Teacher from New Paltz returning to ‘Jeopardy!’
Francois Barcomb, the New Paltz resident who won the “Jeopardy!” Teachers Tournament that aired in May, will be one of the 15 contestants in the game show’s upcoming Tournament of Champions.
The tournament, featuring the past year’s biggest money winners on the show, is to air Nov. 4-8 and Nov. 11-15.
The Tournament of Champions also will feature James Holzhauer, who recently won 32 consecutive “Jeopardy!” games and amassed more than $2.4 million in winnings. Along the way, Holzhauer repeatedly set records for the show’s highest one-day winnings.
Barcomb, a physics teacher at Hendrick Hudson High School in Westchester County, was crowned Teachers Tournament champion on the episode that aired May 17, securing the top prize of $100,000. Among the contestants he beat in the tournament’s final round was Conor Quinn, a high school world history teacher from Albany who graduated from Cairo-Durham High School in Greene County.
The Tournament of Champions, like most “Jeopardy!” tournaments, will whittle its starting field of 15 down to three finalists by way of five quarterfinal games and three semifinal games. The winners of the quarterfinal games, along with the four high scorers among the nonwinners, will advance to the semifinals. The three semifinal winners then will play in the championship round.
The championship round consists of two games, and the player with the highest two-game money total will be the winner. The guaranteed minimum prize for the champion is $250,000.
Besides Barcomb and Holzhauer, the “Jeopardy!” Tournament of Champions will feature Josh Hill, Ryan Fenster, Kyle Jones, Rob Worman, Alan Dunn, Steven Grade, Eric R. Backes, Anneke Garcia, Lindsey Shultz, Emma Boettcher (who dethroned Holzhauer), Gilbert Collins, Rachel Lindgren and Dhruv Gaur (who won the College Tournament).
Hosted by Alex Trebek, “Jeopardy!” airs locally on WABC-TV 7 in New York City at 7 p.m. weekdays and on WTEN-TV 10 in Albany at 7:30 p.m.