Steven Olson, band teacher at Princeton High School and Logan Junior High, met Jeopardy host Ken Jennings (left) when he taped a show in August in Los Angeles. The show will air on Friday, Sept. 19. (Photo provided by Steven Olson)
What local band teacher will appear on “Jeopardy!” on Friday, Sept. 19?
Answer: Who is Steven Olson?
Olson grew up in Moline watching the popular game show “Jeopardy!” all the time, playing along with the contestants.
In August, he played for real.
The Princeton High School and Elementary Schools band teacher had a dream come true when he got invited to be a “Jeopardy!” contestant on the Sony Pictures Lot in Los Angeles, which was taped in August. The episode will air Sept. 19.
“I’ve been watching since I was a kid. I watched it every day for several years,” Olson said. “I’ve always loved trivia. That’s just kind of how my brain works. Things seem to stick. I’ve always been a fact guy. That’s how I always was as a kid, too. So I’ve just enjoyed watching it.”
He called it an “incredible, surreal experience,” and as he told his wife, Megan, “the second best day of my life.”
“I’ve always loved trivia. That’s just kind of how my brain works. Things seem to stick. I’ve always been a fact guy.”
To get on “Jeopardy!” is a process, Olson said. He took the test online, which he said is a general knowledge quiz that you can take once a year.
“If you meet some type of criteria that isn’t public, you may get invited to take the test again live on Zoom, where they proctor you and make sure you’re not cheating,” he said.
Olson said you can be invited, “everything’s a ‘can be,’ to a Zoom audition where you do a little mock game play and they interview you, kind of test you on the TV wording, I guess.
“From there, you get put in the contestant pool and you’re eligible to be invited to the show for a given amount of time. I got very, very lucky because a huge amount of people try out for this every year.”
Steven Olson, band teacher at Princeton High School and Logan Junior High, lived a dream come true when he was selected to appear as a contestant on Jeopardy. The show was taped in August and will air on Friday, Sept. 19. (Photo contributed by Steven Olson)
Olson, 31, who is in his 10th year as band teacher at PHS and eighth at Logan, said “Jeopardy!” is much harder to play on TV than it appears at home.
“It’s not comparable at all,” he said. “The pressure is very real. Just seeing the stage in person is mind-blowing. And doing it in real life just goes by so fast. So much of it is the timing. The thing I learned when I was preparing for the show, 80% of the time all three people know the answer, and it’s all about the timing and buzzing in and the rhythm and parsing out the clues on time.”
Olson spent a lot of time preparing for the show, playing a lot of practice games online to prepare his trigger finger on the buzzer.
“I practiced my buzzing quite a bit and watched it at home, and played it every day. Did a lot of reading on what past contestants have done and I studied to the best that I could,” he said. “There’s a website where people have recorded every clue they’ve ever asked. So you can search what they’ve asked in the past and kind of get an idea of what’s likely to come up. But you have no idea what will come up in the game that you tape.”
Olson got to meet host Ken Jennings, who took over the role after the death of legend Alex Trebek in 2020, during pregame rehearsals.
“He was so nice and so down-to-earth,” Olson said. “He was funny, too.”
The results of the show are kept top secret. Olson said the only people who know how it turned out are Megan, a couple of friends who made the trip, and his parents.
“We are very much expected to keep the results a wrap until it airs on the 19th,” he said.
The news of his appearance spread fast when Olson was allowed to share on social media.
“The students are extremely excited,” he said. “I really didn’t have to say anything to the students because word travels fast. [Principal] Zach Smith at Logan actually emailed the whole building, so that accelerated the process a little bit.”
The show will air on KWQC, Channel 6, at 4:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 19, while he is preparing to strike up the PHS marching band for the Tigers’ home game with Kewanee. It’s also available the next day on Hulu and Peacock. The Olsons plan to host a watch party Sept. 20.
Kevin has been sports editor of the BCR since 1986 and is Sports Editor of Putnam County Record. Was previously sports editor of the St. Louis Daily News and a regular contributor for the St. Louis Cardinals Magazine. He is a member of the IBCA and Illinois Valley Hall of Fames. He is one of 4 sportswriters from his tiny hometown Atlanta, IL
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