Perhaps the most impressive thing about Tyler Combs’ run through the “Jeopardy!” College Championship wasn’t his dominating play in the early rounds. It wasn’t even his runner-up finish and the $50,000 prize that came with it.
It was that he was able to keep the outcome a secret for more than two months, especially while friends, family and two communities raptly watched his performances unfold over his four appearances on the popular game show.
As most people are by now aware, Combs, a Greenfield-Central High School graduate who is about to finish his studies at Indiana University, made it all the way to the final round of the annual college tourney. He finished second, losing to another whip-smart contestant, Nibir Sarma of the University of Minnesota. Sarma ran away with the championship in much the same way Combs had dispatched his opponents in the early rounds of the tourney: by seizing control of the board and getting almost every answer correct.
All this took place in early February, when Tyler and his parents, Hobert and Vicki Combs, traveled to Studio City, California, for two days of taping shows that began airing April 6. Tyler’s first appearance was on April 10. His semifinal match was April 13, and the two-match finals aired April 16-17.
The show, for obvious reasons, swears its contestants and even its studio audience to secrecy. If Tyler’s secret spilled to anyone beyond his parents, they kept a lid on it. For his part, Combs said all the right things during interviews with the Daily Reporter’s Shelley Swift, who had no idea right up until the final minutes how the tourney would play out.
“On the whole, it seems like I’ve had everyone firmly in the dark about whether I made it out of the initial rounds,” Combs slyly told Swift after his first two performances aired.
Indeed. He reported that supporters from Greenfield to Bloomington gave him a hard time for a nerve-wracking start in an early-round match he wound up winning handily.
So, congratulations to Tyler on an outstanding performance. And kudos, too for allowing all of us to enjoy the suspense of a highly entertaining run through a competitive tournament.
Combs told Swift for a story earlier this week, after the run was over, that he plans to burnish his resume with his “Jeopardy!” performance. It might, he said, open a few doors for him in Washington, where he’d like to work after graduation next month.
We would commend his credentials to the CIA. This guy knows how to keep a secret.
