After just eight games, Austin Rogers has already managed to reach fifth place in all-time regular season winnings, racking up total winnings of $306,900. Can this 38-year-old animated bartender from New York make it nine straight wins on 'Jeopardy!' tonight? Watch Local 4 at 7:30 p.m. to find out.
Interesting facts about Austin:
- He grew up on a nature preserve
- His car was a London taxi for 2 years
- Met the Dalai Lama as an Events Manager
- Plays Fantasy Premiership and Fantasy Baseball
- Fell asleep during a hard rock concert
- Got caught in a small avalanache
- Would have ended up a Music Major but slept through his final piano test
He graduated from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., with a BA in History.
"My friend and owner of the bar at which I work got me a calisthenic thumb exerciser thing and I used that as my mock buzzer since a pen doesn’t have the right amount of resistance," says Rogers
"I watched countless back episodes of Jeopardy! Since I don’t own a TV, I hadn’t seen a complete episode of Jeopardy! probably since college, so like, 18 years ago or so. So I watched dozens of episodes from as early as the ’80s up until recently, sort of in no particular order, and I began to see the Jeopardy! “Easter eggs” – repeated motifs. Like, I saw two episodes [from different decades] and they both said, 'Blah, blah, blah, Romanian playwright.' Each time both contestants rang in and said, 'Who is Ionesco?' I still have no idea who Ionesco is, but if I’m ever confronted with “Romanian playwright,” I know the intended answer," he continued.