As he was walking through a gallery at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Dean Zach ’24 noticed an unfamiliar Los Angeles area code light up his phone screen. Slipping into a quiet corner, he answered and spoke in a hushed whisper, listening in absolute shock as he learned that he was going to be a contestant on Jeopardy!. What had felt like a distant pipe dream was suddenly real.
Growing up in the Greater Houston area, Jeopardy! was always playing in the background of the Zach home. By the time he was a student at Trinity University, the popular game show was as ingrained in Zach’s schedule as his classes.
“It became appointment television for me. It was a nice ritual, especially during the pandemic years, that kept me sane and grounded,” Zach explains. “At Trinity, I would always go to one of the lounges in Prassel Hall and park myself there to watch the show.”
Trinity was a relative unknown for Zach, but he was instantly charmed by the tight-knit community and the small campus feel during a tour on a crisp November day in his senior year. Coming from a large public school, he craved that change of pace. Student organizations like the Trinitonian helped Zach feel part of the Trinity community.
“The Trinitonian was really welcoming. I worked as a copy editor all four years, and that was the first organization I developed friends in coming out of the pandemic,” remembers Zach.
Though he initially planned to major in political science, a Spring 2021 British literature survey course with Betsy Winakur Tontiplaphol, Ph.D., sparked his decision to declare an English major and pursue a minor in creative writing, along with a political science minor.
Zach thrived in the department, quickly catching the attention of faculty like English Professor Kelly Grey Carlisle, Ph.D., director of the creative writing minor, with his quick thinking and depth of knowledge.
"Dean was a student in my place-based writing class—an advanced, research-based creative nonfiction class—and wrote some of the most brilliant work I have ever seen. In our many conversations about his work, it became clear that he was intellectually curious, incredibly thoughtful, and a voracious reader. When he told me that he'd gotten on Jeopardy!, I was not surprised,” she recalls. “Trinity is exactly the place to nurture a mind like Dean's, and Dean is exactly the kind of student we love to teach in our classes."
Zach credits Trinity’s liberal arts curriculum with expanding his repertoire of knowledge. Courses like his First-Year Experience (FYE) “Climate Changed,” medieval Islamic history with David Lesch, Ph.D., and witchcraft in literature with Willis Salomon, Ph.D., armed him with a sprawling mosaic of facts.
"Trinity’s liberal arts curriculum set me up for success on Jeopardy!, 100%. I don’t think I would have known anything about permafrost if I hadn’t taken my FYE and a subsequent course on geology," Zach says, chuckling. “I’m thankful that I had so much freedom at Trinity to get to know these amazing professors and collect so much knowledge.”
On the day of his Jeopardy! appearance, Zach jokes that he aged five years from all of the excitement. Sleep was hard to come by, and he woke up “way too early” at 6 a.m., fueled by adrenaline.
The morning began in a makeshift waiting area in the studio parking garage, lined with white folding chairs. Surrounded by the other impressive contestants, initial anxiety and awkward conversations quickly gave way to a strong sense of camaraderie.
During rehearsals, host Ken Jennings came out to calm everyone's nerves. For Zach—a self-described geography nerd who had spent countless hours in his dorm room at Trinity listening to the Omnibus podcast and reading Jennings’ book Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks—making small talk with the trivia icon was a major highlight.
Before arriving on the show, Zach had crammed on a personal knowledge gap: birthstones. The extra studying paid off immediately when the topic appeared in his very first round, right alongside a King of the Hill category packed with Texas clues.
"That was very surreal to see on stage,” says Zach. “As someone who has never escaped Texas, it was right up my alley."
Zach ultimately walked away from a two-game stint with $39,000 in winnings, becoming only the fourth person in Jeopardy! history to double his money on back-to-back Daily Doubles and the first person to do so in regular-season play.
As Zach looks ahead, he remains focused on his academic pursuits, working toward completing his master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Houston. He is grateful he got to live out a dream on Jeopardy!. Just don’t expect much from him at the next trivia night.
“I’m shockingly bad at local pub trivia,” he confesses. “I may be more of a burden than a blessing.”
Editor's Note: To see the clues Zach faced in his two games, visit this fan-maintained Jeopardy! site.