News Release

Scott Menke

You�d never know it to watch him now � master of instant recall and quick-fingered wizard with the signaling button � but senior Scott Menke is not exactly a lifelong Jeopardy fan.

In fact, his path to success in this month�s Jeopardy College Tournament wound through a different TV show altogether: a brazenly irreverent daily sports talk show on ESPN.

�I had heard of Jeopardy, and had seen the show, but really didn't watch it at all,� said Menke, a big winner in last week�s quarterfinals who will appear Monday night, May 11, in the first of the tournament�s three semifinal matches.

�As it turned out, the way I got hooked ended up being through sports,� said the applied mathematics major in the Whiting School of Engineering. �I used to watch a show on ESPN called Pardon the Interruption every evening in high school. � They started bringing up a guy named Ken Jennings, who was having an unbelievable streak on Jeopardy.�

Menke started flipping channels after PTI to catch Jennings, who in 2004 set the Jeopardy record with an amazing 74 consecutive nightly victories.

�There was something so mesmerizing about watching him answer questions,� Menke said. �I know it sounds crazy, but it just drew me in. � There was something soothing and inevitable about Ken Jennings decimating his opponents.�

From there Menke�s interest in Jeopardy grew and grew; as a Johns Hopkins sophomore, he started setting his digital video recorder to catch every show and watched them in blocks when he got some free time.

�My roommates don't really understand my obsession,� he said. �In fact, I can't really comprehend it either. But I think I've missed only a handful of episodes over the past two years.�

Whatever sparked the obsession, it�s working for him. Menke, 21, from Flemington, N.J., blew away the competition in his quarterfinal, which aired May 5. He amassed $25,199, well over double the score of worthy competitors from Michigan State and the University of Virginia. He took four out of a possible five answers in three separate categories (High-tech Cinema, Geography and Latin), responded correctly on 32 of 36 clues and managed to ring in first on all three lucrative �daily double� clues.

�I found the third daily double, looked up to see what I should wager, and noticed that I had $27,000,� Menke said. �At that point, I thought to myself, �Wow, I'm going to the semifinals.� I didn't wager very much, and decided to play it safe after that.�

One of his few misses was in Final Jeopardy (category: On the Moon), but by then it was too late: Even though he lost money on the question and both his adversaries answered correctly, they were too far behind and could not catch him.

Menke � who minors in entrepreneurship and management, is active in the Johns Hopkins Chess Club and is interested in starting a business in artificial intelligence someday -- said he greatly enjoyed his fellow competitors, students from Harvard, Princeton, Emory, Ohio State, Missouri, Kansas and St. John�s College, among others.

�We hung out a lot on the bus rides to the studio and back, and after the tapings were complete. These people know so much,� he said. �I thought I had an advantage on the buzzer, but these guys were true buffs, knowledgeable in so many areas. I can't say enough about how fortunate I was to find all three daily doubles and to get categories that I had a handle on. Luck plays a big part in this game, and I had a lot of it.�

Having the first match behind him was something of a relief, Menke says.

�I was just glad that I'd won a game, that people back home could say they know someone who'd won on Jeopardy, that my parents didn't fly to LA for nothing,� he said. �I didn't want them to leave empty-handed. � They were just having fun, but I didn't want to disappoint them.�

The three sets of three semifinalists � five daily winners from the quarterfinals and four �wild card� high scorers from among the non-winners � will appear on the air Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday for the right to advance to a two-game final to be broadcast Thursday and Friday. The semifinalists are guaranteed a $10,000 prize. The eventual champion receives a minimum of $100,000.

Menke cannot disclose the results of the semifinal match or say whether he will advance to the finals. He did say, however, that the semifinal � taped the day after the quarterfinal -- turns out to be much closer than the first-round match.

�It wasn't a runaway for anyone,� he said.