CULVER CITY, Calif. – A Cape May County Technical School social studies teacher, who lives in Wildwood Crest, put on an impressive showcase of trivia knowledge in an episode of the long-reigning king of trivia gameshows, ‘Jeopardy!’, which aired Jan. 31.
The teacher, Matthew McElroy, got a tremendous reaction from students and members of the local community after they watched his performance.
“It’s been a lot of fun getting the congratulations,” McElroy said. “The students have been remarkably impressed.”
McElroy lost nearly all his earnings on the Final Jeopardy question but said looking back he only regrets missing one early question about Kentucky’s capital and otherwise gave it his best.
McElroy, wearing a heart pin with the word “Teach” on his lapel, his way of saying hello to the school, led into the first commercial break, answering six questions correctly in the first segment, with responses including William Penn, the actor Mark Wahlberg and civil rights leader Malcolm X.
In the Double Jeopardy round of the gameshow, trailing to reigning champion Jay Foster, McElroy found a Daily Double, which had the potential to place the game’s outcome in his own destiny.
Under the category “Surnames,” the clue was, “The name Chevrolet goes back to a word for this animal, or perhaps one who kept them.”
McElroy guessed Gazelle but the answer was goat, and he lost his wager. He said he doesn’t slam his head into the steering wheel every time he drives by a Chevy but did admit there are constant haunting reminders of missed questions.
Going into Final Jeopardy, McElroy still had a shot, but all three contestants got a question about Gertrude Stein wrong, and McElroy had been forced to make a substantial wager because of his deficit, so Foster held onto his lead to win a second day in a row.
McElroy said he plays Quizzo at Goodnight Irene’s, in Wildwood, with his girlfriend most weeks and although ‘Jeopardy!’ viewers might assume he would dominate in that environment, there is one other patron there who gives the duo a good run.
“I might encourage him to try out for the show,” said McElroy.
He said it was easy to apply. There is a test that can be taken at any time, then, if you score high enough, you come back to a test at a scheduled time, and there are subsequent rounds of testing, including one done on video, after that.
From there, it’s a waiting game, until, if you’re lucky, you get the phone call.
“I never answer my phone at school. I think it’s unprofessional, so my phone is off at school. I got a call at the end of the day, and I had a really weird feeling, so I talked to my coach. ‘I have to make this phone call.’ It turned out it was ‘Jeopardy!’ calling,” McElroy said, remembering the November call.
The swim season was just getting underway, and McElroy coaches the Cape Tech swimmers, so he asked if he could do the show’s teachers edition in March, but he was informed he would go onto a waiting list, and this would be his best shot, so he was on a plane to Hollywood Thanksgiving weekend, with a schedule to shoot on the Sony Pictures lot that Monday and Tuesday.
Assistant Swim Coach Warren Wade encouraged him to do the show and covered for him while he was away, though outside of Wade and a small group of other close friends and relatives, McElroy kept the reason for his absence mysterious.
McElroy said the show’s producers work hard to see it succeed and they give contestants a practice round to try to get them acclimated. Despite hours of studying and preparing, none of the material McElroy said he went over came up in the episode’s clues.
“It’s a lot more relaxing at home,” said McElroy, who found ‘Jeopardy!’ to be a happy medium in a home where his parents stressed educational television over game shows. “I don’t know if I’m old enough to have a bucket list, but it had definitely been something I had wanted to do.”
McElroy said he bonded with some of the other contestants over their interest in knowledge and made a trip with some of them to the Santa Monica Pier one day. He called Jay Foster and Riley Timmreck, the two contestants he competed directly against, “very nice” and “two quiet people,” but said he bonded more with some of those who were there to shoot other episodes the same day.
He said he would have liked to have met Johnny Gilbert, the legendary announcer of ‘Jeopardy!’, but he was announcing the contestants remotely and Mayim Bialik, the show’s host, was nice but their interaction was minimal.
After a 40-day, $1,382,800 run by Amy Schneider ended in late January, three consecutive one-day champions preceded McElroy’s appearance, though he admitted when he appeared on the show, he didn’t even know who Schneider was.
“It was Matt Amodio at that point,” he said, referencing the 38-day champion, whose run was airing in November 2021 when McElroy shot his episode.
Despite his newfound celebrity and the awe of his students, McElroy said he hasn’t found it any easier to get them to pay attention in class.
“I wouldn’t get carried away on that. The students are still the students,” McElroy said.
To contact Shay Roddy, email sroddy@cmcherald.com.
