The category is: Jeopardy! champions.
The clue? Unlike many other contestants of the legendary game show, this Harvard Law School student never participated in high school or college Quiz Bowl — nor did he cram for months before winning almost $139,000 on the program last month.
If you responded, who is Andrew Hayes ’25, you’d be correct.
Despite the unusual approach, Hayes, a Tupelo, Mississippi native, nonetheless swept six straight Jeopardy contests in April, earning a spot in the show’s annual Tournament of Champions — and most importantly, fulfilling a childhood dream.
“I remember being five years old and watching Ken Jennings’ original run and being so excited to see how far he would go,” Hayes says of the former contestant — now host — of Jeopardy. “It’s just been very fun being on the show.”
Hayes says he owes his passion for the long-running trivia program to his great aunt, with whom he and his parents spent a lot of time when he was growing up, sharing meals and good conversation — until, that is, a very specific point each evening.
“She was fastidious that dinner had to be done, dishes had to be washed, and everybody had to be in the living room at 6:30 to watch Wheel of Fortune,” he recalls.
A crossword fanatic, Hayes’s aunt also enjoyed quiz shows, such as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and The Weakest Link. But it was Jeopardy — the long-running series where participants respond to clues in the form of a question — that captured Hayes’ heart.
When he was just seven or eight, Hayes saw a Jeopardy Kids Week broadcast, and realized he knew the answer to many of the clues. “Because the questions are easier, I thought ‘I can get into this!’”
Always a voracious reader as a child, particularly about history and U.S. presidents, Hayes began trying to answer the questions during the normal broadcasts, too. And while his schools did not offer Quiz Bowl, as a teenager, he honed his memorization skills through Bible Drill, a local trivia competition focused on Christianity.
“People ask me if there is one category that I’d be particularly strong in, and I’d say it’s anything having to do with the Bible, because that was how I got my start,” he says.
But despite his enduring interest in Jeopardy, when Hayes got the call in January that he had finally been selected as a contestant, he knew that he would not be able to study as much as some competitors do.
“School had just kicked up again,” Hayes says of his final semester at Harvard Law. Along with his classes, Hayes and his wife had just learned that they were expecting their first baby.
With less time to prepare, Hayes says his main strategy was to “know a little bit about a lot of things.” On topics where he is less strong — such as opera — he aimed to study titles and themes that he sees popping up again and again on the show.
“By the end, I realized I was going to be flying by the seat of my pants a little bit,” he jokes.
Although Hayes says he was nervous leading up to the first game, the fear evaporated as soon as he began. “Even in the second game, when I was behind, I thought, you know what? I really tried my best. I was a champion at least one day. I can dine out on that forever.”
But Hayes went much further, ultimately winning six straight games and qualifying for a place in the Tournament of Champions, a face-off between the show’s top competitors that will likely film later this year.
Hayes says that his monetary prize is appreciated, but it’s not the main reason he has enjoyed his brush with fame. “A lot of friends from the past have reached out, people I haven’t talked to in a while,” he says. “It’s been really fun to reconnect with them.”
‘I’ve made some of my best friends here’
Hayes’ journey to the law was no surprise — to his mother, at least. “From the time I was in diapers, my mom told me I should be a lawyer,” he says.
Hayes wasn’t always so sure. He studied economics as an undergraduate and then as a master’s student, intending to become a professor someday. But after completing his advanced degree, Hayes went to work in Washington, D.C. as a researcher at the U.S. Trade Representative. There, he found that he enjoyed legal writing and working with the office’s attorneys — and he began rethinking his career path.
“I thought about what my grandfather used to say” about finding a career, Hayes says. “He said you have to find something that will interest you, that you’re good at so you won’t always be frustrated, and that you know will support you. And I thought law might be that thing.”
As a Harvard Law student, Hayes has enjoyed learning about administrative law, reveling in classes such as Legislation and Regulation and labor and employment law.
“I’ve had a lot of confirmation over the last few years that I made a good choice, and I’ve really loved being in law school and being at HLS, in particular,” he says. “I’ve made some of my best friends here.”
As Hayes prepares to graduate, he says that he and his wife look forward to returning to Mississippi, where he will be clerking for a judge in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. After that, Hayes says he hopes to do litigation and appellate work.
A move, a burgeoning career, and a new baby in September mean that Hayes will again prepare for his appearance in the Tournament of Champions in his own way.
“I don’t think my odds of studying are going to fare much better than they did for my original appearance, but that’ll be okay,” he says. “I’ll have two people cheering me on instead of one this time.”
That’s because for Hayes, the show is not so much an opportunity to win — though that would be nice — as it is to have fun and maybe get a good story or two out of it.
After all, he says, “how many people can say they were on their favorite show?”
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