A college junior from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan...

Nico Martinez

How has your life changed since your appearance on Jeopardy!?
Well, uh, I haven't been treated differently, necessarily, by my close friends, but I've had a couple people who I've never met before, um, especially in Detroit, come up to me, who'd recognized me from the show, um, and thought it was kinda cool to meet me. There was this one guy, I remember, he, uh, he saw me, uh, in a bar, and I went to that bar, and he was all excited that, y'know, he saw me in the bar that he saw me on TV on, so, so it was kinda cool.

How have you spent your past Jeopardy! winnings?
Well, uh, I spent my Jeopardy! winnings--most of it, I put away--but what I spent it on so far was I took a trip to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico with, uh, with a bunch of friends over spring break, uh, and that was a lot of fun, so... so that was pretty cool.

How did you prepare for this Tournament?
Well, what I--what I prepared for differently this time was I figured that a lot of the pop culture stuff would be, y'know, it could be from maybe the '50s, '60s, '70s, where the college edition I was pretty sure it would be, y'know, like, late '80s, '90s, present day stuff, um, so, so I looked at, y'know, a lot more old movies, y'know, old TV shows, things like that for the show.

What do you think makes a great Jeopardy! player?
I think--I think one of the most important components of a great Jeopardy! player is, y'know, you have to be poised, um, you obviously, y'know, have to have a pretty broad knowledge base, but, um, you just have to, y'know, be comfortable on stage, and comfortable, uh, in front of people, uh, in front of lights, things like that, y'know, just, just relax and have a good time. I think that's--that's probably the most important thing.

2006 Tournament of Champions quarterfinalist: $5,000.
2005 College Champion: $100,000 + a trophy.

Won $1,000 on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? on 2004-06-16.