SwanShadow Thinks Out Loud

I would have written about this before now, except that I didn’t know about it until today, when a member of an online forum that I frequent brought it to my attention.

A couple of weeks ago, I surrendered a distinction that I’ve held all by my lonesome for the past 21 years.

Since June 1988 — actually since March of that year, but the feat wasn’t official until June, when the programs aired — I have been the only African-American five-game champion in the history of Jeopardy! (If you’re arriving late to the party, you can read about my career as a game show trivia wizard by following the link. And yes, you nitpicker, technically I’m “biracial” — but if it’s good enough for the President of these United States, it’s absolutely good enough for me.)

As of two weeks ago Friday, a gentleman from Plano, Texas named Terry Linwood muscled his way into my formerly one-man fraternity.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m as thrilled as all get-out for Terry, who’s a fantastic Jeopardy! player. (I saw a couple of Terry’s games, but not his game five — which he won — or his game six — which he lost — and thus I wasn’t aware of his accomplishment.)

Still, I’m sure you’ll excuse me for feeling just a tiny bit less… remarkable today.

Had you asked me 21 years ago whether I thought my dubious accomplishment would stand the test of more than two decades’ time, I’d have imagined you daft. I mean, who’d have thought Jeopardy! would even be on the air after 26 seasons? And, given the number of contestants who grace the Sony Pictures Studios stage every year, you’d have supposed that a couple of dozen people, maybe, would have smashed in the door to my solitary club by now.

It’s a funny old world, sometimes.

Now I know how Snoopy felt in this classic Peanuts strip:

Congratulations to Terry Linwood on becoming Jeopardy!‘s latest five-time champ. I’ll be pulling for him in next year’s Tournament of Champions.

If he does well, I’ll even teach him the secret handshake.

This entry was posted on October 29, 2009 at 4:19 pm and is filed under Getting Racial Up In This Piece, Hero of the Day, Jeopardy!, SwanStuff, Teleholics Anonymous, That's Cool!. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.