We’ve had a number of physically-challenged individuals as contestants on Jeopardy! If you can pass the test, you can be a player on our show—that’s always been our criteria. One of those contestants who made a big impression on me was Eddie Timanus back in 1999. Eddie was a sportswriter from Reston, Virginia. He was the first blind contestant to compete on the show. The only accommodations we made: we provided him with a braille readout of the categories, and we also gave him a keyboard that he used to type his responses for Final Jeopardy! Eddie became a five-game winner and an inspiration to all. As a bonus at the time for becoming a five-time champion, Eddie also received two new Chevrolet Camaros. When asked about the cars, he remarked what was so odd about that was that he could only drive one of them at a time. Nice sense of humor Eddie has.
A few years later, he came back to compete in the Battle of the Decades tournament. In an interview that aired during that program, Eddie said something that really moved me:
“People ask me, ‘How did you do it? Wasn’t it a disadvantage for you?’ And I say, ‘Well, maybe, but this is just my life. This is who I am.’ ” We also found out that in the intervening years, Eddie had been contacted by a teacher who wanted to ask him about using Jeopardy! in her classroom. Eddie consulted with her, and she is now his wife and they have a wonderful son.