Local Graduate in Jeopardy? Nope, He's On Jeopardy!

 

On Oct. 29, a recently graduated Claremont McKenna student will fulfill a long-held dream of appearing on a game show.
Not just any game show. John-Clark Levin will appear on Jeopardy!, arguably the cream-de-la-cream of game shows.
Levin loved to watch the other trivia masters as a 12-year-old in Ojai. The family would gather to watch on special occasions, university officials said.
He remembered one night sitting with his dad, “watching a mustached Alex Trebek announce the answers as families would race to blurt out the correct questions. ‘What is Moby Dick!’ he shouted at the screen as his proud father glanced over. They had been recently listening to the Herman Melville classic on audio book together,” according to news release written by the university.
Levin decided in February of 2011, his junior year at CMC, to take the Jeopardy! online test.
“About a month later, I got an email from the contestant coordinators telling me that I had passed, and inviting me to an in-person audition on April 14,” Levin told the school. “I was devastated! I was going to be out of the country that day, and I was worried they would just pick one of the other applicants in my place. They were very gracious, though, and rescheduled me for an audition on August 11, 2011.”
The Jeopardy! audition consists of a written test, mock game play and an interview.
“The room was intimidatingly full of brilliant, telegenic people,” Levin said. “I knew it would be a real roll of the dice.”
Contestant coordinators told Levin that if he passed and they liked him, they would call sometime within the next 18 months. Levin said he was advised to just forget about it.
Despite the advice, Levin told university staffers he spent the first semester of his senior year on pins and needles, anticipating the big call. In January of 2012, the call came and he was invited to a taping on Feb. 21 as an alternate. Five shows a day are taped, and he had a 50/50 chance of being called up as a challenger for the fifth show.
“As it happened the other alternate’s name was drawn, so I got to go home, and play the waiting game … again,” he said.
Then, this past summer, after graduating from CMC, Levin was called in on short notice to tape on Aug. 21, his birthday.
Levin is forbidden from revealing the results or anything about the game itself, he was on the show. But he credited CMC's strong grounding in government was a big help.
“Jeopardy! loves to ask about presidents, the Constitution, and the Supreme Court, so you'd better be sharp on those!” he said.
To see how well Levin did, tune in to ABC at 7 p.m. on Oct. 29.