Season 41 of jeopardy!

Is in full swing, and a local man now has fans of the iconic game show asking, Who is Will Wallace?

Well, he's a former video game design director, current UT student from right here in Austin and a four time champion in October.

This week he's back on our screens in the tournament of Champions quarterfinals.

And fun fact he's also the partner of one of our colleagues, Brittany, here at Austin PBS.

And he's joining us now here on Austin InSight, which we hope is a slightly less stressful TV set, Will.

You know, it's it's strange not having the booming voice of Johnny Gilbert announcing you and, you know, not having all the, the lights that kind of turned down red right before you come on.

And it gives the whole thing a real sense of gravitas.

Yeah, well, I wish we had that here, but unfortunately not in the production budget for this year.

Maybe next year.

This is way less stress.

I'm so glad.

Hopefully with my questions we'll keep it that way.

Well, a name like Will Wallace, I feel like you're William Wallace.

Like born to be sort of history nerd.

So how did you get on Jeopardy!

Was it a long time goal, or did you take the test on a whim?

And please remember to answer in the form of a question.

I'm out of practice now.

It's been it's been a couple of months since I've had to do that.

I used to watch the show growing up after school.

So in the 90s, you know, the Alex Trebek days I'd watch when I came home because it was on at 5:00, like right after you get home from school and, you know, the child of, of of parents who are avid readers and who love, knowledge.

And so it was always kind of a household thing.

My grandmother had all the copies of the home game from the 80s with the plastic boards and the little slide in questions.

So I actually tried out for the show back in maybe 2002 or 2003, in high school or college and, that was back when they actually did, like a touring thing where you had to wait until it came to your city.

I took the test, passed the test.

They didn't have me on the show, and I kind of forgot about it for 20 years.

Did they remember you when you came back?

Nope.

No no, no, it's ever full turn.

Ever since then, I think.

But, so nowadays you just take a test online, and I had a couple of friends who, kind of encouraged me to do it and said, hey, you should take another crack at that.

It's been 20 years.

And, so I took it on a whim a couple of years ago or a year and a half ago.

And, that got me to where I am.

Wow.

Those are some good friends.

Yeah.

In retrospect, I'm like, yeah, this made a lot of sense.

It sounded crazy at the time, but, you know, I, I'm very grateful to them for pushing me.

So when you get the call finally, now you're going to be on Jeopardy!

How do you prepare?

I took the tack of not, of not preparing.

And I think there's there's two schools of thought.

They're the people who make flashcards and who get really into, like, I need to know all my world capitals and I need to know, you know, like, important facts about Pierre or Bismarck or Montpelier.

And I kind of took the.

Well, if I don't know it now, cramming probably isn't going to help.

So I just kind of tried to, like, put myself in a, you know, in a Zen kind of place and accept that whatever happens, happens.

So I didn't really prepare at all.

The first time.

Well, clearly, though, it's worked for you thus far.

So whatever you're doing, keep doing it.

It's working.

The only thing that I changed for the tournament was, I found that the first time around, my buzzer skills were actually the the the weak link.

So I bought a practice buzzer.

I bought a buzzer from people who make, you know, quiz show devices and had a little app at home and, got my time down.

And I think it helped a lot, in, in the quarterfinal game.

That is amazing.

That's dedication.

I feel like there's an art form because I see people struggling on the TV with the buzzer, and that can really make or break you.

Oh, yeah, there's a whole book, an ex champion wrote a whole book called "Secrets of the Buzzer" that that's supposed to unlock, you know, how to be your best buzzer.

And, I didn't find the book helped that much, but I did find that the practice buzzer helped a lot.

That is amazing.

And all that being said, I'm sure there's, like, a lot of nerves on the stage.

We're talking about this.

They film all the games in quick succession, one after the other.

So how do you manage the nerves and all the games?

And also like we talked about the buzzing, how do you manage all of that on the Alex Trebek stage?

My first game, the answer is badly.

I managed it badly.

I found actually the first commercial break on my first game.

I wasn't doing very well.

I went back and watched that game recently, and I'm I'm down the whole half, first half of the game.

And so when we got to the commercial break, if you actually watch the, the, the episode, my hand is shaking.

You can see it on camera.

And I kind of had to have a pep talk with myself at that point and be like, hey, you made it here.

Whatever happens is fine.

There's still a lot of money on the board and in double jeopardy, you're gonna be okay.

And it kind of revved me back up.

And, by the time I played my second, third and fourth game back in September, October, I was fine.

It was like, once you get past the initial, oh, this is how it works.

Coming back around for the tournament, it was all just fun because you've already been there once.

You're kind of playing with the house money at that point, you feel like, wow, this is this is like a it's like a free second chance.

And so, you know, this time I kind of did, like, a little one man dance party before I went on stage to just get myself, like, hyped up slams, 2 or 3 cups of black coffee and, you know, kind of felt like I was riding the right curve of caffeine and, excitement.

That's the way to do it.

And I know my parents were particularly excited to see you back on their screens and a lot of other fans, too, for that matter, but are you haunted by any questions that you've missed?

I know I would be.

Two moments from the original run that hurt.

One was, in my last game, the one that I lost.

I lost a daily double on the phrase, terra incognita, which I, of course.

Everyone knows that.

I answer Terra incognito, which is bad Latin.

I took seven years of Latin as a middle schooler and a high schooler, and so I kind of feel sort of like Jedi, you know, sixth sense.

I could feel my Latin teacher having a heart attack somewhere, as I got that wrong and lost a bunch of money on it.

So that one hurt.

I also mispronounced the word Weimaraner.

The breed of dog.

I said Weimer Riner, and, was ruled incorrect.

Which, I had a number of friends who, you know, when I got home, they didn't want to talk about, like, the money.

They didn't want to talk about the experience.

They just came home, like how are you doing?

And they're like, you got robbed.

So, yeah, it's like watching a referee in your favorite football game.

Like, how could you make that call?

They were so particular randomly.

It was fun because, you know, every for every one of my friends that that kind of got got upset about it.

I told them, look, just go make a donation to Austin Pets Alive or to like, one of your local rescue charity and make it in the name of Weimaraners everywhere.

And make sure that you specify the wrong pronunciation when you do that.

And so, you know, hopefully it it sent a few dollars their way.

You're turning a mistake into paying it forward.

Yeah.

That's that was that was the intent was like channel channel this anger it's misplaced.

And I want anyway.

So can you recap for us how much money you've won so far through Jeopardy!

And what are you going to do with your winnings.

Oh I on my original run of games, including the, the consolation prize for losing my last game, I think I won about $82,000.

Which, after taxes is still like a fair, a fair chunk of money.

And, I've actually, recently left my career as a as a video game designer.

I spent 24 years making video games professionally, mostly in Austin.

And, have gone back to school.

So, I dropped out of the University of Texas in 2003, to, to, go make games and have come back to, study English literature and then hopefully go to law school afterwards.

So a little second act to the career after, years of mining pixels.

Well, second act, best act.

Do any of your classmates at UT, I know it's kind of the younger generation that might not necessarily be watching but do they ever recognize you?

That has not happened yet.

And in fact, I actually had a professor who when, she asked, you know, if anyone had been doing anything interesting recently, I was like, well, I'm going to be on Jeopardy!

pretty soon.

And she actually didn't know what it was.

Didn't know what Jeopardy!

was?

- No.

What is sad state of.

Things.

I was actually in class when my quarterfinal game aired.

So this kind of this weird, feeling of like I was taping it at home, but, you know, it's like, oh, I'm on TV right now, That's that's interesting.

If only your classmates knew.

You know, it's probably better that that that they don't, you know, there's I'm taking Shakespeare and and Irish literature and there's, there's really not a lot of room for Jeopardy!

in, you know, in the discussion of these stories.

Hey, you never know.

You never know.

But also, I feel like all the other kids in the class are going to be like, wow, you probably just know all this random trivia.

You maybe even know more than the professors at this point.

Shakespeare comes up a lot on jeopardy!

So taking the Shakespeare class, you know, is, feel like some of this I know by proxy from having watched enough episodes.

So trivia is like hot right now, kind of like run clubs for the rest of us who aren't athletes, trivia bowls and like, you know, pub night trivia is are really it.

Do you have any advice for Austinites who want to compete on Jeopardy!

Just like you?

- That's a great question.

I'm actually not a big trivia guy.

I, I find that what helped me the most, was just to be curious about everything I read constantly.

So most of what I know and you used on Jeopardy!

I got from just reading and absorbing, you know, but I think for anyone who wants to be on Jeopardy!, take the test.

Go take the any time test.

It's on their website.

You can just go take it.

I, I did it, and it turned me I only took it the one time.

And it turned into this whole crazy thing for me.

So, you know, if you're ever watching the show thinking I could do that, the the options right there, just go take it.

And, you know, another 18 months or you might be on the show.

Okay, note to self, a note to my dad who's like, Jeopardy's number one fan, we're going to go and take the test.

Can you take it though unlimited times or is it like once?

And if you fail you're done?

I think there's a there is a limit.

I don't know what that limit is.

Because I know there are some people who've taken it many times to try to get on the show, and so some people have taken it 5 or 6 times and then eventually gotten on.

I got very lucky, in taking it one time and making my way on, so, I think, like I said, I think there's a limit.

I just don't know what it is.

Gotcha.

Well, hey, there's hope yet, at least for the rest of us.

And I know all of us here at Austin, PBS and Central Texas, we're going to be rooting for you and the Tournament of Champions.

And we want to thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you so much for having me.

It's been a pleasure.