Photograph By Shane Van Boxtel/Image Studios
St. Norbert College philosophy professor Ben Chan made “Jeopardy!” history this spring when he set the record for most consecutive runaway wins — nine, in total.
The New York City native sat down with Insight to discuss his experience on the TV quiz show, what he’s doing with his prize earnings and why he still hasn’t found closure over his now-infamous, game-ending Final Jeopardy! clue.
INSIGHT: Has competing on “Jeopardy!” been a lifelong goal?
Chan: I was at a philosophy conference last summer and one of my friends there encouraged me to join an online trivia league he was part of. I joined and I actually was pretty good, like beating some people who won at “Jeopardy!” And that kind of crystallized it. I’ve always liked “Jeopardy!” I like what it stands for. It might sound over the top, but it’s the only institution that Americans still trust. It’s actually quite an important part of our culture. From a personal standpoint, it just kind of clicked about a year ago. I just took the online test on the couch on my laptop, and if you pass that test then you take a proctor version of that test via Zoom. And if you pass that test, you might be selected for an audition where you do some gameplay, you do a little bit of interviewing, stuff like that.
Well, obviously you passed the tests. How did you prepare for the show?
Typically they give you about a month of lead time between when you get the call and when you film. I did a fair amount of studying in that month. I was lucky that [SNC] was on winter break for a lot of it, so I had time to study. There are some core categories that you should know if you’re going to be on “Jeopardy!” Give me a year, and I should be able to tell you who the U.S. president was or give me an election year and I should be able to tell you who won that election. If you’re going on “Jeopardy!,” you should have that locked down — world capitals, major cities. I studied up particularly on English monarchs. That was one thing that was totally new to me.
How do you compare the difficulty of the live competition versus playing along at home?
There are some things that are harder in person because there’s more pressure. I found the Daily Doubles to be harder. That’s the only time I felt pressure; because when you get a Daily Double, everybody’s looking at you and you don’t have any choice but to respond. Compared to home I think I might actually do better in person because I’m more focused. I found it super fun to play. I’ve never felt more at home than when I was playing. It just felt like I was made to play this game. It’s probably the most fun I’ve had as an adult.
You had a record-setting nine-game streak of runaway wins, which ended with a controversial ruling on your Final Jeopardy! spelling. What happened?
It’s a complicated story. They were looking for two Shakespeare characters, Beatrice and Benedick. I wrote Beatrice and Benedict with a “T.” “Jeopardy!” rules are pretty clear that misspelling is fine as long as it doesn’t change it to a different pronunciation. Adding the “T” changes the pronunciation in a way that actually suggests a different name. At the time I thought I made a dumb mistake, but when I got home I analyzed some of my study texts, and a couple had spelled it the way I spelled it. I sent [“Jeopardy!”] an email a few days after the show had taped. They followed up; they consulted with Shakespeare experts. At the end of the day, after consultation, they were comfortable with Benedick with “K” being the right spelling, because that’s what’s in the sources that they rely on. I thought I had been okay with it. “Jeopardy!” has been very, very good to me and I was comfortable with their decision.
But since it aired, so many people have contacted me about it. It’s been kind of hard to put that in the past. “Jeopardy!” is kind of like a sport for some people, like it’s the No. 1 sport for nerds, they say. And we know watching sports that referees will make some mistakes. That’s part of the game. But in “Jeopardy!” they sometimes bring people back if there’s something that people aren’t okay with just letting go. It’s an interesting philosophical question about “Jeopardy!” as an institution, like, is it okay for “Jeopardy!” to make mistakes? This is where it’s a little strange with “Jeopardy!,” because it’s trying to report facts and truth about the world. They make the rules and have a rule to deal with these kinds of situations, and it seems perfectly sensible that they decided the way they did. On the other hand, there’s an interesting wrinkle there because they actually have the power to influence these kinds of things as a cultural authority.
How does it feel now to be a “Jeopardy!” celebrity?
It’s great. Anywhere there’s any sizable number of people who are 50 and older, I will be recognized. During the semester, I did get a fair number of students saying “my grandma is such a big fan of yours.” That’s my target demographic, apparently. I value this institution a lot, and a central part of the institution is the viewers. People are inviting you into their living room. You want to be a good guest. You want to make it enjoyable for them to watch. When I was preparing for the show, a few of the contestants stressed me out. It was stressful to watch them play because they were so stressed. I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to make it enjoyable for everybody who was playing along at home. The way to do that was just to have fun while I was playing.
You ended up winning over $250,000. What do you plan to do with the money?
I was reading how Gen Z is creating a “treat economy” where they treat themselves to simple pleasures in everyday life as opposed to huge major purchases. I think that’s my wife’s and my M.O. — lots of little improvements for us and the people around us that make life more fun. The only major purchase we made was we bought new bikes and got a hitch and a nice bike rack that makes it easy to take bikes with us on the road so that we can check out some new bike trails. I’ve used it a few times this weekend to take my dogs up to a place where I can bike around with them. It’s been a good purchase.
What do you teach at SNC and has your “Jeopardy!” experience influenced you philosophically?
My specialty is ethics and bioethics. More than half of the courses I teach are intro courses, which I love teaching because — and actually the reason I think I was good at “Jeopardy!” — I don’t like specialization. I want to know everything. And philosophy appealed to me because it was trying to see how everything fits together — science, humanities, art. I try to show how philosophy and thinking about what kind of beings we are can help you lead a better life, whether you’re going into nursing or business or teaching. A liberal arts education prepares you to be a lifelong learner. I’d like to think that going through a liberal arts [education] myself really helped me with that. One of the things I’d like to process more is how my experience could contribute to the education of our students. Even if you don’t want to be on a high-stakes trivia game show, the sorts of habits that helped me on “Jeopardy!” can help people lead more enriching lives.
