Guerneville man stars on ‘Jeopardy’

You may think you know all the answers, but do you know the questions? Nic Pereira of Guerneville knew enough to land on the TV trivia show “Jeopardy!” on Friday night.

The swimming pool and spa maintenance contractor tested himself against reigning champion Laura and newcomer Rachel on the long-running question-as-answer show.

Before Friday’s episode aired, Pereira said via email from Mexico that he auditioned for the show because of “peer pressure.”

“So many of our friends would sit and watch the show with us and say, ‘You need to be on! You need to be on!’ ” he said.

After taking a test at the show’s website to confirm he knew his stuff, he was invited to two in-person auditions before he was asked to compete on the show.

At the show’s outset, Pereira fell behind, before hitting his stride in the second round. While some first-time contestants might feel overwhelmed at the prospect of being on TV in front of millions of viewers, Pereira said the pressure to perform wasn’t an issue.

“It was just one of those things that was out there,” he said. “It might happen, it might not. I didn’t have a whole lot of expectations, so getting on (the show) was a nice surprise.”

Pereira said the biggest challenge was the big difference between sitting on the coach shouting out questions and actually competing on-air. In the first round especially, Pereira found his trigger finger much slower than his fellow contestants’.

“You only get to answer if you’re first on the buzzer,” he said. “You may know the question to every answer on that board, but if you’re not quick enough off the draw, you're going to have a difficult time scoring points.”

Pereira came into the show’s final round - where contestants can wager any portion of their entire pot of winnings on the outcome of one question - in third place, but in position to make up some ground.

But he couldn’t pose the correct question in response to the final answer: “Springsteen said David Sancious was the only member of the group who ever actually lived there.”

Pereira offered up, “What is Chicago?”

The correct answer, however, was, “What is E Street?”

Pereira finished third, behind the winner, Rachel, and the defending champ, Laura. But he still got to come home with $1,000.

You can reach Staff Writer Crissi Langwell at 521-5390 or crissi.langwell@pressdemocrat.com.