Now that Alex Trebek has announced his anti-retirement, I’ve gained a new respect for the man.

A Message from Alex Trebek: pic.twitter.com/LbxcIyeTCF

— Jeopardy! (@Jeopardy) March 6, 2019

Trebek and I haven’t always gotten along. This dates back to my time at Ball State. My hot-head associates and I would gather ’round the television and watch Jeopardy! each night.

An aside: We were totally “hip” and “with it.” Never mind that I put quotation marks around those, and we once got yelled at by people down the hall about getting loud and raucous during the show. I’m pretty they didn’t graduate.

This was around the time Saturday Night Live would do send-ups of Celebrity Jeopardy! I think we latched onto Sean Connery’s interaction with Alex Trebek.

I vaguely recall us hootin’ derision at the screen one night when no one got the response to one of the answers. Trebek [We called him by his last name to show our displeasure, really hitting the “T”] didn’t say, “What is a helicopter?” He said, “What is a whop, whop, whop, whop,” and twirled his finger around like a rotor.

I did my part to reach out, though.

A few years ago, I took the online test. A couple weeks later, I got an email saying I had passed, and they had reserved a spot for me at an in-person audition in Dallas.

I took a written test, then we had an interview like people on the show, then they broke us into groups of three to play a game with actual Jeopardy! clickers.

They congratulated us and said we were in the contestant pool for the next year, but they also warned us the contestant pool has hundreds more people than will actually appear on the show.

“Some of your favorite champions had to take the test several times before they came up in the rotation,” they told us. Reassuringly. Like when your parents told you there absolutely was a tooth fairy.

Alex Trebek and I have patched things up, though. I felt a lot of ways about this video. It was sincere but still light-hearted, and reminded me of the days growin’ up, before our feud started, when the fam would watch Jeopardy! after dinner.

After he posted the video, I started texting with a college associate about how we had grown up to see him as a real person instead of a character. That would ultimately devolve into us saying we hope he recovers so we can holler at him when he comes on TV again.

Even though I was bummed never to get The Call, I feel good not to have taken this as seriously as the folks who lost on the all-star Jeopardy! tournament that’s airing now.

And now, I suspect a lengthy blog about a feud with Alex Trebek may disqualify me from future appearances if I pass the test again. Regardless, I appreciated him closing that video by saying he’s contractually obliged to recover.