Congratulations, Ken Jennings!

Yesterday evening, Ken Jennings became the first person to win $1 million on "Jeopardy!" More impressive, in my opinion, has been his winning streak of 30 consecutive games. In the old days - before this year - "Jeopardy!" contestants who won five days in a row were rare. So rare that five-day champions were feted and given an early retirement.

I'm not a big Jeopardy! watcher. So I was surprised when I happened to catch the show, and hear Alex Trabek announce that the pleasant-faced blond-haired fellow who overwhelmed his competitors had won his 23rd game. That's when I learned the new rules, probably a response to the high-stakes gameplay on the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" But Jeopardy's new format makes for superior entertainment, because an outstanding contestant will potentially appear over and over (and over and over) on the television screens and by golly, he or she is just like the audience at home.

But Ken is not just like anyone. I know this from watching the 23rd episode. I know this from hearing excerpts on KROQ's usually inane "Kevin and Bean" show. In their rock-jock stupidity, they suggested half-seriously the game was rigged. But the very fact that two idiots were talking about Jeopardy! suggests that many other people are talking about the record.

Ken's not just like anyone. But he does resemble a number of people I know. In fact, he looked vaguely familiar to me. Turns out, he played quiz bowl in college around the same time I did. Now he helps run National Academic Quiz Tournaments, or NAQT, a main engine of the collegiate quiz bowl circuit. I played in the first NAQT National Tournament in 1997, for Berkeley. Upon returning to school at Oregon, I led that team to its first Nationals berth in 2001. Ken played quiz bowl between those years, which is why I remember him vaguely.

After a bit of research, I found that Ken and his Brigham Young University team played at the first Caltech summer tournament, nicknamed Quesadilla. Ken finished 5th in the singles tournament, but the record shows he lost only to Peter Freeman and Jesse Molesworth, an astrophysicist and a English literature grad student, respectively. (Summer tournaments allow participants to be "alumni", which I was in 1999.) Ken also finished behind 4th place Dave Farris, the wizard from Edison High/Harvard/Berkeley, and my good friend, Michael Bennett, now a grad student at Chicago. Michael, if you're reading this, here's an idea to pay your way through grad school... Incidentally, 6th place finisher Pat Friel (UCLA) was the minor celebrity then, having been on Jeopardy! in 1997 and winning twice. He lost to Berkeley professor (and eventual five-day champion) Art Malia. Yes, I watched a bit more back then.

I didn't play in the singles portion of the tourney. Instead, I was driving myself and Rob Hentzel from the Bay Area that afternoon. Rob, Peter, and I won the team competition. Incidentally, individual-champion Peter was the 3rd scorer on our three-man team. Rob averaged about 8 questions, I averaged about 4, and Peter about 2.5. The overlap in knowledge between Rob and Peter skewed the team results. Still, if I was better than Peter, and Peter beat Ken... Well, that was five years ago. Mr. Jennings definitely appears a stronger player now. Yet looking back at this seemingly insignificant Saturday in my life, five years ago, definitely inspires me to try out for Jeopardy, as many friends have urged me.

But you don't have to be a nerd to be inspired. I think it's great a young person is rewarded with fame and fortune because of his knowledge, rather than his or her ability to drink snake blood or cast someone off the island. And if it takes a nice Mormon computer programmer to show America that, more power to him, and bully for us.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to watch some TV.