From Clefs to Clues: Carroll Professor Wins Big on Jeopardy!
Adjunct Music professor and contemporary composer Jonathan Hugendubler recently made headlines by winning the season finale of Jeopardy!, ending a remarkable 16-game streak and claiming the champion title. Based in Baltimore and active in the local trivia scene, he’ll return to defend his title when the new Jeopardy! season premieres this Fall.
We caught up with Jonathan to learn more about his journey from teaching music at Carroll to conquering the Jeopardy! stage.
Q: First, congratulations on your victory! Why did you want to be on Jeopardy! so much?
Jonathan Hugendubler: It’s funny. I know so many people who said they watched Jeopardy! when they rolled out of the womb. That wasn’t true for me. I went to college from 2010 to 2014 for undergrad, and I started watching Jeopardy! in the summers at home. That’s when I really got excited about it. I knew a couple of other people who were interested in it, but I got into it way beyond that.
I’ve had such a longtime admiration for the show and the idea of being on it really excited me. I thought I could do well on it. It was definitely something worth striving for.
Q: What was the application process like?
JH: It’s a three-step process, but each step is like climbing a huge hill. First step is you take an online test. It’s 50 questions. They don’t really say what constitutes a passing score. If you pass that, you’re then entered into a drawing for the next step, which is essentially the same thing, but you take it on Zoom. If you pass that, the third step is the interview. You do a little bit of a mock game where you click a pen to buzz in, and then they call on you. I think it’s mostly to see if you can get the pacing of the show. I took the interview process very seriously. I considered every little granular detail of what the background looked like behind me, the angle of my camera, things like that. It was kind of like I was on a job interview.
The first four times I tried out, they never called me back after the first step. When I finally got the opportunity to go on to the second step, I made it through the rest of the way. From my understanding, it’s pretty uncommon to get all the way through the very first time. I’ve heard stories of people I admire trying for far longer than I did, sometimes up to 10-15 years.
Q: What was going through your mind when you found out you were finally going to be on Jeopardy!?
JH: It was incredibly thrilling. I believe it was a Thursday, March 20. It was very rainy that day. I remember that because I host trivia in the evenings at the Brass Tap and I was like, I don’t really want to drive in this weather. As I was getting ready to go, I saw a call on my Apple Watch, but my phone was in the other room so I didn’t answer it. I recognized the area code as being from L.A. It didn’t dawn on me in that moment who it could be from. But then quickly thereafter, I got a text from John Barra, the contestant producer on Jeopardy!, and he told me I made it on. I was extremely excited. It was difficult to then go host trivia after that and not be able to say anything or act any differently than normal.
Q: What was it like doing the show?
JH: So they film five episodes in a single day. It’s a very long day. It probably starts around 10 a.m. Pacific and ends around 5 p.m. It’s pretty intense. Each day they shoot is one week’s worth of shows, and I ended up sitting there all day because mine was a Friday episode. So I’m watching 16-time Jeopardy! winner Scott Ricardi take people out all day long.
You do get to go on the stage in the morning and get a little practice in, but the difference between that and the actual show is like two different universes. I honestly didn’t feel nervous, but I felt incredibly overstimulated. It was a lot to take in. After the fact, I probably remember only 20% of the episode. There was stuff I didn’t remember happening until the day I watched it when it aired on TV.
The whole experience of having to cope with the idea that I’d be playing a super champ was a mental mountain to climb. Throughout the day, they literally draw pieces of paper with names on them to see who’s going on next. And every single time I’m sitting there mentally hyping myself to go out there, and then it’s Bill and Joe or somebody else are next. And then I have to calm myself back down again. It was a real test of fortitude in that regard.
When you’re out there in front of the cameras, it moves at a similar pace as what you see on TV. There are some breaks, but not many. I remember during the commercial breaks, which are pretty similar in length to an actual commercial break, they come over and give you some water. I was sweating bullets; they had to get a fan for me. They had to touch up my makeup constantly.
Coming out of the gate, I got three questions wrong in a row, which was 100% because I was adjusting to a new and incredibly stressful environment. But eventually I was able to find my footing. Winning Jeopardy! was a massive surprise, one of the biggest if not the biggest in my entire life. While I was confident in my ability to play the game, I had never envisioned playing against someone like Scott. It’s a dream come true, and a feeling I’ll never forget.
Q: How did you prepare to be on Jeopardy!?
JH: I had a lot of trivia flashcards. I used a couple of quiz websites like Sporcle, and also listened to world news broadcasts like BBC and nonfiction audiobooks on a wide variety of topics. These really reinforced a lot of things. Fortunately, because I have such a long layoff between appearances, I’ve been able to study a lot more, which hopefully will help me when I return to defend my title.
Q: What was your favorite topic on the episode you were on?
JH: There was nothing where I was like, this is so in my wheelhouse. There was no music, no sports, which are things that I really enjoy. But I liked the category that ended up being most influential to me in my game—“They’re All Greeks to Me.” It was an interesting mixture, with ancient literature and some ancient history thrown in there. I did well in that category.
Q: Let’s talk about your other passion: music. What do you like most about composing?
JH: To me, it’s like creating like a mosaic, where I’m taking little pieces and building them into something larger. It could be kind of gargantuan to start with this large idea, but when I think about it as just taking a lot of smaller fragments of an idea and developing it—in a way that a poet or an author might—it’s very appealing.
Q: How did you come to teach at Carroll Community College?
JH: I joined the faculty in 2019. I have to give full credit to Eric McCullough, Carroll’s Program Director of Music, for giving me a chance. A friend of mine had left Carroll and he was like, you should teach there. I was looking for more teaching experience at the time, so I wrote to Eric and he was like, sure, I’ll give you a shot. It was an amazing opportunity, but stressful. I wasn’t used to talking in front of people, which is a skill that has probably helped me out on Jeopardy! Carroll was the first school that I ever adjuncted at. I am thankful I now get a lot of opportunities to teach there.
Q: What do you love most about teaching at Carroll?
JH: I teach two Gen Ed classes, and I also teach a number of Music major-specific classes. Those two routes have had really interesting rewards.
Starting with Gen Ed, you forget sometimes how much you don’t know when you’re 18 years old. A student will hear something I say, and I see the lights turn on as they get excited to discover something they like. Sometimes I’ll get somebody who’s on their phone in class, not paying attention. But then there’s that one thing they’re passionate about and they’ll come up to me after class and talk for half an hour. That to me is rewarding because it sort of transcends the traditional sort of academic benefit. It’s so fascinating.
Music is such an odd field in that there’s a lot of very specific things you need to have on your résumé or be able to do in order to go on to a four-year college. Sometimes we’ll get students who are talented, but they haven’t jumped through all the hoops yet to get to that next point. Enabling them to do that and then seeing them go on to do very cool things is really great. Some of my first students are now music teachers themselves
Q: Thank you for sharing your experiences, Jonathan. And best of luck on your next Jeopardy! appearance!
JH: Thanks so much!
Be sure to catch Jonathan Hugendubler defending his title when the new Jeopardy! season premieres on September 8!