Princeton Local To Compete In 'Jeopardy!' Tournament Of Champions

PRINCETON, NJ — A five-time "Jeopardy!" champion and Princeton local Gilbert Collins is moving on to the quarterfinal match in "Jeopardy!" Tournament of Champions on Wednesday.

Collins, Director of Global Health Programs at Princeton University, is among 15 top players from the last two seasons who are competing this week for $250,000.

Collins competed last Monday against Kyle Jones and Anneke Garcia for the first round of the tournament and barely won with a total of $16,801 — just $1 over Jones.

"I was thrilled to win the tournament of champions is such a high level of competition," Collins said. "The people on the show won many times before and they know what they are doing and are very talented. When you are competing at that level with champions, you can't expect to win but you can hope to win."

Collins will now advance to the quarterfinals this week.

He has been preparing for his return since he last competed in January 2018 where he won $86,000. At the time Collins promised to donate 1 percent of his earnings to his two sons Timmy and Nicky.

"It turned out to be a lot more than I expected," Collins said. "I never imaged it would be so much. It was a special treat for the kids."

His sons ended up donating their funds to a lot of local charities in New Jersey and to animal conservation efforts, according to Collins.

Collins says he plans to give his sons 1 percent of his winnings again and then use the rest to work on the house or take a small trip if he wins.

"Honestly the tournament is about the champions and isn't about the money," Collins said. "It would be wonderful to win a quarter million dollars but to compete against these great people... it is a bit more about the contestants and camaraderie."

To study Collins bought an atlas and paged through it and also focused on literature since that "area comes up so frequently on the show." He also looked into history, fine arts and older movies — which were a weakness of his.

"I don't think anything I studied came up on the episode that aired this past Monday. But that happens," Collins said. "I would much rather come on show and be prepared instead of not being prepared."

Now viewers will have a chance to see if all of his studying pays off when his second episode airs Wednesday.

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