By Crystal Garcia
TERRE HAUTE — Thunderous cheers and applause rocked Richard House’s Terre Haute home as his face and name appeared on the television followed by heckles and boos for the other two contestants on “Jeopardy!”
House, a 35-year-old English professor, made his debut on Thursday’s show.
After a shaky start, he came back to win by $2.
Between 20 and 30 of House’s friends and colleagues at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology cheered and yelled at the TV throughout the 30-minute program.
A big group “Awww” came from the crowd after House told “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek about leaving to try out for the show in Chicago while his wife, Traci Kyle, was expected to give birth to their first child at any time.
“You put ‘Jeopardy!’ ahead of your wife and baby,” Trebek said, jokingly. “Good for you.”
Three weeks after the tryout, House’s wife gave birth to their daughter, Sophia.
Emotions continued to run high throughout the program, especially when House hit the second Daily Double in the second round. Chants of “Risk it all” followed.
Though he didn’t risk it all, House did risk enough on the answer ($3,000) to take the lead for the first time in the game and hold it until Final Jeopardy! came.
Viewers crossed their fingers and held their breath as they waited to see if House had written down the correct question and if he did, did he wager enough?
More roaring applause and cheers of “You da man!” were yelled when it was revealed that House had won.
Deciding what to wager on that final question wasn’t too tricky, House said, because the goal was to net at least $1 more than the maximum the nearest opponent could win.
“The game is designed to produce close turnouts,” he said, noting that he could have risked more but didn’t want to be greedy.
Merry Miller, one of House’s co-workers, said she had tried to get him to give out details of what happened every day since the show’s taping in December, but he wouldn’t budge.
“I’m floored because it was such a slow start,” she said about House’s win. “I just called him the comeback kid.”
House watched the first 12 questions whiz by without buzzing, giving up a $5,000 lead to the defending champ, before House finally scored with a $600 answer.
While many others in the room were just as surprised, House’s wife wasn’t.
“I always tell people that I married the smartest person I know,” she said.
“So I knew if he could get on the show that he would do well.”
She said they plan to start a college fund for their 7-month-old daughter with the winnings.
He was barred from divulging any details about the show, so people will have to tune in at 7:30 tonight on WTWO television to see if he can repeat as champion.
Crystal Garcia can be reached at (812) 231-4271 or crystal.garcia@tribstar.com.
