By Donald H. Harrison
EL CAJON, California – With a steady drumbeat on the buzzer and an apparent photographic memory for every little fact in Siddhartha Mukherjee’s book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, James Dohleman led his UCSD team to a runaway victory in a three-way contest against Pt. Loma Nazarene College and Grossmont College played in the style of television’s Jeopardy game.
After the first round, the score in the game that was emceed by KNSD-TV’s weekend news anchor Artie Ojeda, was UCSD; 8,400, Grossmont 3,800; and Pt. Loma 1,200. After the second “Double Jeopardy” round it was UCSD 27,300; Pt. Loma 8,000; and Grossmont 7,000. And after the “Final Jeopardy” round, UCSD, unsurprisingly, was the winner with a score of 30,441; with Grossmont second with 12,000 and Pt. Loma in third with 9,001.
Between rounds a Grossmont College Jazz Trio of Mika Miller, bass guitar; Kengo Ito, drums, and John Avery, tenor sax, entertained with some improvisations on the musical “Jeopardy” theme well known to viewers of the quiz show.
Tate Hurvitz, an English professor at host Grossmont College, coordinated the event, which was meant to add fun and excitement to a year-long study of Mukherjee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book that examined cancer from many aspects, which were reflected in the names of the “Jeopardy” categories from which contestants battled to answer questions.
In the first round, for example, the topics—all based on material in the book – were “politics,” “ethics,” “cells and cancer,” “cancer and the arts,” “types of cancer” and “key players.”
The second round categories tested the contestants’ knowledge of “science and more science,” “more ethnics,” “organizations and campaigns, “ “cancer in the media,” “big breakthroughs” and “this and that.”
The Final Jeopardy question, for which players set their wager in advance, asked the name of the college in New York where author Mukherjee is a professor. All three teams correctly answered “Columbia.”
Besides Dohleman, who studies nano-materials, UCSD’s team consisted of Katherine Zu, a computer science and sociology major, and Anish Shandilya, a computer science major.
Grossmont’s team included Jenna Bouche, a media communications major; Nathan Straign, who is studying human development and pre-medicine, and Ryan Jerman, who has yet to declare a major. All three are members of Grossmont College’s debate squad.
Pt. Loma Nazarene s team included Thomas Routson, a psychology major, Caleb Moore, a literature major and Bran don West, an accounting major.
Before the game began, Ojeda was asked how one goes about playing the role of Alex Trebek, who has hosted the television version of the game since 1984.
He responded that there is “only one Alex Trebek,” adding that the TV host is “so eloquent.” Ojeda said he didn’t have the luxury of looking over the questions well in advance of the contest, and said he was worried that he might mispronounce some of the medical terms that were likely to come up.
He needn’t have worried. The questions, prepared by faculty members at the three colleges, were simply phrased. Some of the answers, however, involved medical terms, but it was up to the contestants to pronounce them.
Although cancer is a serious subject, the game had numerous light-hearted moments, as for example when Caleb Moore of Pt. Loma hit the buzzer first and answered a 400-point question accurately. Though the crowd consisted mainly of Grossmont College students, it burst into cheers when Pt. Loma finally got on the board.
Hurvitz said he was very pleased with the “Jeopardy” game, which helped to wrap up two semesters of lectures, art exhibits, and other events, all intended to build knowledge on the campuses about cancer. He reported that Ojeda also enjoyed his role as host, volunteering to do it again, if the colleges should ever conduct a similar event.
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Donald H. Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World, which seeks sponsorships to be placed, as this notice is, just below articles that appear on our site. To inquire, call him at (619) 265-0808 or contact him via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com