Western Pa. ‘Jeopardy!’ contestants have fond memories of Alex Trebek
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Connellsville native Lindsey Shultz will never forget the day Alex Trebek showed up in the “Jeopardy!” contestant’s green room just before taping episodes for the Tournament of Champions.
It was early September 2019, just six months after Trebek had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer.
“He came back just to say ‘Hi’ to all of us in his street clothes. He just wanted to say, ‘Here I am. I’m still on my feet. I’m tired sometimes, but we’re going to do this as long as I can,’ ” said Shultz, a Carnegie Mellon University graduate. “It was one of those moments like when you’re a kid seeing your teacher shopping at the market.”
Trebek, who hosted “Jeopardy!” for all 37 years of its syndicated run, died Sunday. He was 80.
It was one year ago this week that the Tournament of Champions episodes featuring Shultz aired on national television. She advanced to the semifinals before losing to record-setting champion James Holzhauer.
“(Trebek) had a strong almost two years after his diagnosis that he kept working,” Shultz said. “Where someone else might have said, ‘I’m going to do something else with whatever time I have left,’ he chose to keep giving back, knowing what he meant to his audience. He made the choice to be generous with the time he had left.”
Shultz, 36, a 2000 graduate of Connellsville Area High School, fully understands how difficult it must have been for Trebek to keep working. After graduating from CMU in 2004, she earned a medical degree from Cornell University and underwent training in public health from Columbia University. Shultz works as a physician and health care analyst in Pittsburgh.
“Having the medical background that I do, some of my patients had the same diagnosis as Alex Trebek, so I have a memory of what it feels like when suddenly a patient’s course of illness can change very unexpectedly,” Shultz said. “And you know what the ultimate result of this diagnosis normally is. But you’re still never really prepared for how and when that’s going to take place.”
Michael Madison, 58, of Pittsburgh was a “Jeopardy!” contestant in 2001. One of his memories from that appearance was the stand-up comedy Trebek performed during a break between episodes.
“He did it for the benefit of the audience in the studio. Alex works ‘blue,’ as they say, so it was a little surprising given the way he presents himself on TV to hear some R-rated jokes,” said Madison, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh.
Madison said the thing about Trebek that stood out to him was the air of authority he had on the set.
“He was pleasant and professional, but he was clearly presiding,” Madison said. “It was unambiguous that it was Alex’s show. Alex was in charge. The whole thing was professional and polished. I was only disappointed that I didn’t make it onto another game.”
Shultz, however, not only made it onto another game but was a four-time winner on the top-rated trivia-based game show, earning $101,002 and a place in the Tournament of Champions.
“Jeopardy!” contestants select “answers” by dollar amounts from a series of categories. Once the answer is revealed, the contestant must respond correctly in the form of a question. If the contestant is right, that dollar amount is added to their score. If they are incorrect, the amount is subtracted.
Shultz said Trebek was in good spirits the week the Tournament of Champions shows were recorded, even with the news that he had to restart his chemotherapy regimen that week. She called Trebek a consummate professional with a “pretty wicked, dry sense of humor conveyed in that same carefully calibrated, well-timed delivery he used to keep the show running.”
Shultz, who said her height is “five feet on a good day,” even became the inspiration for some of Trebek’s witty remarks.
“They put a hydraulic lift behind the podium so (the contestants) are all about even eye level for the camera. I was up against someone particularly tall in one of my games so they would jack me up, a few inches, then a few more inches, and I see (Trebek) over there cackling as I’m standing basically like nine inches in the air on this thing,” Shultz said.
“He used the opening line for that show, ‘Don’t be fooled. Though she be but little, she is fierce,’ ” she recalled Trebek saying, borrowing a line from Shakespeare.
Now that Alex Trebek is gone, Shultz said her heart is warmed by the memories of being in his presence.
“It feels very much like a privilege to have gotten, for a little part of my life, to have intersected with the larger-than-life figure that he was.”