Putting His Knowledge to the Test

Steven Greene is no stranger to answering questions on camera. Throughout his 20-plus-year career as a political science professor at NC State, he has commented on state and national politics for TV networks like the BBC, CBS, CNN and many others. This Monday, May 11, he’ll flip the script by providing answers in the form of a question on Jeopardy!

You can find out where to watch Greene’s episode on the Jeopardy! website. Leading up to his game show debut, Greene answered a few questions for the NC State Bulletin about his experience preparing for and being a contestant:

Bulletin: What made you want to go on Jeopardy!? Have you been a longtime viewer of the show? Did someone dare you to do it? 

Greene: I’m a lifelong viewer and fan of the show. I love trivia — Trivial Pursuit was my favorite game during the original craze in the 1980s — and I love just knowing things. And Jeopardy! is, of course, the ultimate test of that.

Before you flew out to tape your episode, did you do anything to prepare beforehand, like studying trivia or practicing along with the show?

I could honestly talk for hours about my Jeopardy! prep. I had five weeks and studied with all my spare time. I’m a big AI guy, so I used AI to help me code customized study apps and to come up with thousands of questions for me to study. I mostly did this on my own, but every time I drove anywhere with my son, he would be on Jeopardy! prep duty, asking me questions for my study set. I also practiced along with the show as soon as I knew I was going to be on. There’s a huge Jeopardy! community online, so I used AI to help distill the best advice and used that with my practice. Best advice by far: Read the question as soon as you can, and formulate the answer in your head. Then be ready to buzz in the moment Ken Jennings is done reading. You cannot buzz in until he’s done reading aloud, which is much slower than you can read the question on the screen.

What is your strongest category and why? Conversely, what is your weakest category?

History and politics are my strongest. I think that goes without saying as a political science professor. And I was a political science and history double major as an undergraduate. There was recently a category of “Flowers” on the show, and I missed them all. That’s something I’m not even going to bother with studying. I used to be really bad at Shakespeare, but I ended up pretty good by the time of the show. My ongoing weakness is probably food and cooking because even when you study, it’s a lot better and easier when you have a natural interest in the subject. And those who know me well know that my food interests pretty much start and stop with pizza.

Do you feel like your work as a political science professor or any other aspect of your work at NC State gave you a competitive advantage? 

I do a lot of TV interviews talking about North Carolina and national politics, and I am certainly used to public speaking, so I really was not at all nervous. It was interesting, in contrast, to hear from my fellow contestants just how nervous so many of them were with the TV and audience aspects of the show.

Is there anything else you want the NC State community to know about your Jeopardy! appearance before we see you play? 

It was an absolutely amazing experience. All of us who were there for the March 16 recording — they record a whole week’s worth of shows in a day — universally agree what an amazing experience it was, no matter how we performed.