A resident physician from Royal Oak, Michigan...

Justin Waters

Hi Motor City, I'm Justin Waters from Royal Oak. Watch me drive away with some money on Jeopardy!

Season 25 1-time champion: $7,199 + $2,000.

Justin Waters
Royal Oak, Michigan
January 6, 2009
I am a radiology resident, doing my training at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan. As I am often asked, we do not take your X-rays, we interpret them. Along with CT scans, MRIs, ultrasounds, and any other high-tech stuff which may produce an image of your body.

I took the Jeopardy! online contestant test in January '08. I received the e-mail inviting me to the in person audition on May 13 informing me of a date of June 8 in Chicago. This gave me some time to rearrange my schedule. Unfortunately, being a resident isn’t the most flexible job in the world. Consequently, I had to travel to Chicago on the day before the audition. After being on an overnight call in the hospital. So I was definitely sleep-deprived when I attended the in person audition. Regardless, everything went great. Robert, one of the contestant coordinators, grew up in Battle Creek, and it is always surprising to meet somebody from the same hometown. I left Chicago being told that I should expect a phone call within the next 18 months.

Fast-forward to late September. Since June, my co-residents have been asking me not infrequently if I’d heard from Jeopardy! They took it upon themselves to try to test my knowledge on random subjects. On a Monday afternoon, I get a page telling me that I have a phone call. Radiology residents don’t tend to get paged to phone calls because we very rarely write prescriptions or see patients outside of the hospital. I have been conditioned by past experience to expect the page to be a mistake from somebody looking for either “Dr. Walters” or “Dr. Winters.” I was, therefore, surprised when I called the answering service and the nice recording lady said, “the party calling is,” followed by a more masculine voice intoning, “Glenn from Jeopardy!

Instantly, my heart rate increased. I pressed “1” to accept the call.

“Justin, how would you like to be on Jeopardy!?”

And so I had a date. My filming dates were set for almost exactly one month from the time of the phone call. Luckily, my chief residents were very accommodating with my scheduling needs. Before I’d heard about my recording dates I had coincidentally scheduled vacation for around the same time and I only had to make slight alterations to my plans. Unfortunately, my wife and I had tickets to see The Who, which conflicted with my tape dates and we had to pass up the opportunity to see them live.

On the upside, JEOPARDY!

I can’t speak for other contestants, but I know that the most difficult part about appearing on Jeopardy! is the providing interesting anecdotes to be used for the brief chat with Alex that occurs after the first commercial break.

There is a hotel in Culver City that Jeopardy! has arrangements with for discounted rates and free shuttles to the studio. The morning of my audition, I arrived in the lobby of the hotel to wait for the shuttle. Milling about and making acquaintance were the other nicely dressed people who would be my co-contestants. We traveled to the studio, making nervous small talk to cut the palpable tension.

We were welcomed to the studio by faces familiar from the in person audition. We spent some time filling out paperwork with Maggie, the contestant producer, and hearing about her cat, who is infatuated with Tim Gunn.

The onstage practice games did the most to calm my nerves. Actually standing behind the podium and getting accustomed to timing of the signaling devices was the part of the actual game play that I was most concerned about. Happily, I felt comfortable with the hardware quite quickly. Sizing up the competition is human nature, even though I know that categories and other factors have a large saying in the flow and outcome of games, I came away from the morning warm-up with some players I would prefer to avoid.

I did not have much time to worry about this as I was drawn to face the two-time returning champion (whose name escapes me) in the first show of the day.

Game one: I was thrilled to see a sports-related category. I was even more elated to find a Daily Double in said category. My optimism was not rewarded, as the clue was revealed and, in fact, dealt with horse racing. I find that this Daily Double was a perfect example of the Jeopardy! clue that, if I were watching at home, I would be shouting at the television. Without knowing the answer, it could be worked out that War Admiral was the offspring of Man o’ War. Unfortunately, I couldn’t work that out as the only thing going through my mind was, “Horse racing?” So I guessed. Oh well. I was able to go into Final Jeopardy! with a lead over the returning champion and I wagered the appropriate amount to win if she wagered everything and we both answered correctly. When the clue was revealed, I felt the same feeling that I felt during that earlier Daily Double. I knew I had heard who played the final concert at Shea Stadium but could not recall. I failed to come up with a contemporary musician from New York and therefore guessed Bruce Springsteen feeling that maybe a Jersey guy would be appropriate to close out an NYC landmark. When the third contestant revealed her answer as Billy Joel, my heart sunk, as I knew she was right. I was sure that I had lost. When the returning champ revealed her incorrect answer, I was in disbelief. I had limped to the finish line, but I was Jeopardy! champion.

Game two: I was drawn against George, whose name I do remember because he was the one person that I absolutely did not want to play based on the morning audition. The game was back and forth. I will go to my grave wishing I spent time studying American architects. I had done some brushing up on geography, opera, and ballet. Architecture was not on my preparation-radar. Nevertheless, I went into Final Jeopardy! on a bit of a roll, and was within reasonable striking distance. The problem with being behind going into Final is not being in control of your own fate. Even though I played much better the second game, wagered better, and finished with much more money at the end of the game, I came up short against a better player on that game.

So I left Jeopardy! not winning nearly as much as I’d hoped but with something I’ll be able to share with friends and family forever.

General thoughts:
The games themselves are absolute blurs. The time flies by and you are done. I am anxious to watch my appearances to actually fill in the blanks from my memory, of which there are many.

Alex Trebek, clichéd or not, is exactly what I expected him to be. Very friendly, affable when the cameras are off. Quite self-deprecating, with a sense of humor that is beyond what comes through the television.

I feel like I won’t live down “slow and steady.” I can’t believe I missed a top-of-the-category clue.

Justin appeared in the following 2 archived games:
#5587, aired 2008-12-16 Justin Waters vs. Jeannie Leoutsakos vs. George Yates Ask Alex #8: Languages.
#5586, aired 2008-12-15 Christine Carrino Gorowara vs. Cyndy Hawley vs. Justin Waters

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