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Photograph by Steve Crise
Trisha Rainney won more than $20,000 during the 1999 Jeopardy! teen tournament.
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Local teen wins big on Jeopardy!
By MICHELLE KU
Heading into Final Jeopardy! of the semifinal match, Trisha Rainney was trailing Jeff Cary by $3,100.
It was do or die for Rainney. If she won, she would advance to the Final of the 1999 Teen Tournament. If she lost, she would be sent home.
The category: Corporate America. The question: This Vermont-based company held a 1995 CEO essay contest with the winning essay proclaiming, 'Yo, I want to be your CEO.'
And Rainney's answer? The correct one. What is Ben and Jerry's?
Rainney increased her score by $3,500, putting her in the lead by a slim $400. But that still didn't guarantee her victory. Cary's answer was yet to be revealed. Cary's response was, "What is Denny's?"
Breathing a sigh of relief, Rainney had done it. The girl who had auditioned for, but wasn't chosen to participate in the 1998 Teen Tournament, had reached the 1999 semifinals on one of the four wild card slots, and was in the Finals.
"It's almost that I was destined to be on Jeopardy!" Rainney says. "Out of all the people who applied to try out, I was randomly picked. Out of all the contestants they had, they picked me. I guess I was just meant to be there."
Rainney, 17, a senior at Lynbrook High School, went on to take second place in the 1999 Teen Tournament. She won $17,600 and a $2,500 gift certificate for a new computer. Melissa Sexstone, a teen from New York, took first and $25,000.
After her performance in the tournament, Rainney is no longer just another teen. She's now the "second smartest kid in America."
"[My friends] are all pretty amazed, I guess," Rainney says. "They gave me the title of the second smartest kid in America, and now I call myself that for fun."
During her sophomore year, Rainney was watching Jeopardy! when she saw they were looking for teens interested in trying out for the Teen Tournament. A fan of Jeopardy!, Rainney sent in a postcard and was randomly selected in a lottery during the summer of 1997 to audition for the 1998 tournament.
Jeopardy! gets thousands of teen contestant inquiries, says Laine Sutten, promotions director. "Depending on the year, we're only able to see about 400 people," she added.
Rainney flew to Los Angeles and auditioned in a group of 75 teens. The participants are videotaped playing a 50-question test with different categories and dollar amounts ranging from $100 to $1,000. The people who pass--only 10 percent--then play a mock version of the game.
Months after the auditions, Jeopardy! selected the 15 contestants for the tournament.
"After the mock game, we look at the location and grade, as well as how well they played the game for us," Sutten says. "What we look for is their game-playing ability--waiting for the clue to be read before they ring in, ringing in only once, answering in the form of a question--that they look like they are having fun and that they're not too nervous. We don't want people to take themselves too seriously."
When Rainney didn't hear from Jeopardy! and the 1998 Teen Tournament came and went, she thought she had missed her opportunity. Until the day Jeopardy! sent a letter to her home in December 1998.
Jeopardy! officials, impressed with her performance, had rolled her application into this year.
"There are some people who are standouts that we held on to and she's one of the ones we selected for this year," Sutten says.
In January, Rainney flew down to Los Angeles and watched Jeopardy! tape 10 shows in two days.
"It was really weird because [host Alex Trebek] would come out and say 'If you watched our show yesterday' and I'm thinking, wait, we just taped that show," Rainney says.
Rainney, who is currently attending De Anza College through Lynbrook's College Advantage Program, plans to use the winnings for her college tuition. She is attending the University of Southern California in the fall and will double-major in communication and a business-related field.
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