Jeoparlore!: Who Were the Earliest Tournament of Champions Alternates?

With Suresh Krishnan becoming the latest official qualifier for the 2023 Tournament of Champions, we're going back in time to discuss those who barely missed the cut in their qualifying years.

The History Behind the Mystery

Back in 2019, I began work on the all-time Jeopardy! leaderboard, the document that still remains my proudest work to date. Borrowing off the template pioneered by 2003 College Champion Keith Williams ($60,000, 509th of all time), I included winners of at least $50,000, Teen Tournament winners, and every Tournament of Champions player.

Upon wanting to expand the criteria for the first time in 2021, I decided to go back in time to learn who acted as the alternate for each and every tournament from 1985 to now, a.k.a. the player who’s invited to play in place of another player in case they are unable to play for any reason. This is usually given to the 16th seed for a ToC qualifying season, but it can also be given to a player who barely misses the qualifying window.

My first comment in the thread speculating on the early alternates.

I investigated further during this time by skimming this Jboard thread, which was started by 1-time champion and longtime member Robert K. Schmidt, about the alternates for every ToC since 1985. At the time of my first comment in the thread, the alternates for 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988 (apparently), 1989, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994, and 2007 were not confirmed. Through the info available on J! Archive at the time, as well as the Wayback Machine, I was able to find some possible answers.

The First Alternate for the First Tournament?

For 1985, all 15 players for the first Tournament of Champions were confirmed to be 5-time winners. At the time of my comment, Richard Landon was the only player from the first season with 4 wins entered at the time, so it was easy to assume he was the alternate. I could not confirm this, however, with a complete lack of ambiguity, although he was ironically the only player to play six games in the first season due to being brought back a week later following a clue error.

However, upon a large dump of season 1 episodes being archived starting in December, we’ve learned that Richard may actually not have been the only 4-time winner that season. Most of the season’s games have now been entered, although there is still a small remainder of episodes that are completely unknown. One player of interest, whose full run is incomplete on the archive, has caught my attention in this: Peter Lalos.

As of this article’s publication on June 14th, 2023, only two of Peter’s games are archived, the latest of which being his third game, which he is confirmed to win. With a 3-day total of $32,605, he already surpasses Richard Landon’s 4-day total of $31,400. While the results of his 4th game aren’t currently available, Andy Saunders of The Jeopardy! Fan and other archivists believe Peter might have been a 4-time champion, given that Alex Trebek reportedly noted to 1985 ToC qualifier Ric Moser that he was the 5th player to go for his 5th win.

Games for season 1 that are currently archived (J! Archive, as of June 14th, 2023).

Elise Beraru is famously the first person to win 5 games in the syndicated era of Jeopardy!, but as you can see from the photo above, only three players (Elise Beraru, John Genova, and Richard Landon) are definitively known to attempt their 5th win before Ric Moser. Given the missing games, as well as the final totals for Terry Turner and Brad Marshall being known, Peter Lalos being a 4-time champion is an extremely strong possibility. Even if his 4th win were to be $1, he would still be seeded above Richard.

If there was an alternate for the very first tournament, it’s likely between Richard Landon and Peter Lalos. With the information that is currently available, I’m leaning a bit more towards Peter Lalos as the first possible Tournament of Champions alternate given his strong 3-day total and the alleged comments from Alex Trebek in Ric Moser’s 5th game.

The Next Two Years

The lowest seed for the 1986 Tournament of Champions was 4-time champion Gary Palmer, who had earned $18,400 in total, still the lowest qualifying score in ToC history. It was hard to imagine there being a 4-time champion that year with a lower total; it seemed more likely that the alternate would be a 3-time winner. After believing Steve Willis had the highest total, an old newspaper was found revealing that Dan Alves had finished with a 3-day total of $36,100, beating Steve’s total of $31,000. He still appears to be a strong probability.

Newspaper article displaying that Dan Alves had won 3 games and $36,100 (Santa Maria Times, Jan. 6, 1986).

Important to note through this is that while Gary Palmer’s 4-day total is still the lowest qualifying total for a ToC, he doesn’t have the lowest 4-day total of all time. Mark Stacy ($16,500), Marc Goldberg ($16,301), and Sid Moore, Jr. ($16,000) are three players who have won less money in 4 wins. Even though it’s strongly unlikely, there’s a small chance that someone in the unarchived games for the 1986 season won 4 games and less than Gary Palmer. For now, Dan Alves looks like a strong bet.

Following up with 1987, the lowest seed was Roger Storm, a 4-time champion with $31,200 pocketed. It was tough to find anyone close to this total, until I found Jim Ryan’s 5th game, which at the time did not have his correct total earnings showed next to his name on the archive, displaying as $21,950.

This caused me to believe Carl Brady’s 4-day total of $24,900 made him the alternate, until I discovered that Jim Ryan had won $8,300 in his 4th game and it wasn’t immediately updated for the next game, making his 4-day total of $30,250 just a smidge lower than Roger Storm’s and likely the #16 spot for that season.

The Convoluted Conundrum of 1988

Michael Shutterly’s J! Archive bio on February 28, 2015, via the Wayback Machine.

For several years, it was supposedly common knowledge that Michael Shutterly, also the first player to win $500,000 on the US version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? (1999), was the alternate for the 1988 Tournament of Champions. With the final seed being Ron Trigueiro at 4 wins and $49,401, compared to 4 wins and $49,200 for Michael Shutterly, it kind of seems like a slam dunk that Michael was the #16 seed that season, thus making him the probable alternate for that year.

Michael Rankins, 1988 ToC semifinalist, “confirming” that Michael Shutterly was the alternate on the Jboard thread.

The J! Archive had listed him as the alternate for the 1988 ToC for several years, but the supposed confirmation source apparently wasn’t known or got lost at some point in history. After a few years of uncertainty, 1988 ToC semifinalist Michael Rankins came in the thread to assert what was already greatly assumed for many years: Michael Shutterly was the alternate for that year.

A couple of days later, long-time Jboard member and former contestant Bob Shore came in to refute the previous statement from Rankins, to the surprise of Robert K.S., myself, and several other message board members. Upon this comment being shared, I had several questions and assumptions. Michael Rankins went on to say that it was probably poor recall on his part, further claiming that he has “a good fact-based memory, but not a good event-based memory.”

Bob Shore, 2-time champion and friend of Michael Shutterly’s, seemingly confirming that Michael wasn’t there, nor was he even informed of it happening, in the same thread.

With this bombshell suddenly being dropped in the thread, we’ve spent the next couple of years digging for the answer. We have found five other 4-time champions reported for the same season, the next person in line being previous one-day record holder Kevin Frear with $47,200, followed closely by Pete Tremblay with $44,702. It now begs the question, were there any alternates at all for the first four tournaments?

Now, ToC players not remembering who the alternate is isn’t uncommon. I had heard from insider sources that Lucy Ricketts was the third alternate for the 2022 ToC, despite mutual ToC sources claiming not to have seen her all day. However, I have also gotten accounts from other players in that tournament that Lucy was one of the alternates, so she must have been seated somewhere separately from the other qualifiers.

This is a different situation though, given that the man assumed to be the 1988 Tournament of Champions alternate himself denies ever being there. I would have to assume he wouldn’t forget, but who knows? Evidently, none of us!

Who is the 1989 ToC alternate?

Circling back to the first comment I made in the thread, this section involves the information I acquired that allowed me to make the thread comment in the first place. Before gaining confirmation on LinkedIn, from the sources themselves, that Steve Saum (1993) and Julie Dunlevy (2007) were the alternates for their respective ToC years, I got my first official confirmation for the year 1989 on ToC alternates.

After digging through the 1989 season, I concluded that Jack Lechner was #16 for the season in wins and money, right behind Chris Shea’s 4-day total of $35,202 with 4 wins and $33,300, thus making him a viable candidate for 1989 Tournament of Champions alternate. I took the initiative of messaging him through LinkedIn to confirm this for myself. Before confirming that he was, he had claimed that no one had ever asked him this question before… which probably says a lot more about me than him. >.>

With the knowledge we now have regarding Michael Shutterly’s supposed absence from the 1988 ToC entirely, I have circled back to Jack’s message to me a lot. Jack was not only the alternate for the 1989 ToC, but he was apparently very close to actually playing a game in the quarter-finals, as “the contestant from Guam” almost didn’t make it on time and he “was on standby.”

I couldn’t actually figure out which contestant he was referring to. Upon searching “Guam” in the J! Archive, there wasn’t any contestant who popped up as being from Guam. I mean, for real, not one contestant has ever been from Guam in the nearly 40 years the show’s been on the air. I did some further research into this and found that the 1st runner-up for that tournament, Rich Lerner, happened to be from American Samoa, a different U.S. territory not too far from Guam. That may have been what he meant.

Given the info above, a new theory spawns for me: is it possible that Jack Lechner himself was the very first ToC alternate? The situation being described would support that theory, I believe. Since there was an evident conflict that resulted in one of the 15 qualifiers almost not being able to play, Jack being brought in to take his place, as an alternative choice, makes perfect sense, coupled with the account of Michael Shutterly not being invited to the 1988 ToC as an alternate.

Other Unconfirmed ToC Alternates

Despite Jack Lechner’s confirmation for 1989, a few other years remain mysterious in terms of who the alternate was, or if there was one at all. I can supply evidence on who the alternates for 1990 and 1991 may have been, based on the citation I have. The best best for 1990 seems to be 4-time champion Paula Massengale, with $50,901, under #15 seed Richard Neale (4x, $56,000). A snapshot on this old Jeopardy.com page on the Wayback Machine shows that Paula was the only season 6 player to win above $50,000 that year, with 4 wins to her name.

David Epstein (4x, $46,101), who lost to 4-time champion Marc Goldberg ($16,301), appears to be the best bet for 1991 ToC alternate, according to this Google Groups post from 1996. Like 1990, there hasn’t been anyone from the tournament online able to confirm or disprove these players as the alternates, unlike 1992 where Josh Vincent was confirmed as the alternate by that year’s winner in the same Jboard thread. Steve Saum confirmed he was the alternate for 1993, and also friends with Al Lin, who played that year.

1994 is probably the hardest year overall to confirm, as it’s the season with the lowest amount of archived games. The lowest seed for the tournament was Rachael Schwartz (4x, $37,499), who ended up winning the tournament. While his games aren’t available on the archive, there’s another Google Groups post from June 10th, 1994 that displays a player named Bob Majeska losing his 5th game on a Final Jeopardy! miss, after winning 4 games and $33,300. He has been reasonably assumed as the alternate for that year, and no one else appears to be near his total.

It is said that Gareth Jones was the alternate for 1996, as “it was mentioned in Dave Sampugnaro’s behind-the-scenes writeups that was courtesy of mindfun.com.” The page is no longer operable due to being archaic to the internet world, but I was able to find evidence of these write-ups existing by running mindfun.com, 1996 ToC winner Mike Dupée’s website, through Wayback. There doesn’t appear to be any other choice, given the archived games we have available for that season.

Evidence of the behind-the-scenes writeup by Dave Sampugnaro on MindFun.com existing, not available on Wayback Machine.

List of Confirmed/Most Likely Alternates

With all the public information available, here are the players I have marked as alternates for each ToC year, confirmed and unconfirmed (alleged #16 seeds for unconfirmed players marked with an asterisk).

1.) Richard Landon or Peter Lalos (1985)*

2.) Dan Alves (1986)*

3.) Jim Ryan (1987)*

4.) Michael Shutterly (1988)* (I mean who else could it be?)

5.) Jack Lechner (1989)

6.) Paula Massengale (1990)*

7.) David Epstein (1991)*

8.) Josh Vincent (1992)

9.) Steve Saum (1993)

10.) Bob Majeska (1994)*

11.) Richard Rasmussen (1995)

12.) Gareth Jones (1996)

13.) Bob Willoughby (1998)

14.) Louis Cohen (1999)

15.) Jason Karpf (2000)

16.) Mark Dawson & Alan Bailey (2001); competed in 2003 due to being late qualifiers.

17.) Faith Love (2003)

18.) Patrick Macaraeg (2004)

19.) Bud Humphrey (2006)

20.) Julie Dunlevy (2007)

21.) Meredith Robbins (2009)

22.) Kevin Joyce (2010)

23.) Sara Heard (2011)

24.) Patrick Morrison (2013)

25.) Mike Lewis (2014)

26.) Sean Anderson (2015)

27.) Tim Kutz (2017)

28.) Ryan Bilger (2019); competed in 2021

29.) Elise Nussbaum & Jessica Babbitt (2021)

30.) Emily Fiasco, Yungsheng Wang & Lucy Ricketts (2022)

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