Green Bay's Ben Chan talks 'Jeopardy!' Tournament of Champions, being honored at Wisconsin Capitol, and Taylor Swift at Lambeau
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GREEN BAY - By all accounts, except maybe his own, “Jeopardy!” has made Ben Chan a local celebrity.
Last May, as he was just getting warmed up on his thrilling nine-game winning streak, he was invited to throw out the first pitch at a Wisconsin Timber Rattlers game. Much to his delight, the team also let him take aim with its signature cannon, the Bratzooka, to launch wrapped brats in buns 100 feet in the air and into hands of lucky fans.
Last month, ahead of his return to the TV quiz show on Tuesday to compete in its Tournament of Champions, he found himself at the Wisconsin Capitol in Madison being honored with Assembly Joint Resolution 114 for his humility, excellence and positive representation of Green Bay during his “uplifting tenure” on the show.
The two bookend experiences of the past 10 months couldn’t be more different or more special.
“It doesn’t get more Wisconsin than the Bratzooka. It also doesn’t get more Wisconsin than our beautiful Capitol building,” said Chan, an assistant professor of philosophy at St. Norbert College in De Pere who has lived in Green Bay for 11 years.
Any time your intelligence and classy game play get you mentioned in the same breath as the Green Bay Packers at the Capitol, you’re doing OK for yourself. Not to mention $252,600 in winnings.
“His profound love for Green Bay and Wisconsin and its surroundings, coupled with his desire to project a positive image nationally is as commendable as his passion for knowledge,” Rep. Kristina Shelton (D-Green Bay) said during the Assembly floor session on Feb. 21. “ ... Green Bay is not only known as the home of the Green Bay Packers but is also now known as the home of nine-time ‘Jeopardy!’ champion Ben Chan.”
Chan received a round of applause as he stood up and waved from the balcony. It was meaningful to him to be among the hometown heroes that day who were honored for things they’ve done all across the state.
“To just feel like you’re part of that tapestry of good neighbors in Wisconsin,” he said. “I’m proud to live in Wisconsin, and I get to be one of the reasons I’m proud to live in Wisconsin.”
Next up is seeing how far he can go on Tournament of Champions, the “Jeopardy!” showdown featuring the 27 top-performing contestants from the 2022-23 season.
He comes into the competition ranked No. 3 among fellow ToC champions, based on official “Jeopardy!” stats, but just as Packers fans know with the NFL playoffs, anything can happen. The No. 1-ranked Cris Pannullo, who won 21 games, was knocked out in an upset in his quarterfinal last week.
The tournament was taped in early February. Chan’s quarterfinal matchup against Justin Bolsen and Emmett Stanton airs at 6 p.m. Tuesday on WLUK-TV. If he wins, he advances to one of three semifinal rounds that begin Thursday. Those three winners then battle it out to see who can be the first to win three games in the finals and take home the $250,000 grand prize.
Chan talked about how "Jeopardy!" has changed his life, how he prepared for the higher stakes of the ToC, why you might recognize his lapel pin and the Taylor Swift meet-up at Lambeau Field that never was.
How he prepared after Writers Guild of America strike delay
Last year’s Writers Guild of America strike delayed the ToC, which normally would’ve taped in August or September. That meant Chan and the other champs had to just wait it out. The intense preparation for contestants normally begins six weeks ahead of taping, but with the extra-long offseason, Chan also made sure to not just go cold turkey on training.
“Like an athlete, you never want to let yourself go completely. It becomes very hard to get back in shape,” he said.
He prepared, as he had in the past, by concentrating on the basics, things like capital cities and presidents, because they tend to come up most often in any level of “Jeopardy!” (Just as a point of reference, when you’re a nine-time champ, basics are things like knowing the capital of Botswana. It’s Gaborone, in case it didn’t immediately pop into your head.)
The clues in the ToC are tougher than regular play, which means Chan also had to brush up on some of the less common categories he considered to be his weaker areas.
“ToC material is harder, and so because it’s harder, it’s also harder to prep for,” he said. “There’s going to be more obscure stuff.”
'Tournament of Champions' was more pressure but also more camaraderie
Even for the always cool-under-pressure Chan, there was a definite feeling that the stakes were higher when he returned to the set this time. There was also a greater sense of camaraderie among contestants.
As returning champions, they had all previously seen one another on TV and some had exchanged messages throughout their runs. Unlike in the past, all of them stayed at the same hotel and rode shuttles together for photo shoots and other publicity. It was a chance to get to know one another and bond over the shared experience of things like preparation, press coverage and Daily Doubles.
“Everybody who is in the ToC has had this very strange and awesome thing happen to them in the past year. Yes, there’s a little more pressure, but the overwhelming sense for me is the level of camaraderie is so much higher, because you have so much in common with everyone else there,” Chan said.
None of them knew who they would be facing in their quarterfinal matchup until their name was called to walk on the stage to film.
He raised the roof with Ken Jennings, repped the Zippin Pippin
“Jeopardy!” fans who watched Chan’s original run are well-acquainted with the raise the roof gesture he does during player introductions for each game. For his ToC publicity photo, he got host Ken Jennings to do it with him. (Remember when former Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers got Alex Trebek to do the championship belt move during “Celebrity Jeopardy!”?)
“Ken’s awesome,” Chan said. “He doesn’t have to do these silly things, but he does.”
Viewers will notice something new on Chan’s lapel this time: a Zippin Pippin pin. He spotted the souvenir at the Bay Beach Amusement Park gift shop last summer and picked one up with the intent of wearing it on ToC. As a bonus, he also got to wear it to the Capitol.
The Zippin Pippin is the wooden roller coaster that Elvis Presley made famous in the 1970s at Libertyland in Memphis, Tennessee. Bay Beach acquired it in 2010 and opened it in 2011.
His local celebrity failed him when it came to Taylor Swift at Lambeau Field
Chan gets out and about often enough in the Green Bay area, including to pub trivia nights, that it’s not uncommon or him to be recognized in public. While that can make him feel a bit like a local celebrity at times, Taylor Swift’s much-anticipated visit to Lambeau Field in December for the Packers’ prime-time game against the Kansas City Chiefs reminded him just how far that will get him.
“When Taylor Swift came to town I was like, ‘Hey, I’m kind of a local celebrity, let me see if I can pull some strings so that I can meet Taylor Swift,’” he said. “So I pulled as many strings as I thought I could pull. Then I realized my local celebrity was very limited. I did not get to meet Taylor Swift.”
So see, Ben Chan is just like all the rest of us.
'Jeopardy!' was one of life's 'external shocks,' in the best way
Ask a philosophy professor about how being a “Jeopardy!” champion has changed his life and you’ll get a philosophical answer.
“Just increased gratitude. I realized that life isn’t going to get any better than this and so if I’m not happy today, when am I going to be happy? It made me really think every morning, ‘Oh, today is a great day to be the happiest I’ve ever been,’” he said. “It seems a bit silly that someone who has a philosophy Ph.D., it took this weird game show thing for me to have this fairly basic philosophical realization.”
The opportunity to be on the show has been what he calls one of those “external shocks” that come along and disrupt your usual way of life, either good or bad.
“For me, ‘Jeopardy!’ was a very good shock. It gave me kind of the clarity and new perspective that allowed me to have what I think is a very healthy insight for my day-to-day life.”
He'll be at Tuesday's watch party at Zambaldi Beer in Allouez
It just so happens Think and Drink Trivia at Zambaldi Beer is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, so the Allouez brewery decided to make it a "Jeopardy!" watch party with the star himself. Chan will be there to watch his quarterfinal at 6 p.m., followed by live trivia.
If you’re nervous to see how he does, he gets it. He’s not going to give you any hints whatsoever about how he did, but he gets it.
“It’s pretty daunting to think about preparing for months and months and months,” he said. “It’s like your whole year has built up to this, and then in 20 minutes it could be over.”
Kendra Meinert is an entertainment and feature writer at the Green Bay Press-Gazette. Contact her at 920-431-8347 or kmeinert@greenbay.gannett.com. Follow her on X @KendraMeinert.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Green Bay's Ben Chan talks 'Jeopardy!' Tournament of Champions
