A ‘Jeopardy!’ Tournament of Terps

If you tuned in to “Jeopardy!” on Sept. 21, 2016, you might have seen a young woman clicking desperately on her buzzer, mostly failing to time them to the exact moment that host Alex Trebek finished reading the clue.

That young woman was me. Standing on that Los Angeles stage was the culmination of a lifelong love affair with trivia—racing to beat my older brother when our dad asked who was the artist on the oldies station or huddling with my pub trivia team to identify international flags and preening when I was the only one in the bar who knew that Gay Talese wrote the famous New Yorker article “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold.”

I’m not the only Terp who’s stood behind one of “Jeopardy!’s lighted podiums. Over the years, a crossword puzzle maker, professors, a drag queen performer and several students have competed on the daily show or in the Teen Tournament, the College Tournament, the Champions Wildcard Tournament and the big kahuna, the Tournament of Champions.

Tonight, a new Tournament of Champions starts a two-week run, inviting back big winners including Isaac Hirsch ’14, who won more than $215,000 during nine games last summer.

“Maryland Today” caught up with him and other Terp trivia masters to ask what it’s like to hold that buzzer, and how they got there.

Click HERE to read the full article