Plainfield East High School’s English teacher, Erin Portman, has made her return to Jeopardy!, now having three appearances on the trivia game show. Portman made her Jeopardy! debut on Jan. 18, 2023, and was called back for the show’s 2024 Champions Wildcard tournament, which aired Jan. 19 and Jan. 31, 2024.
To be selected for the show, one must take an online test on the Jeopardy! website. If you do well enough on that, you move on with the audition program, which involves a Zoom call, another online test, and then finally, a tryout game that evaluates the players before they appear on the show.
Filming Jeopardy! is relatively similar to the tests done at home.
“The nice thing about Jeopardy! is that it looks just like it does on TV, which is kind of freaky at first because you’re like, ‘Oh my God, I’m inside this thing that I normally see on TV,’” Portman said.
Portman has always had a knack for trivia. “I was on a [trivia] team in high school; I watched Jeopardy! my whole life. Road trips were trivia, all the time,” Portman said.
Her family helped form her affinity for trivia at a young age and as Jeopardy! allows contestants to bring guests. Portman’s family tagged along.
“My parents came. They were able to come the previous time also, and then this time my sister got to come. She didn’t get to go the first time,”Portman said.
Her parents also helped her train for Jeopardy!.
Portman said pop culture is her weak spot, and she tries to re-familiarize herself with popular topics, such as Oscar winners, to prepare for the tournament.
“Obviously, as an English teacher, I like the literature categories, but I also really like the wordplay categories. I’m not always better at the wordplay categories than most people are. I just enjoy them.I find those really fun,” Portman said.
Despite knowing this would be aired on TV, Portman felt little pressure.
“This time around, having been there before, [being filmed] didn’t really affect me too much. I’m fortunate in that I’ve never really had a lot of stage fright. The camera’s far enough away from me that I don’t process that,” Portman said.
Additionally, the lingering impact of COVID was not as present, making socialization between the contestants easier.
“The first time was more adrenaline about being on the stage, and everything was kind of new, and COVID restrictions were more in place.It was harder to socialize with the other contestants versus this time. We were all just hanging out in the green room together. Mainly, I was there to have fun, and I did because everybody there is awesome,” Portman said.
Portman’s relationship with the other contestants was light-hearted.
“I didn’t feel super competitive. I’m not generally a super competitive person. I think everybody there wanted to win, but we had all won Jeopardy! before. This was kind of just cherries on top.”
As a semi-finalist, Portman won $10,000.