A man who grew up in Tavistock, Ont., says he has become a meme after providing an eye-catching answer on Jeopardy earlier this week.
Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers was guest-hosting the show on Monday when Scott Shewfelt was making his third appearance.
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Trailing the leader by $13,000, the California transplant had little chance of catching his rival so he chose to answer the final question by writing, “Who wanted to kick that field goal?” as the answer to a question about children’s entertainer Mr. Rogers.
Shewfelt was making reference to the decision by Packers head coach Matt Lafleur to kick a field goal rather than go for a first down late in Green Bay’s loss to Tampa Bay in the NFC title game.
Many including Shewfelt believed it to be a strange decision as they trailed by eight points late in the fourth quarter.
“It was kind of the only question or the only thing that I’d been associating with Aaron Rodgers and the Packers since it happened,” he told Global News over the phone from Santa Monica, Calif.
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“I never stopped thinking about it and this taped in February so it was still kind of fresh.”
Shewfelt says it was not meant to be a potshot at the Packers quarterback.
“It wasn’t really a dig at him. You know, that seems to be getting lost in all of this,” he explained. “I definitely put him in a bit of an awkward position on TV, but I think he handled it well and laughed about it.”
You saw today's Final Jeopardy! – now here's an exclusive behind-the-scenes chat with @AaronRodgers12' response. pic.twitter.com/AX91ldGtkM
— Jeopardy! (@Jeopardy) April 6, 2021
Shewfelt credits his grandparents with his fandom of the show as his first memory of Jeopardy was watching it with grandparents in a small Ontario town.
“I used to go spend a week with them every summer in Simcoe, Ont. They would watch Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy,” he explained. “I obviously took too Jeopardy way more.”
Shewfelt moved to California about 15 years ago after attending school at Western Ontario in London before getting a degree in journalism from the University of Maryland.
He eventually moved to California where he began working in the movie industry. He has recently written a novel which he is currently looking to get published.
“It’s a murder mystery set in the world of entertainment … [I’m] trying to find a publisher for that now,” Shewfelt said.
His recent Jeopardy appearances came after several attempts over the years to get on the long-running show.
“I wrote it (his application) kind of in January of 2020, and I took that pretty seriously that time because I knew that the clock was ticking on Alex (Trebek) and I had a friend who qualified, so I didn’t want them to be able to hold that over my head,” he explained. (His friend still has not made it onto the Jeopardy stage.)
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Shewfelt said he would eventually pass all of the steps necessary to get on the show and be entered into a talent pool but the show was put on hold because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He seemed saddened by the fact he was unable to appear with Trebek, noting, “I was kind of taken off-guard because I thought I’d have been doing better.”
He did not even know who would be hosting the show when he arrived at his first taping in February.
“I didn’t know it was going to be Dr. Oz as my host until I showed up on set, Shewfelt said. “So that was a bit of a shocker.”
While the three appearances were taped in February, he could not tell anyone about the fact that he had won almost $50,000 over the first two shows.
“I didn’t tell anyone,” he said. “My mom tried very hard to find out.
“I didn’t trust my mom with that information,” he said jokingly.
He said the reaction was very different after his first two appearances than after the one he became famous for.
“It was great, you know, the first two games I won and hearing from all the family and friends and people from the past, that was a lot of fun,” he said.
He said the Rodgers clip has been viewed millions of times and landed his face everywhere including an appearance on ESPN.
“I’ve become a meme, which is cool,” he said. “I’ve been amused by it all but I’m uncomfortable with it.
“I’m a little like I can’t believe that I’m millions and millions of views. I don’t know. It’s just weird.”
