Twelve-year-old Scott Szewczyk watches the quiz show Jeopardy
every day when he gets home from school. The show on Friday,
Oct. 6, will be his favorite because he was one of the contestants.
The 12-year-old Belleville, Ill., youth was one of 15 kids
featured on the weeklong Back to School Week on Jeopardy.
In each show in the week of Oct. 2-6, three kids competed.
But, in this special programming, none of the kids appeared
more than once, even if they won their daily competition.
Scottie is a 6th grader at Blessed Sacrament Catholic School
in Belleville.
Scottie said he noticed an ad on the show early this year
calling for kids to volunteer to be on the Back to School
shows. He looked up the entry form on the Jeopardy
website and sent in this application.
St. Louis was one of the cities where tryouts for the show
were held. "There were kids from all over the country to
came to St. Louis," he said. "Some were as far away as from
Florida," he added.
First, the field of 200 was narrowed to 10 finalists. Among
the factors involved in the judges was the number of outside
activities in which the kids were involved. Scottie is a
very busy kid, both in and out of school.
"Then, each of the 10 finalists appeared in a simulated
show with a buzzer to push and everything," Scottie said.
In the show, the master of ceremony asks a question and
the kid who hits the buzzer first gets to answer.
Scottie
on the Jeopardy podium |
Scottie said one problem is you don't want to be too fast.
"If you click too fast, the computer locks you out," Scottie
said.
In the end, Scottie was the only kid from the St. Louis
tryouts to make the final list of 15. The TV show held tryouts
in various parts of the country to insure a good geographic
spread of contestants.
Then, the waiting started. For Scottie, the waiting lasted
longer than for others in his family.
Scottie
and his family on the Jeopardy set |
The show directors notified his parents in the summer but
told them not to tell Scottie immediately. The show's promotion
department wanted to arrange for local media coverage of
the announcement.
So, it wasn't until just two weeks before the family traveled
to Los Angeles that Scottie found out he was in. "Even my
brother and sister knew before me," he said.
Scottie and his parents were flown to Los Angeles in late
August. "We stayed in a really nice hotel and they paid
for everything," Scottie said. The all-expense trip covered
Scott and both of his parents.
Scottie and Alex Trebek's chair |
In addition, his brother, Eddie, flew out from Pennsylvania
where he is a freshman at Penn State University. (Young
Saint Louis.com readers will remember Eddie as our reviewer
of the Harry Potter movies.)
After the Jeopardy filming, there was more waiting
and more secrecy. Under the show rules, none of the contestants
could tell how they did in the show until it aired on TV.
When the Back to School Week came, the principal at Scottie's
school set up a big TV in the gym so that kids could watch
the show together after school. The show aired on KSDK (Channel
5) in the St. Louis area.
"We made kind of a party out of it," Scottie said.
Scottie said he racked up winnings of $8,000 during the
show. He doubled his previous earnings by getting the "final
Jeopardy" question correct.
But, unlike the senior Jeopardy, the non-winning kid contestants
don't get to keep the money. Scottie said another of the
contestants on his show ended up with $20,601. Scottie got
a $1,000 appearance fee.
About his experience, Scottie said, "It was really fun."
He said kids at his school "thought it was really cool."
One of the things that probably helped Scottie win his
spot on the show was a wide variety of activities in which
he participates. He is a member of The Muny Kids program
and had parts in two Muny shows last summer, "Oliver" and
"Wizard of Oz."
He had speaking lines as a lawyer in "Wizard of Oz."
Also, he participates in a wide variety of sports at school.
Included are soccer, basketball, baseball, volleyball, lacrosse,
golf, tennis and swimming.
On the Jeopardy show, he was asked what he wanted
as a career. "I told them a biologist but I'm not sure about
that," he said. He does hope to go to college at Notre Dame.
