Answer: The third-smallest state in area is home to the USA's third-oldest college.
Question: What is Connecticut?
Landon School teacher John Botti realizes that he should have known the answer for the final round of Jeopardy! when he was one of the contestants participating in the popular TV quiz show’s Teachers Tournament last month.
After all, the 37-year-old Bethesda father of two had lived in Connecticut and was currently writing his dissertation on the history of higher education.
But in the heat of the moment, he wrote down “New Hampshire.” Combined with a low wager, the wrong answer ended Botti’s one-show run in the tournament, which was televised Feb.15-28.
“For whatever reason, I completely forgot Connecticut existed,” says Botti, who teaches history at the Bethesda private boys’ school. But Botti isn’t complaining about his quick departure from the tournament. He’s $5,000 richer and had a lot of fun earning his 15 minutes of fame.
Botti’s road to the Jeopardy! studio in Los Angeles and his selection as one of 12 teachers in the tournament began when he took the show’s online test in January 2011. “I was like a lot of people who sit on the couch and answer questions pretty well, well enough to want to try to get on the show,” he says.
That online test led to a phone call from the show and an invitation to participate in a group interview and to take a written test in Washington, D.C.
He heard nothing until September, when he got a call from show officials. They wanted to know if he was still a teacher. Later in the fall, he was invited to participate in the tournament. He traveled to Los Angeles in January for the taping.
Botti discovered what observant viewers of the show have always believed: How much you know is not as important as how fast you can squeeze that hand-held buzzer.
“The buzzer is the thing,” he said. “Everyone knows some stuff. It’s mastering the time and the buzzer. There’s a rhythm to it. If you’re feeling it, it’s great. If you’re not, you’re feeling locked out.”
Still, he wishes he knew more about Coca Cola products, a category in which another contestant dominated. “I forgot everything I got right,” he says now. “I just remember everything I got wrong.”
Over all, Botti says he says he wouldn’t trade the experience.
“You felt like they said go and before you knew it, they were asking you what your wager was before Final Jeopardy,” he says. “It’s so much fun.”
Botti says he’s heard from current and former students who saw him on the show. “Everyone just has been really nice about it,” he says.
Any lessons to pass along to those students?
“I encourage my guys that you actually know more than you think,” he says. And “I hope they see it’s ok to try something—if you try and fail, it’s not necessarily a fatal thing.”
To see the full episode of John Botti on Jeopardy!, click here. Also, view Botti's contestant video here.
