Tag: Jeopardy

Eagles DC Jim Schwartz credits the late Alex Trebek with ‘training him’ to be a football coach

Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz says Alex Trebek played a huge role in his development as a football coach

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Alex Trebek’s influence will carry on for decades and hours after the news of his passing, one NFL coach is crediting the Jeopardy host with helping to hone his skills as a play-caller.

While speaking with Peter King of NBC’s FMIA, Jim Schwartz opened up about how the game show host helped him craft his skills as a defensive coordinator.

“Alex Trebek and Jeopardy! trained me to be a football coach,” Schwartz said.

“In football, as a play-caller, you’ve got to be very quick, you’ve got to enunciate the play well when you call it, you can’t make errors. Those are all things Alex was so good at. His command of the show and the contestants was incredible. You need that kind of command when you’re in charge of a team too.”

A Georgetown University graduate, Schwartz admitted that his love for Jeopardy started during his Sophomore year and carried over to his time as a coach.

“When I was a sophomore, junior and senior at Georgetown [in 1986-89], every night after dinner, me and a big group, maybe six guys, would watch the show,” he said. “Very smart guys. We were speed-readers, very competitive. It was a challenge to see who could blurt the answer out the fastest. You might know the answer, but if you don’t do it very fast, you’d lose. With my friends, if you were a little slow, you’d get steamrolled.”

Trebek, 80, passed away after a 20-month battle with pancreatic cancer.

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Eagles DC Jim Schwartz credits the late Alex Trebek with ‘training him’ to be a football coach

Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz says Alex Trebek played a huge role in his development as a football coach

[jwplayer pbImmFWJ]

Alex Trebek’s influence will carry on for decades and hours after the news of his passing, one NFL coach is crediting the Jeopardy host with helping to hone his skills as a play-caller.

While speaking with Peter King of NBC’s FMIA, Jim Schwartz opened up about how the game show host helped him craft his skills as a defensive coordinator.

“Alex Trebek and Jeopardy! trained me to be a football coach,” Schwartz said.

“In football, as a play-caller, you’ve got to be very quick, you’ve got to enunciate the play well when you call it, you can’t make errors. Those are all things Alex was so good at. His command of the show and the contestants was incredible. You need that kind of command when you’re in charge of a team too.”

A Georgetown University graduate, Schwartz admitted that his love for Jeopardy started during his Sophomore year and carried over to his time as a coach.

“When I was a sophomore, junior and senior at Georgetown [in 1986-89], every night after dinner, me and a big group, maybe six guys, would watch the show,” he said. “Very smart guys. We were speed-readers, very competitive. It was a challenge to see who could blurt the answer out the fastest. You might know the answer, but if you don’t do it very fast, you’d lose. With my friends, if you were a little slow, you’d get steamrolled.”

Trebek, 80, passed away after a 20-month battle with pancreatic cancer.

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These signature moments perfectly capture the magic of Alex Trebek

Some will make you laugh. Some will make you cry.

Fans took to Twitter to mourn and celebrate Alex Trebek after the longtime and much-beloved Jeopardy! host died on Sunday following a battle against pancreatic cancer. Trebek’s admirers began sharing some of their favorite moments from his storied career to show what made Trebek so endearing, impactful and, at times, hilarious.

Let’s first touch on one of Trebek’s most recent moments on Jeopardy! when one of the contestants, Burt Thakur, explained that the show was life-changing for him. Though tears, Thakur thanked Trebek, because watching Jeopardy! was the way Thakur learned English.

Check out the moment (and make sure you’ve got tissues nearby). Trebek made an impression — and in ways many of us couldn’t imagine.

There was another tear-jerker that made rounds on Twitter. Contestant Dhruv Gaur wagered $1,995 of his $2,000 in Final Jeopardy to share his answer: “What is we ❤️ you, Alex!” As Trebek read the message, he clearly got choked up. The moment came a few months after Trebek announced he’d been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

OK, so Trebek wasn’t always the sweetest. He was also funny — and often biting with his sass and sarcasm. One of his funniest moments resurfaced on Twitter on Sunday. Trebek was learning about Nerdcore Hip-Hop, a contestant’s favorite music genre. She explained who makes the music: “People who identify as nerdy, rapping about the things they love: video games, science fiction, having a hard time meeting romantic partners.”

Trebek responded: “Losers, in other words.”

There’s also the time he got a good chuckle out of three contestants who were thoroughly overmatched by questions about football.

Trebek was a larger-than-life figure, who was captivating and consistent since becoming host of Jeopardy! in 1984. He will be missed.

The world mourns the loss of Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek, who died on Sunday

Alex Trebek passed away on Sunday morning at the age of 80. The world mourned the loss of the great longtime Jeopardy! host.

On Sunday the official Jeopardy! Twitter account announced that the show’s longtime host, Alex Trebek, had died that morning after a long battle with cancer. He was 80 years old.

Trebek made a longtime career as a television host, first in his native Canada with the CBC and later on a host of American shows and game shows. His most iconic job, however, was as the host of the popular quiz show, Jeopardy!, where he was nominated for 37 Daytime Emmy Awards, winning seven.

Trebek’s warm demeanor, droll sense of humor, and deep intelligence made him beloved for millions of fans of the show. This loss feels deep for many of us, I believe, because of how much time we spent with the man, and how much so many of us trusted him.

He took a difficult quiz show with a weird, answers-as-questions format, and made it warm, familial, and surprisingly funny. That show is nothing without Trebek — under someone with less talent, Jeopardy! would have been too confusing, too high brow, too slow. With him, it became one of the most successful and long-running television shows of all time.

Fans and past contestants were devastated to hear the news:

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Can you ace this NASCAR category from ‘Jeopardy!’?

The contestants did OK.

We’ve seen it time and time again: sports categories on Jeopardy! mostly trip up contestants, whether it’s ones about the New York Yankees or five questions about football.

Give credit where it’s due for Tuesday’s episode. The contestants got a category all about NASCAR with drivers giving them the clues, and they did pretty decently. A couple of the clues had some nods in them that made it a little easier, but so what? It counts!

So let’s see how well you’d do. Here are the clues:

$200 — I’m William Byron; My Number 24 car is a Camaro ZL1 1LE by this automaker.

$400 — I’m Kevin Harvick; I might have only won one NASCAR Cup Series points race in 2007, but I sure did make it count, winning this event, the Super Bowl of stock car racing, by .02 seconds.

$600 — I’m Brad Keselowski; during my run for the NASCAR season title in 2012, I decided I wanted to go fast, just like Will Ferrell, and win the Aaron’s 499 at this Alabama superspeedway.

$800 — I’m Jimmie Johnson; I know a little something about coming in first in the First State, having won 11 times at the International Speedway named for this state capital

$1,000 —  I’m Aric Almirola; I won the 2014 Coke Zero 400 at Daytona driving for the Number 43 motor sports team of this NASCAR legend on the 30th anniversary of his 200th win that came on the same track.

The answers are below the clip, which saw contestant Alex nail the $200 and $600 ones. Kevin got the $800 clue.

$200 — What is Chevy?

$400 — What is the Daytona 500?

$600 — What is Talladega?

$800 — What is Dover?

$1,000 — Who is Richard Petty?

How did you do?

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Alex Trebek revealed he struggled with suicidal thoughts during cancer treatment

Wow.

Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek’s positivity about his cancer diagnosis had been consistent, at least when he was facing the public. But in his new memoir, “The Answer Is … Reflections on My Life,” Trebek admitted he has struggled with suicidal thoughts.

The publication of the book comes after he publicly addressed TV viewers last week to say treatment for his Stage IV pancreatic cancer was “paying off.”

Though he seems stressed by the challenges of so much public attention amid a fight against cancer, Trebek said his star status was also a factor in his decision to continue his treatment. He didn’t want to disappoint.

Here’s what Trebek, 80, said of his mental health struggles in an interview with the Boston Herald:

“You can’t be telling people ‘Keep your chin up, fight on!’ and then all of a sudden you counter that by: ‘What happened to Trebek?’ ‘Oh, he killed himself. He just got too discouraged. Well, hell, he was telling us to be positive. And then he did this negative thing.’ So, yeah. That’s the responsibility that has bothered me.”

Trebek’s memoir, which published Tuesday, is dedicated to “those who are hoping to become survivors.” It’s not a full autobiography of his life, but instead includes “a series of quick look-ins,” Trebek said. It paints a picture of his habits, routines and day-to-day life, but it sounds like Trebek’s honesty about his fight against cancer may be what fascinates and moves readers the most. He is candid about his wide range of emotions in a way that he hasn’t been previously.

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Jags coach Doug Marrone is confident that his QBs can take on any team in ‘Jeopardy!’

The Jags’ QBs room might be the smartest you will find in football and Doug Marrone is willing to put that theory to test.

While the Jacksonville Jaguars may not have the most experienced quarterbacks room, it’s no doubt they have one of the smartest.

Joshua Dobbs is a certified rocket scientist for NASA while Gardner Minshew II scored a 42 on the Wonderlic test. New draftee Jake Luton wasn’t too far behind Minshew in terms of his Wonderlic score, acquiring a 33 while the newest member of the group, Mike Glennon, finished college with a bachelor’s degree in Business Management and a master’s degree in Arts in Liberal Studies.

Clearly, the Jags’ quarterback room isn’t lacking when it comes to book smarts, which is why coach Doug Marrone is confident that they could take on any team in the league when it comes to trivia. In his Zoom conference with the media Friday, Marrone said his group will challenge any team to a game of Jeopardy though that may not do much for them on Sundays.

While we don’t know exactly where the Jags’ quarterbacks room would rank in terms of their work on the gridiron, it’s clear they won’t have a hard time finding work after football.

As for the group’s outlook for 2020, clearly, Minshew is the guy heading forward. Glennon and Dobbs will have the chance to battle for the backup spot, though it’s not out of the realm of possibilities to keep both. Luton, on the other hand, will be a developmental player and his 2020 season on the roster would likely have to come on the Jags’ practice squad.

College Jeopardy! contestant mixed up Jackie Robinson and Babe Ruth in easy baseball question

Ohhh, not good.

Wednesday marked Jackie Robinson Day, and the sports world celebrated the baseball legend, who made his big-league debut 73 years ago on April 15, 1947 and became the first African-American player to play in the majors in the modern era of baseball.

However, on the Jeopardy! episode that aired Wednesday night — it was Game 3 of the 2020 College Championship — not everyone remembered the Brooklyn Dodger.

In the middle of the opening Jeopardy! round of college students facing off against each other, there was a baseball question in the Unique College Courses category. At that point, Nathaniel, a sophomore at Yale, had the lead with $1,800, while Xiaoke from USC and Marshall from Texas had $600 and $200, respectively, according to J-Archive.com.

This was the $1,000 clue — seems awfully easy for the most valuable spot in the category — which would have put Xiaoke within $200 of Nathaniel if she answered correctly:

One of the topics covered in a Major League Baseball course at Arizona State is this player who broke the color barrier in 1947

Unfortunately for Xiaoke, she mistakenly said Babe Ruth, allowing Nathaniel to ring in and provide the correct answer.

Xiaoke ultimately won the game, despite all three contestants getting the Final Jeopardy clue wrong.

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‘Jeopardy!’ contestant whiffed on remembering McGruff the Crime Dog’s name and got roasted

He still won the game, but he missed this clue in spectacular fashion.

Jeopardy! is challenging, and anyone who’s ever watched it knows that. But sometimes, when contestants get a clue wrong, they fail so spectacularly that viewers just have to be amazed. And sometimes they get roasted by the internet too.

That’s what happened on the episode of Jeopardy! that aired on Monday night. With $15,400, Kyle had a sizable lead over Monya ($6,800) and Khalilah ($4,200) going into Final Jeopardy.

And luckily for him, he decided not to wager any money on the final category, which was “Advertising Characters,” because, while he absolutely had the right idea, he swung and missed big time.

The Final Jeopardy clue was, via J-Archive.com:

“Jack Keil’s team created this animal character rolled out in 1980, the year of the USA’s highest recorded murder rate”

The correct answer is McGruff the Crime Dog.

Khalilah guessed Scooby Doo. Monya got it right, despite misspelling it. And Kyle, oh Kyle was so close but so far with his response: Ruff McGruffin.

And, although he still won the game, people on Twitter had a little too much fun with his Final Jeopardy response and roasted him for it.

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Alex Trebek turned into a NFL referee in a delightful ‘Jeopardy’ category

Good job with those signals, Alex.

We love Jeopardy! sports categories here, especially really tough ones or at least sports-themed clues that contestants totally whiff on.

But now there’s a new type of sports category to love: the one that we saw on Tuesday’s episode. Alex Trebek explained that football has given competitors trouble in the past — see 2017 and 2018 — so they were trying something new in which he would be giving contestants referee hand signals.

It’s as wonderful as you imagined, and the cool thing is Jeopardy! used it’s Twitter account to show Trebek’s development of the category on paper, complete with cursive write-ups and Trebek’s various signals scribbled out:

As for the clues? The competitors got three of five. Not bad!

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