a new outfit on the show the next day, but really it happened all in about 10 or 15 minutes. As a winner, you shake hands with Alex for the camera at the end of the show, then they take you back and take your mic off, have you change clothes and then you’re right back out there. You don’t really have a lot of time to soak in the moment.
Q: Has appearing on “Jeopardy” always been a goal for you?
Dickey: Definitely. I’ve watched it ever since I was a kid and have always wanted to go on. This time around was my second audition. I auditioned once before back in ’11 or ’12, but wasn’t selected, and I had also auditioned for “College Jeopardy,” but they didn’t take me then either. There was a lot of persistence involved to get to this point. I found out in November that I would be on the show and we began taping in January.
Q: What are some of your favorite and least favorite categories?
Dickey: The “Before and After” category is by far my favorite, but unfortunately it didn’t come up while I was on the show. There were a couple of sports categories that came up during my run, so that was appreciated. Had I seen an “opera” category I might have had a panic attack.
Q: How did “Jeopardy” nerves compare to those when writing on deadline?
Dickey: When you’re actually on the show, at least for me, is that in order to ring in at the right moment, you have to know the answer immediately when you see the clue. At that point, it’s almost not really an issue with nerves because either the answer will come to you very quickly or it won’t. Maybe if I was in a situation where I had to ring in out of desperation, the nerves would have affected me, but that didn’t happen. The nerves overall were less of a factor than I anticipated.
Q: Did you change strategies at all from the first to the second show after you won?
Dickey: I might have had a different answer to this question had I not won the first day, but I approached it in stages. The first was, "My dream is to be on 'Jeopardy.’" The next level is, "My dream is to be on Jeopardy and not embarrass myself." After that, it’s "My dream is to be on Jeopardy and win." After I got that first win, it helped to kind of relax me and allowed me to play more aggressively on the second show because I no longer felt that pressure of having to win. The only other meaningful cutoff is if you win five games, you are eligible for the “Tournament of Champions.”
