"I'll take Potpourri for $200, Alex"
Updated June 21, 2015
After earning degrees in mathematics and computer science at Skidmore, Brennan Bushee ’15 took an unusual route to the “real world”—he made a successful run on the quiz show Jeopardy.
The Malden, Mass., native had a four-day total of $102,000 as of June 18, 2015. Jeopardy airs locally at 7:30 p.m. on WTEN, Channel 10. On Friday, June 19, the Malden, Mass., native scored a rare Jeopardy coup: becoming a five-day champion. His week's winnings totaled $126,404.
How does one prepare for the tricky answer-and-question game show? Bushee, a veteran of his high school quiz team, says he’s a fan of the show and watched it regularly. He also bought a copy of The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge once he heard he’d passed the test for potential contestants and was guaranteed an appearance.
It was a thrill to be selected, especially, he said, since he tried out for the Jeopardy franchise’s Teen Team while in high school, but failed to make the cut.
In addition to prepping in disciplines such as music (“I did not know about things like opera”), Bushee also trained hard to master the well-known challenge of the Jeopardy clicker, with which the first button-press locks out the other two contestants. More than one bright contestant has met an early end on the show due to poor clicker technique. Said Bushee, “The clicker is just as important as knowing the answers to questions.” In the month after he received confirmation of his selection but before his on-camera appearance, Bushee practiced clicking a pen constantly. For him, “strong focus on the questions and good thumb technique” have been keys to his success.
He credits his Skidmore career with a positive outcome on his third appearance, when the “Final Jeopardy!” topic was “Quotable Painters” and the answer read in part “A reviewer… wrote that my pictures didn’t have any beginning or any end.” Bushee remembered talking about M.C. Escher in his math seminar, and initially thought that was the correct response. But then he recalled conversations about art that he had with classmates, and he ultimately decided that Escher was not correct, so he submitted the question “Who was Jackson Pollock?” He won $8,201 and the game.
Now that his appearances have aired, “It still does not feel real,” he acknowledged. “I’ve been blown away by the number of people cheering for me. I’ve gotten more Facebook friend requests than I could imagine.”
As for the show itself, Bushee was deeply impressed by the energy and professionalism of host Alex Trebek and the entire staff. “All the people who make the show work are unbelievable,” he said. Contestants are bused together from the hotel to the studio, which makes for interesting meet-ups. Bushee said he shared breakfast one morning with a competitor that he beat and it was a friendly encounter.
Bushee said the experience—and the prize money—has not changed him. Although he “made enough to pay off my student loans the first day,” he still drives the same car, a 2006 Chevy Trailblazer, and continues to work at Boston-based State Street Bank, where is a software developer.
