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Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:03 Picture this, you are walking across the stage, shining with lights to compete in the jeopardy national college championship. Well, that was exactly the reality for McCormick senior. Yay. June Kemp
Speaker 2 00:00:19 Here are tonight's next three college competitors at Northwestern university in Haven, Illinois. You,
Speaker 1 00:00:30 She describes how she felt. The second she was first on the stage.
Speaker 3 00:00:34 It was really stressful. They don't really tell you what time you're going on what day? And they don't tell you who you're playing against until right before. So that was like really petrifying, you know? Cause I was like, I didn't wanna go last. I didn't wanna go first
Speaker 1 00:00:51 From w N news. You're listening to news at six. Yay. June was featured in the second half of episode two and competed against Joey Cornman from Brandis university and Mitch maek from Villanova university by the third attempt. Yay. June got a question right in a smile, covered her face due to the accomplishment.
Speaker 4 00:01:14 Yay, June. What is Ulta? Correct? The
Speaker 3 00:01:16 Element 600.
Speaker 1 00:01:18 The contestants kept vying for correct answers soon. Yay. June accumulated, nearly $3,000 in earnings. Yay. June kept buzzing in and so did the others as the questions dwindled. Yay. June ended up in third place by the final question, the final jeopardy where all three contestants, get to answer a question and wager as much as they would like up to how much they have earned. So far.
Speaker 4 00:01:40 Welcome back to final jeopardy. Anything can happen here. The category 20th century leaders. Here's the clue
Speaker 1 00:01:49 At this point, she decided her best bet was to wage her $0. On the last question, why you may ask on the surface one might think had she bet more she could have seemingly had a stronger shot in coming in second place? Well, it was her best strategy. Yay. June said,
Speaker 3 00:02:05 And I just wanna clear the record that it was the best bet in my situation. I'll say I studied final waging strategy. So my strategy is like, yeah, I could bet everything, but I wasn't confident in the category. And then why would Mitch and I both bet everything cause I know Mitch's gonna bet everything. Yeah. So I should just try and go for a second place.
Speaker 1 00:02:26 And yay. June's guest was mostly right in the technique. Highly effective Mitch did about everything as she thought he would. And a final attempt to beat Joey and come in first place. But Mitch got the question wrong and his final earnings dwindle to zero.
Speaker 4 00:02:41 Did you come up with Winston Churchill? I'm afraid not <laugh> all right. Who is Nelson Mandela? Unfortunately that's not correct. What's that gonna cost you everything that will take you down to zero puts you in third place.
Speaker 1 00:02:53 Meanwhile, yay June, even though she thought she wouldn't get the question right dead. But even without majoring money, she came in second place since meant fell to $0. And even if she had be everything, she would not have had enough to beat Joey
Speaker 4 00:03:08 And Joey Cornman what did you come up with? Who is Winston Churchill? That is correct. And how much are we gonna add to your score? $801 with $17,201. Congratulations. You are moving on the semi-final.
Speaker 1 00:03:25 Yay. June has been watching jeopardy since she was a kid, but stepping on the real stage fall very different. For one, it was extremely fast paced.
Speaker 3 00:03:34 I feel like in preparation for it. And like in my life I watched so much jeopardy, right? Like with my friends where you sit on the couch and like, you just like say the answers lot or like you laugh about like the dumb guesses. And then I was like standing there and I was like, oh, there's no like do over skipping categories. I don't like there's no like laughing off like bad answers, stupid guesses I made with my friends. I was like, oh, like, this is like, actually the whole thing is gonna be recorded. And I think that feeling was just really scary
Speaker 1 00:04:01 More than 26,000 hopeful students from over 4,000 different colleges auditioned to be on jeopardy this year, but only 36 students made the final cut a chance to win the grand prize of $250,000 and drew glory. Yay. June describes the audition process.
Speaker 3 00:04:18 I think like sent like emails out. I remember like the producers were just like advertising to all the big schools and I told my roommate it would be fun. So we took it. It was just like a random afternoon. And then I went and made lunch and I forgot about it.
Speaker 1 00:04:32 A few months later, Eugene and her roommate both received an email that they passed the initial test and they were asked to participate in the first round of interviews.
Speaker 3 00:04:41 So that was like in November of 2020, um, which was a really long time ago. And then it was like, not until like January of like 20, 21, but like they sent out emails for like the first round of auditions, which was just the same type of test, but Proctor. So they're like checking if you're not cheating. And I thought that was cool in itself.
Speaker 1 00:05:03 And then yay. Jude kept being asked back for more interviews.
Speaker 3 00:05:07 And then there was a third interview and the last one, which was in March and that was like, not a test. It was like, they put you on like a zoom call with like 10 kids and it made you play like a mocking and then they would ask you questions like, oh, like what are you gonna do with the money? If you win.
Speaker 1 00:05:22 Yay. June said she would spend the money at telling the Coachella valley music and arts festival after that interview. Yay. June said she forgot about jeopardy for a while. That was until she got a bizarre phone call in March.
Speaker 3 00:05:36 It was like, I was sitting in the backyard with my roommate. We were just like doing homework out there and it was like an LA area code. And then it was basically like the contestant producer being like, oh, like you're basically concerned. You just need to do like a background check, I guess like I was excited. And like my roommate was right there with me and I was just like in shock, but then I got really stressed. Then, then I had to study <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:06:00 Yay. June was not allowed to tell anyone, including her parents or friends that she got accepted until the competitors were officially announced in February. Then come February. Yay. June took a plane to California for the official tournament in filming. Once she arrived. Yay. June along with the other competitors immediately began preparing for the showdown.
Speaker 3 00:06:18 So like, we were there for like a few days. It was like one day where everyone gets there. The next day was like promotions, like taking pictures and like filming like clips. And then the next two days were the quarter final game.
Speaker 1 00:06:32 Yay. June dedicated her first few evenings to diligently studying.
Speaker 3 00:06:35 I felt an EAG like cramp. I was like, oh my God, like I need to go study. It's been like two days.
Speaker 1 00:06:40 And after yay, June filmed the episode and knew she was not progressing to the next round. She went out to dinner with her jeopardy contestant peers.
Speaker 3 00:06:47 And I think that was so much fun. Like it was really sweet. We all like went to like this random restaurant and it was like just such a good time because like everyone had been done at that point. And like, we all hung out in like someone much hotel room and I was like really fun.
Speaker 1 00:07:00 Yay. June said with all this time together, some jeopardy friendships turned into romantic relationships.
Speaker 3 00:07:06 I know two people started dating afterwards. Yeah. I thought I didn't even find that out until like they said something in like a group chat,
Speaker 1 00:07:14 That group chat, it's still very active.
Speaker 3 00:07:17 Like someone says something like almost every single day. And I think that's been really cool. Just seeing how like people reacted to their episodes, like how they watched it with their friends.
Speaker 1 00:07:26 June said she made some incredible friends from the experience as well. AJU said that there are a lot of techniques to jeopardy from daily double hunting to learning, to press the buzzer really fast. Yay. June's tactic of choice, pick questions related to stem, given her engineering background. That way should be most likely to know the answers, the buzzing technique. Meanwhile, that's something you June said she really struggled with.
Speaker 3 00:07:51 And I think that's what makes things so different. It's like, it's literally like, just like so much concentration, but it's over so fast in like 30 minutes. That, and then also that the budget timing is really hard. People assume that like, if you don't buzz in on something, they're like, oh, you didn't know it. Most of the times it is the case that like all three people knew it, but just like one person was just like, what? Like a millisecond faster.
Speaker 1 00:08:14 But according to yay, June a part of jeopardy is also just chance.
Speaker 3 00:08:19 It's such a game of chance. And I feel like people don't really realize that it's a chance what categories show up. It's a chance like if you find a daily, double or not, it's a chance, you know, to final jeopardy. It's just like very like randomized.
Speaker 1 00:08:31 Yay. June said one of the craziest aspects of participating in jeopardy, in addition to being interviewed by many news outlets was being featured on the official Northwestern, Instagram.
Speaker 3 00:08:40 Oh yeah. Crazy Northwestern. Put me on their Instagram. That was like the biggest <laugh>. I think that was the biggest point they followed me. I think that was like my biggest celebrity moment. <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:08:50 Yay. Also said a lot of people from her hometown of Naperville, Illinois have reached to her about the competition.
Speaker 3 00:08:56 I think the best part was that a lot of like my old friends and like teachers reached out on social media. I thought that was really sweet. My elementary school teachers, people I haven't like talked to in a while, just like, congratulations. Oh like this is so cool. But it was like nice to like reconnect with that
Speaker 1 00:09:13 After the tournament ended. Yay. June said she had a viewing party with her college friends and one of the craziest things. Yay. June tried competitive quiz ball in high school and it wasn't for her.
Speaker 3 00:09:23 And I like actively remember, I thought trivia would be cool freshman year when I was like a naive, like what? 14 year old? And I joined it for one semester and then I quit <laugh> because it was too stressful. It stressed me out like the whole like buzzing, which I just find very ironic. I wonder how I'll the teacher for that would react. Cause I think he retired. I go to Bob's like once a month <laugh> that counts. My team has never gotten like more than like,
Speaker 1 00:09:49 So where is he? AJU headed next? How does she intend to spend the $10,000 she earned for competing? Well, for one, probably not on Coachella, she said the earnings are going towards paying for her Northwestern education. As for her future career. She has some ambitious schools. Yay. June plans to go to graduate school where she hopes to concentrate on biological engineering and sell research from w Nur news. I'm Marmal interested in watching college jeopardy. Well, that's great because you can watch it for free on the ABC website.
