By Susie Cribbs

Kermin Elliott Fleming woke up on Sept. 29 with a black eye and stitches from an intramural football game gone bad a few days before. He proceeded to go about his usual routine as a junior in Carnegie Mellon's electrical and computer engineering program, but by the end of the day he was on his way to becoming the 2004 Jeopardy College Champion. Come Nov. 23, he would be $100,000 richer, a national celebrity among Jeopardy fans and the talk of the Internet. He dominated four games and finished the final round of the tournament more than $20,000 ahead of his closest competitor.


But in-between the routine and the bright lights of television lies the story of a victory that nearly wasn't. When Jeopardy was on campus with its Clue Crew for open auditions on Sept. 29, Fleming almost didn't try out.

"I actually wasn't going to audition for the show," he said. "But I was working on homework, and a guy from College Bowl sent an email saying he wasn't going to be at practice because he was trying out for Jeopardy. I thought, 'I should try out for Jeopardy.' And so I did."

Luckily Fleming checked his email at just the right time and made it to the audition. He ran through the gauntlet of tests the game show uses to screen prospective players: a 10-question mini-test and a longer 50-question test, during which questions are presented on a video screen with little time for test-takers to think or second-guess instinct. Eventually he found himself part of the final group of six students selected to participate in the last challenge—simulated games, complete with a game board, buzzers and interviews with a Jeopardy staffer.

After his audition, Fleming went home to play the waiting game. Students were told that they'd be notified that weekend if they had been selected to appear on the show, but Fleming was skeptical. With his bruised eye and stitches, he didn't think he stood a chance. So he was surprised when he got the call the following Sunday—he would represent Carnegie Mellon in the Jeopardy College Championship.

"I was like, 'Are you kidding me?'" he said. "I looked pretty bad, so I didn't think I would be chosen."

With taping at the University of Pittsburgh scheduled for less than two weeks after the audition, Fleming had minimal time to prepare for the show. But experience was on his side. The Lexington, Ky., native was an avid competitive chess player when he was younger, but gave up the game board for more "trivial" pursuits as he grew older. He was on his high school's Quiz Bowl team and is a member of the Carnegie Mellon College Bowl team. To ensure he was ready for the competition, though, he watched Jeopardy every night before the taping began.

Despite developing bronchitis during the two days when the 10-episode competition was filmed, Fleming outplayed his opponents in each of his four games with ease. He credits his success not to being quick on the buzzer, but to his general knowledge. "Deep knowledge is the key to winning Jeopardy," he said, noting that it's best to get on a roll, too. "You get into a flow and once you're in that flow you can get all the points."

That deep knowledge combined with Fleming's ability to push through categories and dominate the game board won him the $100,000 grand prize. With the exception of the 10 percent he plans to donate to his church, he'll bank the winnings as a nest egg for the future. "I'll just save it for now. At this point, there's nothing I could buy," he said. He added that he'd like to give his parents a car, but so far they aren't accepting.

Fleming didn't just win big money, he won the notice of Jeopardy staffers. According to a report in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, crew members called Fleming “Kermin Jennings” after Ken Jennings, the Jeopardy champion who reached celebrity status when he won more than $2.5 million in 74 games. Fleming said that host Alex Trebek even misspoke once and called him Ken. Appropriately, Jennings is someone Fleming definitely admires.

"I have a lot of respect for Ken Jennings," Fleming said. "His ability to win night-in and night-out is just simply amazing," Fleming said. "I had trouble winning four games. But to win 70? Amazing."

Fleming looks forward to taking "a shot" at Jennings in Jeopardy's Tournament of Champions, which pits Jeopardy's highest winners against each other and almost always includes the College Champion. Whether or not that will happen is still up in the air.

For now, the style and skills Fleming used to win the championship have made him somewhat of a celebrity himself. Internet chat rooms, blogs and Web sites buzzed with comments and speculation about the engineer's mysterious $1,337 wager during Final Jeopardy in a quarterfinal round. For those non-techies, the 1337 looks like "leet," short for "elite" in techno-speak.

"The kids in the audience were like 'He just did that? That's so cool!'" Fleming said. "I did it so my engineering buddies would have a good laugh. I did it so the people at Carnegie Mellon would smile."

His Final Jeopardy wager in the last game of the tournament, $447, also evoked some smiles from people at Carnegie Mellon. 18-447, Introduction to Computer Architecture, is an engineering course Fleming is enrolled in. "I just picked a course number," he said. "I'm hoping it will curry some favor with the professor."

Fleming, who plans to pursue a doctorate in either computer science or electrical and computer engineering, called the Jeopardy experience one of the best of his life. "It was great. It was absolutely wonderful," he said. "I got to meet President [George W.] Bush once and that was cool. I don't know if this goes above that or not."

Good thing he made it to that audition.


Related Links:
Carnegie Mellon College Bowl
Introduction to Computer Architecture