The nation’s top bank watchdog will appear in a very different role Wednesday night: “Jeopardy!” contestant.
Here’s the expanded version of a piece I wrote for today’s print editions:
, head of the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, faces the quiz show’s big board as part of a tournament of
returning champs from decades past
.
Back in 1987, Cordray walked away a five-time winner. His final haul totalled $45,303 — and that was back when contestants couldn’t make endless appearances and the dollar values for questions were lower.
Still, it was enough for Cordray to buy a used car, take a vacation and pay his dad back some money he’d borrowed for law school.
In fact, he mused in an interview with the Daily News, “I made more days on five days on ‘Jeopardy!’ than I did [clerking] for the Supreme Court for a year, so that felt pretty good at the time.”
(Money wasn’t the only thing Cordray scored during his ’80’s run on the show, incidentally: Single at the time, he also fielded a few marriage proposals.)
Returning to face off with his fellow champions during the show’s December taping, Cordray found the game much the same… with one big difference: This time, he wasn’t allowed to take home a cent.
As a presidential appointee, Cordray found out, he could neither pocket any winnings from the show nor donate it to charity.
But he said playing for fun was just as exciting as it was nearly three decades ago: “It’s a little bit humbling, actually,” he said. “I like challenges.”
These days, Cordray oversees an agency charged with guarding the public against risky mortgages and loans — but back in the day, he was willing to bet it all.
The CFPB boss said his game-show streak might’ve well been cut short if he’d stumbled in his first game, when he wagered everything he had on a Daily Double.
Hearing host Alex Trebek tell him his gamble had paid off “was a very good moment,” he reminisced in a video released ahead of the tournament.
Cordray told the News that he didn’t have a huge amount of time to prep for the game, but he tried to absorb some trivia on “nights and weekends” — and his twin son and daughter, 15, helped him study up too.
While on his honor not to reveal the outcome before Wednesday’s airing, Cordray said more questions seemed geared toward cultural subjects than the academic categories that dominated the program when he first played.
“Being head of a national regulatory agency, [that] stuff doesn’t come up very often, so it has to be like an archeological dig inside my own mind,” he said, copping to having been “nervous” about the match.
And as for his competitors this go-around, Cordray said he was pleased to find there were no stare-downs or psych-outs in the Culver City, Calif. studio — just a shared love of the game.
“They’re a pretty nice group to be around,” he said. “Maybe because they’re all champions, they can rise above that.”
After the past-decades special series, “Jeopardy!” will be back to its regular programming… reigniting the furor over current champ Arthur Chu, who has racked up more than $100,000 in winnings using an unorthodox (but not entirely original) strategy that’s driving some fans bonkers…
IMAGES: YURI GRIPAS/REUTERS; JEOPARDY.COM
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