I'll Take Vermont for 500, Alex Trebek Rues the Day that First-Year Midd-kid Competes in Jeopardy's Annual 'College Week'

Author: Emily Thaler

Keith Williams, a first-year from Manchester, N.H., will be representing Middlebury College in this year's "Jeopardy" College Week series, which airs beginning Nov. 10. Williams has been an avid "Jeopardy" fan for years and claims to have first watched the show when he was three years old.

In addition to his interest in the show, Williams also has experience as a game show contestant. Throughout high school, he participated in an interscholastic quiz bowl, which featured longer format questions than those asked on "Jeopardy."

Williams' high school team made it to the state semi-finals, where he was selected to be part of an all-state all-star team. The all-star team traveled to a larger tournament in Florida, where it lost in the second round. Williams attributed the loss to the competition's "unusual format for questions."

The format of "Jeopardy" questions should pose few problems for Williams, though, given his long-standing interest in the game show. He prepared for "Jeopardy" primarily by watching the shows or reading old questions and learning the correct answers.

A potential political science major, Williams' strongest categories are geography, science and math. He admits that he is "all right" at pop culture and celebrity gossip but doesn't really like it. World Capitals is the only area Williams actually studied for prior to the competition.

Williams found out about the college series while watching "Jeopardy" and then signed up online. After registering, he was selected at random to try out for "Jeopardy" in New York City. The game show recruits potential contestants and tests them at four different sites around the country: Los Angeles, New York, Indianapolis and New Orleans. Williams, the geography expert, noted "they cover pretty much all areas except the Rocky Mountain states."

The "Jeopardy" test-date was initially set for Aug. 16 but had to be rescheduled for Sept. 6 due to a blackout in the Northeast. The make-up date wound up coinciding with Middlebury College's First-Year Orientation, and Williams was left to "wrestle with going to 'Jeopardy' or finishing orientation."

He eventually realized, "Hey, this is my one chance," and left orientation early to travel down to New York City. Ironically, the Vermonter had to switch out of his MOO trip and into "This is Vermont" so that he would be able to leave early.

On the Saturday, Williams took a written test with about 80 other "Jeopardy" potentials, at the Times Square Westin Hotel. The test consisted of 50 questions, each representative of a different category, and participants needed to get 35 right to pass the exam. Announcer Johnny Gilbert read the question via recording, and contestants were given eight seconds to respond correctly.

In addition to William's testing, there were two other testing times that day, as well as on Sunday which gives some indication of the size of the contestant pool.

After the written test, Williams and 14 others in his testing group who had passed the exam were asked to stay and compete in a mini-game, complete with buzzers and a game board projected onto a screen. In the mini-game, each group of three was asked 12 questions.

Williams admitted that he did not do as well as he would have liked in the mini-game, but it didn't matter, as the mini-game was simply a test for "TV compatibility." He had already proven that he could answer the questions in the written exam.

The Tuesday after he tested in New York, Williams received a call from "Jeopardy" asking him to participate in the college series. The taping would be at Yale, and representatives from the show made plans for his travel and accommodation. Williams was reunited with a fellow competitor from the tryouts on his flight from Burlington to Albany to Hartford.

Throughout the early days of the tournament, the two contestants hung out with another contestant from Carleton College, whom they met in the elevator of their hotel.

Despite the fact that "Jeopardy" did not want the contestants to associate with one another prior to the tapings, the trio spent some of their down time seeing the sites in New Haven.

During the first week of taping, Williams and 14 other college students competed in groups of three until the field could be narrowed down.

Confidentiality agreements made by all contestants forbid Williams from revealing the outcome of his stint on the show, but the results will air soon in Middlebury. Williams' first game will air on Wednesday, Nov. 12, on Channel 5 at 7 p.m. "College Week" will run weeknights at 7 p.m. from Nov. 10 to 21.