Michigan Catholic high school teacher makes it onto ‘Jeopardy!’

Josh Gregor, a Latin teacher at Sacred Heart Academy in Michigan, competed on Jeopardy! Dec. 2, 2022. / Screenshot EWTN News Nightly

Denver, Colo., Dec 11, 2022 / 07:30 am (CNA).

A Michigan high school teacher recently got his shot to join the well-known trivia game show “Jeopardy!” While he didn’t make it all the way to the end, this Latin teacher at Sacred Heart Academy in Grand Rapids did score big with his students.

Josh Gregor, a former seminarian, grew up watching the show with his mother and has been taking the online test to get onto the show since 2015. The trivia buff finally got his chance to join the show and square up against 20-time Jeopardy champion Cris Pannullo.

“It was exciting. I didn’t really know what to expect but it turned out to be a lot of fun,” Gregor said during an interview with EWTN News Nightly on Dec. 9.

He explained that he received a text message from the producers inviting him onto the show and then underwent an audition where one plays the game online to see how you would be on camera. Once he knew he would be joining the show, he began to brush up on certain topics.

“I felt pretty confident in most areas of trivia but modern, pop culture movies, pop music, that’s definitely where I felt least confident,” he explained. “So, I started reading a bunch of Wikipedia articles on recent Oscars and recent Grammy awards — stuff like that that I just don’t naturally spend a lot of time with.”

“I also watched the show every night and I had a little pen with a clicker to practice buzzing in for the questions,” he added.

The show featuring Gregor aired Friday, Dec. 2, and when he arrived back to school Monday morning, he was welcomed with abounding excitement from his students.

“One of the students told me he had watched the episode three times and a bunch of them asked if we can now play Jeopardy in class instead of studying what I had already planned for,” he said, chuckling.

“It was great. A lot of support from the families here and a lot of the parents told me that they and their kids watched it. It was a lot of fun to see.”

Watch the full interview below.