Stamford Teacher To Appear On Jeopardy!

STAMFORD, CT — Stamford middle school teacher Benjamin Schwartz will appear on Jeopardy! Teachers Tournament May 10.

Schwartz, a Fairfield Warde High School graduate, teaches English at King School in Stamford and also works at a non-profit REACH Prep. His students are excited to see him on the show.

“One of them still asks me literally everyday if I won or lost,” he said. “He tries to surprise me the hallways.”

The Teachers Tournament features 15 educators competing for a $100,000 grand prize.

Schwartz started watching Jeopardy when he was 8-years-old with his grandmother. He saw an advertisement for the tournament and decided to give the online test a shot. A few months later he got a follow-up email for an in-person audition in New York where prospective contestants take a rapid-fire 50-question 50-category test along with personal interviews and a mock round.

“It was a tough test, the moment I realized I had a shot to be on the show was the last question of the test,” he said. The answer to the question was “Who is Cardi B.”

Schwartz got called several months later and was asked to be on the Teacher’ Tournament. The studio put the contestants up in the same hotel before the competition.

“We all meet each other in the lobby and are sizing each other up, but everyone turned out to be fun and we had a lot in common because we are all teachers,” he said.

The contestants are locked in a room with each other, a producer, some packs of playing cards and a DVD of the Princess Bride until they are called up in groups of three to compete. Schwartz was hoping to be among the first called, but he ended up going last.

“That was wild going from nervous and excited to waiting and waiting some more to performing,” he said. The upside was that he knew exactly who he would go up against.

“If I lose at least I’m losing to someone I like,” he said he thought before going to compete. “At least I’m losing to another teacher.”

Longtime Jeopardy host Alex Trebek recently announced he was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. The tournament was filmed shortly after Trebek made the news public.

“You never would have suspected a thing,” Schwartz said. “He was there every minute, he read everything perfectly. He was the same friendly, quirky, amiable Alex Trebek you see every night.”

He described Trebek as a professional who is kind and seems to enjoy the job he has had for more than three decades.

“He is very kind, but he is there doing his job and when the camera is on he goes back to his mark and goes back to the questions.”

The Jeopardy Teachers Tournament runs from May 6 to 17 and airs at 7 p.m on WTNH.