James asked, "Tom, you said you mentioned your academic competition experience as one of the five things on your Jeopardy! list. Was it the first thing on the list, or the last thing on the list?" At the time of the audition, it was first. That was because one of my players, Jim Scott, had just won the Tournament of Champions. I thought it was a plus. At the time of the taping, the contestant coordinators and I agreed that if Alex asked about it, they would try to get him to ask on a possible fifth day (alas, out in two :)). The other things were more interesting unless I also became a five-time champ (and day two was just one of those things...). James also remarked, "I don't think there's anything wrong with mentioning quizbowl experience on these shows as long as you can distinguish yourself with some other story, anecdote, etc." Exactly! Extensive experience as an academic competitor shows a contestant coordinator that you enjoy recall games, you're at least somewhat good at it, and you can probably compete well under pressure. But if you can't come up with at least four other things to talk about, don't wait for The Call. Look again at my list of things. "I collect globes" is pretty banal, but Alex zeroed in on that early. He didn't know many globe collectors, I guess. As long as you have something you can say briefly about it, it may be good enough. As an aside, during the J! audition they seemed deliberate in not giving you a whole lot of time to think of five things. It was good that I was forewarned, and had a mental list ahead of time. For WWTBAM, they left us with the application form while they graded the tests for an hour. I spent a good twenty minutes listing things in some detail, even going into the margins and on the back! Tom
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