Hi, DMV, I'm Matt DeTura from Washington, D.C. Come watch me unleash the fury on Jeopardy!
[2010-10-18 Winner's Circle interview]
How does it feel to be the new Jeopardy! champion?
Uh, [laughs] I wanted to do this forever. Uh, my friends have all been, like, trying to push me to do this, my parents, y'know. Like I said, y'know, that's legit on the show. My parents watch this show every night. Y'know, they're gonna see--I'm still tryin' ta decide if I'm gonna, like, tell them after the taping, or let 'em wait and--and sit it out. So... [laughs] So, yeah, uh... Oh! Jeopardy! Jeopardy! Jeopardy! champion. Jeopardy! champion. They can't take that away from me. Ha ha!
How did you feel about your competition today?
I thought they were great. Sara was--I mean, I got really worried, y'know, towards the end of the game. She hit both those Daily Doubles. Y'know, I-I knew I... I wanted to get to lead, 'cause she's been so great over the past three days. She played me tooth and nail today. She was great the past couple of days. I got to watch her yesterday, y'know, and I thought--I thought I would be able to beat her on the buzzer, but she was great on the buzzer today, too, so I sort of got frantic. I had to try to run that medicine category at the end, and then at the end of the game, y'know, I just bet knowing that, y'know, my--my--if we--she was so likely to hit that--y'know, if she misses, I'll at least leave myself a little bit of a cushion, and then I--you know, I turned over, and... she was wrong, and I knew I'd won, and I wa--I was stunned. I was actually stunned. Yeah.
Which is harder--preparing for your appearance on Jeopardy! or preparing for your recent exam?
I just took the bar. Uh... Bar prep was a lot rougher than Jeopardy! prep, uh, y'know? I was tryin' to, like, erase everything from my brain, all the worthless legal stuff that I learned, that, y'know, th--I cared about this! So--my friends--all my friends told me, y'know, uh, "Whchja--whchja you studying for, you studying for the bar or you studying for Jeopardy!?" And I said, y'know, "I'm studying for the bar, but [scoffs] I should be studying for Jeopardy! I could always take the bar again!"--so--and now I have the money to take the bar again, if I have to take it again in February! [Laughs] So that's--that's nice. That's real nice. Yeah, this was a lot more fun to prep for.
[2010-10-19 Winner's Circle interview]
How does it feel to win your second game?
2-time champion? The, like--the nerves have gone down a little. I mean, that one I actually got to relax a little bit once we got to the end, I was--I was scoreboard watching a little bit toward the end, I was--I was counting up, I was sort of, uh, s'y'know I hit that Daily Double and I was worried about it, y'know, I didn't want to get too aggressive, so, uh, so yeah--the--the butterfl--eh, no, they're still there. They're still there. [Chuckles] Who are we kidding? Who are we kidding? Yeah, the butterflies are still there.
Did you tell anyone at work you would be on Jeopardy!?
They've been giving me a hard time at work. I work for Kaplan now, uh, and one of the guys who runs Kaplan is Bob Verini, who's like Jeopardy! legend, and so I can't walk down the halls once I said I was going to be on Jeopardy! without hearing, "Oh, Bob Verini!" "Bob Verini!" I didn't want to talk to him, I didn't want to jinx it, I didn't, y'know, know if I'd get in trouble by talking to him, but, uh, y'know, I think they'll be pretty proud that they've got another Jeopardy! champion on the payroll now. It's, uh... it's probably good for the company's bottom line--it was good for my bottom line! [Laughs] It was real good for my bottom line!
Any messages to the folks back home?
I'm gonna be intolerable at pub quiz from here on out. My--my pub quiz buddies are--one of them came yesterday, and he had to leave before today, so he doesn't know what happened. Uh... and uh... y'know, they always take me to pub quiz, and, y'know, I do--I do pretty well. We've got some good players on my team. But I do pretty well, and, uh, and, uh, yeah, he's going to be demanding that I foot the bill at pub quiz from here on out, I think. [Maggie Speak: "Where do you guys play most of the time? Go ahead and mention that, and if you want to mention anyone on your team..."] Oh, yeah, uh, no, we play at the Argonaut in D.C., uh, which I will definitely be at afterwards, contributing to. Uh, they just had a fire, yeah, so, things have been kind of crazy over there. Uh, y'know, they had the fire, they had some vandalism, so... uh, I miss you guys at the Argo. Uh, can't wait to go back and play. Uh, and, uh, yeah. Yeah, really looking forward to it.
[2010-10-20 Winner's Circle interview]
How does it feel to win your third game?
So, yeah. Three wins, three wins. It's like a sharp left turn into Crazytown. I have... I-I figured I'd show up, I'd play one, and if I won it, great, if I lost, great, y'know, I get to come out to L.A., I get to play Jeopardy!, and now I'm going into my fourth show and I'm stunned. I'm, like, totally staggered. Uh, yeah. I'm--I'm getting up there and I'm trying not to tick off--I have a saying--before my Latin teacher is gonna... is gonna have her way with me, basically, afterwards. I missed a couple of Latin ones, I wasn't ringing in, I didn't know Mount Etna. Uh, yeah, she's gonna be pretty ticked. [Laughs] Everybody else is gonna be pretty happy! But she's a stickler for that sort of stuff.
Any plans for your winnings?
Yeah, I, uh... I can get off my mom's cell phone plan now, which is nice. She was, like, afraid that if she took me off the plan, I wouldn't call, which is ridiculous, but she worries like that, so... I think the first thing I'm gonna get, uh, is a new cell phone, with--with my, uh, with my winning.
How did you feel about the competition today?
That was a tough game. I--Tommy and, uh, Tommy and Megan in that game were awesome. Megan had to do the wait, uh, all day with me and, uh, and she was a trooper, and Tommy was awesome. Like, my heart sank when he hit that last question, because I knew I didn't have a runaway anymore, and I knew I had to hit Final Jeopardy! and they were breathin' down my neck. Uh, and then when I saw that--that second wager, and when I saw Tommy had missed, uh, uh, I felt good. I felt--y'know, I felt bad for him, because he's a great guy. All the people we have played against have been just awesome, and, uh, I'm really looking forward to getting back in touch with them after the games have aired. Uh, but, yeah, uh, oh, great game. I was down. I took way too many dumb guesses. I'm kicking myself for those, but, hey, it turned out okay, so here I am, uh... on to day four! [Laughs] |
