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#Post#: 33297--------------------------------------------------
I'll take "Champions of Sportsmanship" for $200...or $
2.4 mil
By: JessTer Date: June 23, 2019, 1:23 pm
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I know it might normally be debatable whether game show
contestants should fall under "celebrities", but I think it's
safe to say that James Holzhauer, Jeopardy! champion from April
4 to June 3 of this year (yes, you read those dates right) has
become one.
By starting with high dollar-value clues and making aggressive
Daily Double bets (often all or most of what he had), Holzhauer
broke just about every record on the show, EXCEPT the ones for
total winnings and number of games won. Those both still belong
to Ken Jennings, who was on in 2004. Holzhauer's games won (32 -
his run was interrupted to air the Teachers' Tournament in May)
and his total winnings for regular Jeopardy play without
tournaments - just under $2.5 mil - are second only to Jennings.
If you add in tournament winnings, Holzhauer is third only to
Jennings and Brad Rutter. (Jeopardy gave him his own stats page
on the web site in addition to adding him to their Hall of Fame,
so you can see more about him on their web site.)
But, of more interest to us is the (in my opinion and lots of
fans' opinions) class with which Holzhauer has responded to
opponents (successful and not), past champs, and some press
coverage that was...less than complimentary (some people felt he
was ruining the game or that it was boring because it was
predictable that he was going to win.)
I can't reproduce every comment I liked here because a lot of it
was on Facebook or Twitter and would be difficult to find
because it was long ago. Some examples:
[list][li]He went on Facebook to dispute a contention, made by
some of his followers, that other players were being poor
sports, turning away and refusing to shake his hand and such. He
said this wasn't accurate - it was just that TV doesn't always
show the handshakes[/li] [li][/list] 29 of his 32 games were
"locked" going into the Final Jeopardy round - meaning that
Holzhauer couldn't lose because he had more than twice anyone
else's score. Alex Trebek calls these "runaways." Of the three
that were not, the closest call was April 29, when he won by
just $18 and the runner-up, Adam Levin, gave him a run for his
money throughout the game, and finished with over $50,000 (the
highest-ever second-place score.) Levin told interviewers that
on the set, Holzhauer told his (Levin's) son, "You should be
very proud of your dad," and then later Holzhauer posted:
Only seven people have ever outscored Adam's $53,999 in a
regular season game of Jeopardy. If he didn't run into one of
them, he'd probably be on his way to the Tournament of
Champions. Tip of my hat to an incredible performance."
[/list]
When Holzhauer lost his 33rd game, $60,000 or so below Jennings'
money record, (edited to add), he immediately went across the
stage to high-five Emma Boettcher, who defeated him, and here is
what he had to say about her:
HTML https://ftw.usatoday.com/2019/06/jeopardy-james-holzhauer-praises-emma-boettcher-with-classy-tweets-after-loss
(People had predicted he would lose by making a stupid mistake
or doing a bet wrong - he's pointing out that didn't happen - he
actually didn't miss a single question in the game he lost.)
Then, in response to conspiracy theorists who thought he lost on
purpose:
“Huge congrats to Emma, who needed to play a perfect game to
beat me and did just that...To anyone who thinks that I threw
the game or Jeopardy is rigged: it’s insulting to our new champ
to imply that she didn’t crush me legitimately. And if you
enjoyed watching a dominant champ in action, I think you might
want to stick around for the rest of Emma’s run.”
He also seems to be giving a lot of his winnings to charities
(particularly those in Las Vegas).
As I mentioned, Holzhauer was surprisingly controversial - he
had a huge following but also detractors who liked more suspense
as to who was going to win; didn't think it was "fair" that
people didn't have a chance to win; and/or don't like it that
Holzhauer is a professional gambler (which, obviously was part
of the secret to his success.) And some people thought Las Vegas
took things too far by honoring him with official accolades
including the key to the Las Vegas Strip, and a "James Holzhauer
Day."
I liked the way he responded to "haters" as well, but I can't
find good examples of that because it was a while ago.
But apparently, the class is not unique to Holzhauer among
Jeopardy champions.
[list] Over and over again, people compared Holzhauer to Ken
Jennings and speculated about whether Holzhauer would break
Jennings' records. Both Holzhauer and Jennings said it was an
honor to be compared to the other.
[list][li][/li]
[li][/li]
[/list]
Matt Jackson, who won 13 games in 2015 and is number five on the
list of both longest winning streaks and most money won (and was
fourth until Holzhauer's run), has been very complimentary about
Holzhauer on Facebook too - even as his (Jackson's) records were
being broken.
(Edited to say - sorry about the messed-up "list" format - I was
trying to use the list feature and do bullet-points and it
didn't come out like a usual bullet-point list. Hard to tell
where the bullet-points are supposed to be.)
#Post#: 33316--------------------------------------------------
Re: I'll take "Champions of Sportsmanship" for $200...
or $2.4 mil
By: NFPwife Date: June 23, 2019, 8:29 pm
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My husband and I were just discussing what a class act he is.
Especially since he donated to a pancreatic cancer charity in
Alex Trebek's name.
He's currently playing in WSOP and he's a pleasure to watch
play.
#Post#: 34071--------------------------------------------------
Re: I'll take "Champions of Sportsmanship" for $200...
or $2.4 mil
By: DaDancingPsych Date: July 8, 2019, 8:12 am
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I agree; it does sound like he has been quite classy. I always
want to give a little compassion to these instant/normal joe
celebrities (for lack of a better term.) Sure, good manners and
sportsmanship should be used, but they do not necessarily have
handlers or someone to simply say, "You know, that Tweet might
come across as salty." And for some reason we love to tear down
successful people, so I can understand how it must be
challenging to always respond in a tasteful manner (and not dip
to school yard tactics.) When I have my 15 minutes of fame, I
hope that I can react politely. (But my fame will not come from
Jeopardy!... I don't quite have the knowledge base for that!!!)
:P
#Post#: 34482--------------------------------------------------
Re: I'll take "Champions of Sportsmanship" for $200...
or $2.4 mil
By: JessTer Date: July 13, 2019, 2:50 pm
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[quote author=DaDancingPsych link=topic=1200.msg34071#msg34071
date=1562591572]
I agree; it does sound like he has been quite classy. I always
want to give a little compassion to these instant/normal joe
celebrities (for lack of a better term.) Sure, good manners and
sportsmanship should be used, but they do not necessarily have
handlers or someone to simply say, "You know, that Tweet might
come across as salty." And for some reason we love to tear down
successful people, so I can understand how it must be
challenging to always respond in a tasteful manner (and not dip
to school yard tactics.) When I have my 15 minutes of fame, I
hope that I can react politely. (But my fame will not come from
Jeopardy!... I don't quite have the knowledge base for that!!!)
:P
[/quote]
I agree about "normal joe celebrities" - and it did occur to me
that the remarks I posted above about Adam Levin, his closest
runner-up: "Only seven people have ever outscored him...if he
hadn't run into one of them he'd be a champion..." could have
been taken the wrong way just because the speaker, Holzhauer
himself, IS one of the seven who outscored Levin. While I think
Holzhauer's intent was genuinely to be complimentary, I could
see how the person in Levin's shoes COULD take it as "rubbing it
in." Fortunately, Levin was (it seemed to me) classy, too.
Holzhauer did tweet recently, "Am I out for revenge? You
Boettcher *** I am." Because it was announced that both he AND
the lady who defeated him have been invited to a Tournament of
Champions. I give him credit for the play on her name (and it
didn't occur to me until I saw that that it's an example of a
fitting name...Jeopardy contestant and her name has "bet" in
it.) That might be an example of what DaDancingPysch means...he
probably meant it in good fun but it COULD sound "salty." See my
first post for what he said when she first defeated him.
Holzhauer is also doing a lot for charities, especially in the
Vegas area. It actually came as a surprise to me that he didn't,
at first, mention any pancreatic cancer-related charities until
the recent donation that NPFwife mentions. Of course, his money,
his choice who he supports (and it's very cool that he gave so
much away), but there is (unfortunately) now a connection
between the source of his winnings (Jeopardy) and pancreatic
cancer.
I've seen Twitter exchanges like these:
Miracle League of Las Vegas: We'll take baseball for $200...or
$400...or $600...how many points have to be up on the board for
you to consider coming out one Game Day to throw out a First
Pitch for our #differentlyabled athletes, James Holzhauer?
Holzhauer's reply tweet: It would be an honor! Email me.
I have also been amazed at the "theater" aspect of the show and
the "acting" going on - by Holzhauer and others. Consider - all
of his episodes were filmed in February and early March of this
year. The first one aired April 4. So, the whole time they were
airing, while everybody was speculating, "Will he beat Ken
Jennings' totals or won't he?" and bantering with him about it,
he had to play along...even though he would have known, since
filming wrapped up in early March, exactly how many games he
won, and how well he did or did not do. And that's not just him.
Consider things Trebek said to him on the air, after he had been
winning big for a while: "You're a celebrity now...you have a
very loyal following...but some people think you've won enough."
All of which became the truth once the episodes aired...but at
the time they were FILMED, no one was talking about Holzhauer at
all, because none of them had aired yet.
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