Amodio on the set.
The nation Wednesday evening watched New Haven’s Matthew Amodio win $40,000 on a taped episode of Jeopardy!. Amodio, who in his day job studies neural networks as a Yale computer science PhD student, watched it, too, with family and friends. He won the competition, and returns to the air Thursday night. Meanwhile, he kept a diary of what his moment of fame felt like Wednesday; his notes follow:
I’ve been watching the show since before I can remember, being a little kid with my parents watching it everyday. It’s been a regular staple of my day for my whole life, and it was a dream come true to get to go on. I took the online test and auditioned at the behest of my parents, actually, because I did not think I was good enough to get on the show, but they were prodding me to do it so I did as a sop to them.
As it turns out, I did get picked to be on the show, so I am immensely grateful for them encouraging me to do it!
I was watching it in the main room of the house I grew up in, which was a nice touch that made it feel like home. I was thinking about the thousands and thousands of times I have watched this show in the same exact seat … but this time I was there on the TV!
The guests my family and I invited over to watch with us had gradually started to arrive by 5:30 p.m., and I greeted them as they came. This was helpful, because I could socialize with everybody and take my mind off the rest of the day for a moment.
At 7 p.m. we tuned the channel to the correct station. No offense to Pat Sajak, but none of us were really watching Wheel of Fortune. Tonight, that was not our main focus :)
At 7:30, I felt very nervous. Surprisingly, I was more nervous during this than I was during the taping of the show, though I have no idea why. I relived the roller coaster of both the highs and the lows, but for me I was really fixating on the ones I missed.
All in all, despite that, I let myself soak up the moment and enjoy it as best as possible, though.
We had about 15 people crowded into a room that comfortably sits eight. While there were cheers every time I got a question right, there were more subdued reactions than I expected for my down moments (when I got things wrong). Everybody was seemingly impressed with the things I knew’ they weren’t focused too much on the ones I didn’t.
One of my friends who is a doctor gave me a hard time for missing a question about the various stages of medical school, saying “If you listened to me better you would’ve gotten that one!”
Another ribbed me about missing a pop music question about Ed Sheeran, knowing that pop music is not something I like very much.
Overall, I got a large number of “Wow, how did you know that?” reactions that made me very proud.
Amodio, right, with host Robin Roberts.
The final jeopardy category was “African Monarchs.” While most people rolled their eyes in dismay, I was very excited, because history is one of my favorite subjects.
The final clue was: “Some devotees of this emperor who died in 1975 trace his lineage to King Solomon & the Queen of Sheba.” My response was:“Who is Selassie?” referring to Hailie Selassie.
When I ultimately answered the question correctly, we had to pause the TV to let the cheers die down so we could hear the rest … It was a noisy room at that point!
At 8 p.m., picked up my phone and started the busy work of responding to all of the texts and emails I got during the show. There were many people I haven’t heard from in awhile, and it was great getting this opportunity to reconnect with old friends.
In the end, I won my game, and it felt like a true fairy tale ending. Although it was a close match, and even though I knew the result already, I went through the stress and drama of it as if it were new!