‘Jeopardy!’ champ was pre-K math prodigy
Holzhauer scores 22nd victory, brings winnings to $1.69M
James Holzhauer’s notoriety as a prodigy started long before he appeared on “Jeopardy!”
The Naperville native, whose victory Friday brought his 22-day total winnings to $1,691,008, was quite the precocious 4-yearold in junior kindergarten at Avery Coonley in Downers Grove, according to a Chicago Tribune article published Jan. 22, 1989.
Mary Boyle, his teacher at the time, said she was counting with students on the first day of class when she asked a question.
“I said, ‘There are 16 boys and 13 girls. I wonder how many?’ He said 29 and never batted an eye,” Boyle said of the boy she knew as Jamie.
Stunned that the child could instantly add twodigit numbers in his head, Boyle continued to observe his quick reaction to arithmetic problems. She conferred with math teacher Jeanne Kipp to develop special arithmetic work for Jamie.
“We didn’t want to give him the purple death,” school headmaster John Rhodes said at the time of the old-school mimeographed sheets of math problems. Instead, the school bought 600 laminated word problems illustrated with drawings that were used to advance his skills.
Today the 34-year-old professional gambler and “Jeopardy!” genius is breaking records since he started playing in April.
On Thursday he became the second person in the show’s history to win 21 consecutive games. His win Friday put him one game closer to challenging the 74-game record held by Ken Jennings.
“Jeopardy!” fans will have two wait two weeks to see whether Holzhauer can go the distance. The game show’s annual Teachers Tournament, which runs May 6-17, will interrupt regular games until May 20.
Holzhauer won by a landslide again Friday, going into Final Jeopardy with $47,381 and facing the category Words of the 2000s. His challengers had collected $4,600 and $5,800 in the first two rounds.
He was the lone contestant to provide the correct response — What is crowdfunding? — to Final Jeopardy answer, “In 2008, TIME Magazine described this new practice as ‘one part social networking and one part capital accumulation.’”
By wagering $35,000, Holzhauer ended the day with $82,381.