Watch it tonight! Greer Mackebee, a senior civil and environmental engineering major from Knoxville, Tennessee, is on Jeopardy! this week in the college championships. 12,000 people applied and 15 students were selected. He takes on a student from Indiana and MIT (the only other engineering student in the field) in the first round which is airing today. SPOILER below in white (highlight text to read) since it hasn't aired on the East Coast yet (but has in other areas):
http://www.pratt.duke.edu/node/3227
He wins and becomes a semi-finalist! Knows his colonial history and was the only one to get the final Jeopardy question correctly.
Good luck to him!
Greer's semifinal matchup airs tomorrow, Thursday, February 9th. He's going up against a student from GW and one from Goucher. The winner of that goes on to the two-game finals next Monday and Tuesday. The first of three semifinals airs today.
http://www.jeopardy.com/minisites/co...-s28/matchups/
... or does it?
In the category "CO___ED" the show gave the clue, "Called up or brought into existence via magical means." Greer said, "What is concocted?" The correct answer, as the MIT brunette with the cute perpetual scowl indicated, was "What is conjured?" I kept waiting for the judges to adjust his score later in the show to reflect that clue's vagueness, but I'm pretty sure they never did. "Conjured" is the better answer, but "concocted" is arguably a valid alternative.
That bit of poor officiating, and the fact that Greer was surrounded by an equally cute Indiana blonde on his other side, kept the odds stacked against him, but he triumphed anyway. Let's hope in the semifinal round he wears a less faded looking sweatshirt that is closer to Duke blue. Oh, and if Ty Burrell and Hugh Grant had a child...
Greer, unfortunately, came in second in the semifinals so does not advance. Student from Goucher College really dominated and advances to the finals. Still gets a chunk of change. Nice run!
Although it turned out not to matter, I thought his daily-double wager of 6000 wasn't optimal. If the Goucher girl had gotten the remaining 3 questions (for 1200 ,1600 and 2000 IIRC), she would have been about a thousand over double his score heading into Final Jeopardy and made it a true runaway.
Of course she was the only one to get Final Jeopardy correct (along with yours truly, of course) anyway, so it's irrelevant.
I'll take "Concrete Canoes" for $100, Alex.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1268030.html
~rthomas
Meme of the aforementioned incident:
As Greer said in the above interview, it's such a blur and your adrenaline is pumping and you're in the zone, so a misinterpretation like that can easily occur, I'd imagine.