Throwback Thursday: Brad Rutter Wins the 2001 Tournament of Champions; Election Day Pre-Empts Ken Jennings's Record-Breaking 65th Win in 2004
Brad Rutter wins the 2001 Tournament of Champions on November 2nd, 2001; an important game show milestone was almost missed by millions of viewers on November 2nd, 2004.
22 Years Ago, Brad Rutter Wins His TOC
Before we go into the unusual circumstances of the 2004 game, this is the 22nd anniversary of when Brad Rutter won his first Jeopardy! tournament, the 2001 Tournament of Champions. This historic victory also took place one year after Brad won his 4th game in 2000 with $15,200, his biggest win from his original run. It was a really close battle to the finish line between Brad Rutter, Tad Carithers, and Rick Knutsen on both days, with Rick holding the lead before day 2 with $3,000 compared to $2,500 for Brad and $1,300 for Tad. On the second day, the three players had $2,500 separating first place from third place before Final Jeopardy!, with Brad having a very slight advantage over his opponents.
With $9,300 before Final Jeopardy!, Brad had an effective two-day total of $11,800, compared to $11,300 for Rick ($3,000 + $8,300), and $8,100 for Tad ($1,300 + $6,800). The Final Jeopardy! category was U.S. Presidents, with the clue as follows: “Washington was the one who added these 4 words to the presidential oath; they're not in the Constitution.” The answer was “What is ‘so help me God?’”
Tad and Brad were both correct but Tad didn’t wager anything, whereas Rick’s incorrect response of “preserve, protect, and defend” dropped his score down to $4,699 for a two-day total of $7,699, $401 less than Tad’s $8,100. Brad made the minimum cover bet of $7,801 in order to outscore a possible double-up from Rick Knutsen, thus winning the finals with a two-day total of $19,601 and granting him the $100,000 grand prize. It was also the final TOC to have a grand prize of $100,000, as well as pre-doubled values, before being bumped up to $250,000 for the 2003 Tournament of Champions, which was won by Mark Dawson.
The 2001 Tournament of Champions was the first tournament that Brad Rutter reigned victorious in before winning the Million Dollar Masters tournament held in 2002, Ultimate Tournament of Champions in 2005, Battle of the Decades in 2014, and the All-Star Games in 2019 alongside teammates David Madden and Larissa Kelly. Altogether, charity winnings withheld, Brad Rutter is currently #1 in all-time money earnings on Jeopardy!, with $4,953,436 to his name. He has not appeared on the show since losing to James Holzhauer and Ken Jennings in the 2020 Greatest of All Time tournament.
The 2004 Presidential Election
Three years following one of the worst disasters in U.S. history, the tragedy of 9/11, the 2004 election was held 19 years ago today between Republican incumbent president George W. Bush from Texas and the Democratic nominee from Massachusetts, John Kerry, who was also a U.S. Senator at the time. With the September 11th attacks still fresh on everyone’s mind, the most contentious topics surrounding the election, particularly for Republicans, included terrorism and national security. Domestic issues surrounding the economy, education, and jobs were more important to Democrats at the time, though both parties were particularly concerned with the situation in Iraq, with a prime example being John Kerry’s hesitant and controversial decision to vote in favor of the war in Iraq back in 2002.
Despite public opinion rapidly shifting overtime, the public was mostly united on invading Iraq following the 9/11 attacks, though opinion started to shift a lot more in March of 2004, one year after the war began, following former terrorism advisor Richard Clarke’s testimony during the 9/11 Commission. He criticized George W. Bush’s decision “…because by invading Iraq - something [he] was not asked about by the commission, something [he] chose to write a lot about in [his] book - by invading Iraq, the president of the United States has greatly undermined the war on terrorism."
Needless to say, the 2004 presidential election was quite heated and took up a great deal of television programming on Election Day. However, Jeopardy! made an unprecedented decision even by future Election Day standards: bumping the November 2nd airing to the next day and then airing the last episode of the weekly bloc on a Saturday.
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