‘Our Returning Champion’: Stone Harbor’s Josh Weikert Shares His ‘Jeopardy!’ Experience
“I played my first game, and it went by in a blink. And I won. And no one was more shocked than I was,” Josh Weikert says with a laugh as he recalls his first winning performance on “Jeopardy!” this spring. That was just Game 1. Weikert went on to win five more games and racked up $100,202 in prize money.
That six-game winning streak qualifies Weikert as a contestant for next season’s Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions. He’ll return to California to compete at the end of this year and the tournament will air in early 2026.
In the meantime, you may find Weikert walking along the beach in Stone Harbor, where he and his wife Barbara have a vacation home. They also have a home in Collegeville, Pa.
“When the opportunity came up about three years ago to get a place in Stone Harbor, we jumped at it,” he says. “We really love it in all seasons: the summer and over the holidays.”
It’s surprising that Weikert, 46, has any free time to spend at the Jersey Shore. He is an associate professor and chair of the Civic Engagement Department at Immaculata University; a policy adviser for the Pennsylvania General Assembly; and a civil affairs officer in the U.S. Army Reserve. He and Barbara also enjoy distance running, and Barbara, a music teacher, is a summertime instructor at Pure Pony Yoga on the beach at 82nd Street. And yes, if you’re wondering, Josh does stop in at Fred’s now and then to play Quizzo.
Weikert’s road to “Jeopardy!” is a study in perseverance and determination: He had been taking the online qualifying test for 10 years and never heard back about an audition. Then, one day last spring, he got an email from the game show for the first time. He was invited to take the test again – and then once more, this time “with someone from the show watching you on Zoom while you take it to make sure you don’t have a room full of people screaming answers at you!”
Once he successfully completed this triad of trivia, Weikert advanced to a practice game with other contestants and a practice interview after which he was added to the contestant pool – with approximately 2,000 other aspiring “Jeopardy!” champs, out of which only 400 are selected as contestants each year.
Five months later, Weikert got a phone call telling him that he was one of the lucky 400. He and Barbara flew to Culver City, Calif., in January for his date with destiny.
Arriving at Sony Pictures Studios, Weikert was just blown away by the Alex Trebek Stage, where the show is filmed. “Imposing” and “remarkable” are the words he uses to describe the enormous space with lights everywhere and a 20-foot screen displaying categories and questions. “You go out and do rehearsals on the Alex Trebek Stage,” he recalls, “and just walking out on the stage was unreal.”
And meeting “Jeopardy!” host and player extraordinaire Ken Jennings, whom Weikert describes as “incredibly friendly, very funny, and so personable” was another highlight. He recalls Jennings coming out to greet the players during rehearsal and saying, “I just wanted to say hi to you all. I love meeting ‘Jeopardy!’ contestants because I still think of myself as a ‘Jeopardy!’ contestant. You’re my kind of people!”
Jennings went on to add: “We wish everybody could win at ‘Jeopardy!’ but obviously that’s not going to happen today. But you’re going to get some kind of a win. You’re going to answer a question right that nobody else gets, or you’re going to get to go all-in on a Daily Double; there’s going to be something that you are going to take away from this, so just have fun and enjoy yourselves.”
“And with that,” says Weikert, “you could just see everyone take a deep breath and calm down.”
Weikert has a very vivid memory of his first rehearsal that belies that atmosphere of calm: “I have no problem saying it now because things generally went pretty well, but I had a terrible rehearsal! Trying to figure out the buzzer and trying to remember questions as they’re coming at you. It’s really challenging. And wouldn’t you know, my name got pulled first, so I went out to play in the first game, Day 1, after this very unencouraging result. Maybe it was good because I didn’t have time to think about anything.”
One thing Weikert is still thinking about is what he’s going to do with most of his winnings. He’s already decided to donate 10% to a scholarship fund established in memory his friend Jarrad Weikel, “a kind and thoughtful guy,” and a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who died during the pandemic. Weikert and friends raise funds and host events to endow scholarships in Mr. Weikel’s name for veterans and the children of vets who are studying for a career in medicine or science (weikelmemorialscholarshipfund.com).
Looking back on the entire experience, Josh, not surprisingly, characterizes his “Jeopardy!” gig as “the most fun I’ve ever had in my life! I told Barbara – and I think she agrees with me – that that this was more fun than our wedding day!”
“And it was a ton of fun watching with family and friends,” he adds. “I grew up watching ‘Jeopardy!’ with my family and getting to watch my episodes with my dad and my grandfather, who’s 96 years old, was just fantastic.
“The very first night, we did a big event at Immaculata with current and former students, a bunch of my colleagues, and family and friends. And I wasn’t prepared for everyone to be cheering when I got an answer right and booing my competitors! They brought a real Philadelphia Eagles vibe to the event that I was not expecting, but which was fun to watch. After it was all over, I took a few questions from the audience and I said, ‘Thank goodness I won because you were all so into it that if I had lost I would have felt really terrible bringing you out here just to let you down.’”
Weikert sums up his “Jeopardy!” run like this: “To play seven games and have the chance to go back and play in the Tournament of Champions is really the experience of a lifetime.”
Good luck in the Tournament of Champions, Josh. Seven Mie Beach will be rooting for you!