September 2002: Vol. 81, No. 4September 2002: Vol. 81, No. 4College Bowl-er runs the board on "Jeopardy!"
Ag econ student Eric Floyd (AB '00) parlays intellectual competition at UGA into big bucks on popular game show
by Alex Crevar (AB '93)
ast February, the 15 "Jeopardy!" contestants lounging in the "green room" had no reason to believe they were different from past groups preparing for the popular quiz show's three-day taping week. But crowded around a table of sliced melons, cheeses, and bottled water, 14 of the them were blissfully ignorant of their decided disadvantage—and of the buzzsaw that was UGA agricultural economics student and former College Bowl captain Eric Floyd, whose near-record-breaking "Jeopardy!" performance netted him nearly $100,000.
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 Floyd (left) met Alex Trebeck, won four consecutive games and narrowly missed retiring undefeated. He won $99,800, just short of the all-time "Jeopardy!" record. |
Floyd, 27, had been training for this moment the better part of two decades. As a youngster in Calhoun, the smaller and lesser known of the carpet towns in Northwest Georgia (but home to the world's biggest carpet producer, Mohawk), he watched the show with his grandparents. They soon were in the habit of just listening as young Eric rattled off factoids. "They'd say, 'Hey, the little fella is answering more questions than us,'" recalls Floyd in a down-home Southern accent that seems to run perpendicular to his passion for getting lost in encyclopedias. "Watching 'Jeopardy!' encouraged me about what I knew, and it was the only show I ever wanted to be on."
Floyd's unofficial, yet rigorous, training for "Jeopardy!" started in high school when he captained Gordon Central's academic team, which competed on WSB-TV's Sunday morning quiz show "High Q." The difficulty factor increased when he moved up to College Bowl competition at UGA, which is not for the faint of heart or slow of smarts. Questions cover literature, science, religion, geography, history, current events, the arts, sports, and popular culture—and contestants can buzz in even before questions are fully asked.
Created in 1953 as a radio program, College Bowl became a weekly television series from 1959 to 1970. Today, college tournaments are weekend affairs of 15 rapid-fire rounds, where teams of four match wits with some of the quickest minds in higher education. UGA began intercollegiate competition in 1977 and in 2002 ranked 26th nationally—just behind Cal-Berkeley.
"You learn a body of knowledge, which enables you to answer questions by rote memorization," says Floyd. "We used to practice two times a week and come up with our own questions, forcing you to research and build a storage of information."
One thing any college bowl rookie can do, for instance, is list the presidents in order—which came in handy when Floyd encountered the "I'm Not President Because of You" category in his last "Jeopardy!" show. He scorched the category, naming all five of the presidents sought from the answer given—that election's loser. The final clue was for $1,000: George McClellan. A: Abraham Lincoln.
According to Floyd, a reservoir of facts and the ability to stay calm amidst blistering questioning is an advantage for "Jeopardy!" contestants—and he believes 10 percent of the contestants are College Bowl veterans. Case in point, the returning champion, from Louisiana Tech, whom Floyd beat in his first show was a College Bowl-er. Point counterpoint, the person Floyd lost to on his final show was not.
It took Floyd two attempts to make it onto "Jeopardy!." The first was in 1998 when his parents gave him a tryout as a birthday present. He flew to L.A. and sat with the other 111 hopefuls in front of a cyber, big-screen Alex Trebek reading 50 questions. Floyd missed only one, he believes, and thus qualified for the audition after the quiz.
In his second try at qualifying, Floyd answered 90 percent of the questions correctly—and "was more mature and better dressed."
"But out in Hollywood they like pretty people," says Floyd, who wears an Amish-like beard, has hair below his jaw line, and whose portly shape is more cherub than heft. "I ain't a pretty person." He also believes that his group was too late in the season to make the cut. His audition anecdote that year (as it would again be in 2001) was when a friend jumped on his back and snapped Floyd's knee at an Allman Brothers concert: "An ambulance took me to the emergency room and had me back before the show at Atlanta's Lakewood Amphitheater was over."
His second "Jeopardy!" attempt was also an occasion. He and his wife Bethany, a senior fabric design major from Calhoun, had eloped in May 2001 and decided to wait until school was out that summer for a reception and honeymoon. The two loaded the car and drove west to visit the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, and Sony Picture Studios for another shot at destiny. On Aug. 9, Floyd again answered more than 90 percent of the questions correctly—but this time it was earlier in the season and, as he says, "I was more mature and better dressed." Trying out during his honeymoon also seemed like a plus.
The day the show called, five months later, was a bad day for the Floyds. They had been riding the roads in the winter rain looking for their basset hound, Wally, who they found dead and then subsequently had to bury "with lightning in the air."
When the phone rang later that evening and the caller asked, "Is Mr. Eric Floyd home?" Bethany assumed it was a telemarketer and answered with a curt, "No!" When the caller tried again, he quickly asked if Floyd wanted to be on "Jeopardy!" Floyd was told he was due in Culver City on Feb. 19 for taping.
"It was the end of a real surreal day for me," remembers Bethany. "All the friends and family who had just received sad e-mails about Wally then got excited e-mails. Eric always said if he got on he'd win us a nest-egg—and he did."
"Yeah," said Floyd, "it helped to ease Wally's passing."
Floyd arrived at the studio at 8 a.m. to turn in a mountain of paperwork, which, among other things, promised he would not promote himself or tell others how he did on the show before it aired. Then he was off to see a makeup artist who was pregnant, a fan of his Southern accent, and who was listening to Gerry Rafferty. Following makeup, all the contestants wrote and performed their "Hometown Howdies" for the group—competitors and handlers, who kept everyone "bubbly, loose, and involved." Floyd's "Howdy" was not used: "Hello North Georgia, my name is Eric Floyd. Watch me on 'Jeopardy!' as I try to prove we're not all toothless hicks."
 With his "Jeopardy!" winnings, Floyd bought a bulldog named Briggsy and a new wedding band for wife Bethany to replace the $99 ring he gave her when the couple eloped. |
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Contestants are told to bring a sensible number of clothes, in case they win and have to change between tapings. As it turned out, only Floyd had to change on a regular basis. He brought a neutral pair of slacks, several ties, a couple of sweaters, and a sports coat. Between tapings, he was directed to the changing area adjacent to the green room and given five minutes, after which he was directed back on stage, under the bright studio lights, onto the stool behind his podium (all of the contestants have them), and in front of a newly wardrobed Alex Trebek. A brand new day.
Floyd cleaned up again during the third and fourth tapings ($15,000 and $27,600), and took his place on stage for his fifth show with what was already the second highest five-day total ever and the most money after four days: $97,800. He was within $5,000 of the all-time five-day record.
"There was definitely more stress involved during the last show," says Floyd. And that stress manifested itself into one of the best shows in "Jeopardy!" history. The audience and the third contestant, a college counselor, remained frozen, jaws fixed, as Floyd and a librarian from the University of Texas fought to a final score of $30,300 to $31,200 respectively (a typical winner ends up with less than $15,000). The librarian had the advantage of landing on every "double jeopardy" square (where you choose your own wager), and both answered the "final jeopardy" question correctly.
During the course of the game, it looked as if Floyd knew the answers as quickly as his competitor but was frustrated by a sticky buzzer. "He was a very good player and probably just a little faster than I was," says Floyd, by the way of an explanation. "It's different than college bowl. You have to wait until the end of a question and then be in rhythm with the opening of the line that permits the buzzer to go through. Once someone presses the buzzer, all other lines are closed." At show's end, Alex Trebek congratulated Floyd on a "great run."
Floyd, who plans to move back to northwest Georgia and enter the financial sector after he and Bethany finish school in December, earned $2,000 for his second-place finish on day five (runners-up don't keep their earnings), bringing his grand total to $99,800. That was more than enough to pay off his and Bethany's student loans, buy his family a few presents, and do the thing he promised his wife he'd do if he ever made the show—buy her a respectable wedding ring and retire the $99 special he'd bought when they eloped.
Changing South Africa
Second-year law student Jason Carter is carrying on his famous family's tradition of public service
by Pat Curry
hirty times or more, the process was repeated over two days at a Habitat for Humanity work site in Durban, South Africa. A group of sweaty volunteers would gather to pose for a photo and to witness former president Jimmy Carter present a Bible to the new homeowner. And each time, President Carter would begin the brief ceremony by announcing that his grandson, Jason Carter, would like to say a few words.
As Jason began to speak, surprised smiles appeared on the faces of those assembled. When he finished, applause and cheers erupted. It wasn't so much what Jason said, but how he said it. As soon as each presentation was over, someone would pull him aside and ask, "Where did you learn to speak Zulu?"
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 One of the main characters in Carter's book is Mrs. Ndzukulu, who is the matriarch of both his host family and the town of Lochiel—where she serves as postmaster, school board chair, preschool principal, and head of the local branch of the Methodist Church. |
Power Lines: Two Years on South Africa's Borders takes its title from the utility lines that ran by Lochiel. Installed during apartheid to provide electricity—and political power—to white South Africans, they bypassed black communities like Lochiel completely. So did major roads, decent housing, clean drinking water, jobs, and countless other necessities. After apartheid was abolished and Nelson Mandela was elected president in 1994, the old educational system—which taught blacks no critical thinking skills—was scrapped. A new teaching model was developed to educate the next generation of leaders and entrepreneurs. But the nation's black teachers, who trained under the old system, were unprepared for the transition.
Enter the Peace Corps, which sent volunteers to teach the teachers the new curriculum.
"Education was the biggest hold-over of apartheid," says Jason. "The workforce was systematically under-trained."
When he arrived in South Africa in 1998, Jason was well acquainted with the issues facing the continent and the important role the Peace Corps could play. His great-grandmother, Lillian Carter, had been a volunteer in India at the age of 68. Jason was born in 1975, the year his grandfather won the presidency, and he had visited Africa as a young teen. World politics was a common subject of conversation at family gatherings; at Christmas dinner, they talked about the elections in Zambia. His aunt, Amy Carter, had been arrested more than once at apartheid protests. As a college student, Jason interned at the Carter Center, monitoring conflicts in Sudan, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Liberia. After graduation, he returned to Africa on an election-monitoring mission to Liberia.
 Carter's new book is published by National Geographic. |
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Power Lines is about the author's growth and change, his conflicts and their resolutions. Unlike his adopted family in Lochiel, he could get away from the poverty by hitchhiking or taking a koombi taxi for a weekend at a hotel with clean sheets and hot showers. He doubted whether his efforts could make a difference, or if—as he was accused of more than once—he was trying to supplant traditional African culture with his own. But before he left, he saw evidence that his work in the schools is paying off. Teachers who never spoke up in the past are sharing ideas. The student AIDS committees he helped organize are functioning well. A new preschool building, with twice the capacity of the old one, has been built.
Perhaps most significantly, power lines have begun to connect Lochiel to the outside world; 40 homes have electricity for the first time. Jason is leaning toward a career in government, public policy, or litigation. The idea of prosecuting corruption in the Third World looms large in his mind. "It's a really different political time than when my grandfather ran for office," he says, "but I do believe it's important to be involved in politics."