MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — WVU student Scott Ylinen said he knew that one day his disdain for baseball would come back to haunt him. A Final Jeopardy question about mascots ended his four-day run on the popular game show that aired this week.
The question was about the mascot of the Chicago Cubs. Ylinen answered it incorrectly.
“They just had to pull a baseball one on me,” he said Friday on MetroNews Talkline. “Added to that, I just wasn’t able to pull away during the game like I was during the three previous ones.”
Ylinen didn’t do too bad for himself he won $64,705 during the shows that taped in California in February. He began his quest to be a contestant with an online test in Dec. 2012. He was interviewed the next spring and then waited for a call.
“I have always been a big trivia buff and this is just a lifelong dream of mine. I’ve always wanted to be on Jeopardy and I was finally able to do it,” he said.
He knocked off a defending champion in the first show and found himself in a rhythm when it came to ringing the buzzer after host Alex Trebek gave the answer.
“It’s all just off of the feel of Alex reading the question then you figure out, ‘Okay, this is the time to ring in to get in before anybody else,'” Ylinen said.
Ylinen said he was never really intimidated. He said Jeopardy producers do a great job preparing contestants. As for the categories, Ylinen said he was never very comfortable.
“The only one I was really happy at about was ‘May the force be with you’ because I’m a big Star Wars fan. Every other category that I got in every other show I was like, ‘Oh man, I don’t want to do any of these,'” he said.
Ylinen, a fifth-year senior, plans to use his winnings to pay for a pilot’s license and school. He said the federal government and the State of California will also get their shares in taxes.