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Colby Burnett is the first Jeopardy! contestant to win both the Teachers’ Tournament in 2012 and the Tournament of Champions in 2013. Most recently, Burnett was in the 2024 Invitational Tournament. During his first appearance, he was a high school teacher from Oak Park, Illinois. Now, he is a College Counselor at ITW David Speer Academy in Chicago. Burnett appeared on the Tell Us About Yourself Podcast on February 1 and explained how the game show changed his relationships for the better…and was responsible for him meeting his future wife.
Burnett revealed that he often gets recognized after his appearances on the game show and he is happy to have people reach out to him because no one “has been weird.” He also told the host, Christian Carrion, that he “can vanish into the ether in his day-to-day life,” but being on Jeopardy! is the “gift that keeps on giving”, especially when people come to him to talk about the show and how he bought his mom a house in Chicago with his winnings.
He revealed that he was met with some reluctance because his mom didn’t want him to spend all of his money on her, but, he wanted to do it because she never had a house of her own. Burnett and his mom lived in his grandparents’ house growing up.
“The $100,000 I got, minus taxes, paid for that place. I was in a place in my life where I could say ‘if I do anything with these winnings, I’m getting my mom a house,” Burnett said on the podcast.
The Jeopardy! alum said that the “community is beautiful” and “there aren’t many villains.”
“When I look around I am a bunch of friends and can make new ones easily,” he said.
One friend that he made through the show is Ben Ingram, who is the Tournament of Champions winner season after Burnett. They met each other on set and “have been friends ever since.”
“It popped out of nowhere,” Burnett shared.
“He recognized me and we invited each other to our weddings. I had no idea it would be like this.”
Burnett shared that him, Ingram, and other Jeopardy! contestants stayed connected on Zoom during pandemic, where they would talk and play games.
The game show contestant said that he didn’t have a lot of friends as a kid and was considered a “nerd.”
“So I was glad I had that group to fall back on,” he said.
Burnett also has Jeopardy! to thank for finding his wife, Janet Wasilewski, whom he married in 2022. His now-step-daughter told her mom to reach out to Burnett after she saw him on Jeopardy!. She messaged him on social media, they met, and are now married.
“I will always be thankful for meeting my wife and maintaining a strong group of friends because of the show,” he said.
However, Burnett was okay with not having a lot of friends when he was younger because he grew up in a “rough neighborhood.” The people he did know got involved with drugs, which was something he was not interested in. His mom gave him encyclopedia to feed his intellect and stay out of trouble.
“The show has given my mother a home. It has given me a family, and it has established a giant circle of friends. It brought me the exact level of fame that I wanted in my life,” he said.
When Burnett goes to cons, he said that two out of 80,000 people will come up to him and he is content with that. “I am so glad it is two and not two thousand.”
Burnett ended the podcast by saying that he was grateful that he got to talk to former host Alex Trebek about his mom and was touched that he asked about her.
Tell Us About Yourself is a podcast that interviews game show contestants. New episodes drop every Friday.
