12 / matters magazine / holiday 2018 T hough Daniel Ox- man doesn’t recall not knowing about Jeop- ardy – he remembers it being on at friends' homes, or his grand- mother’s house – he also wouldn’t have called himself a fan. “I never really watched because I was always either doing homework or watching other TV.” Oxman, a 17-year-old South Orange resident, says it wasn’t until a year or so ago that he began watching the popular and long-running quiz show, and then increased last fall to watching every day at the start of his junior year at Columbia High School. Like most fans of the show, Ox- man would watch and do his best to answer (always in the form of a question) before the contestants. It was his father, Michael, who got his wheels turning. “I was all right at [answering questions during] the regular show, and he thought I could totally get on.” After a little more encouragement from his father, Oxman went online earlier this year and looked up opportunities to try out for Jeopardy’s Teen Tourna- ment – one of the show’s special tournaments – for contestants aged 13 to 17 nationwide. There hadn’t been a Teen Tournament since 2016, but an online test registration for a new round had just opened, and he signed up to take part. His journey began with signing on and taking a 50-question test online in May along with other applicants at the same time. Though he isn’t aware of the show’s selection process, Oxman knows that he must have met its criteria and scored well enough on the online test, because a few weeks later he received an email invi- tation to Washington D.C. for a live audition in June. Oxman took a day off from his job as a camp counselor and he and his father drove down to a D.C. hotel, where approximately five dozen teens from around the region would audition. Dressed in a blue Ha- waiian-style shirt, Dan played a mock game of Jeopardy with other teens and was then in- terviewed on camera, which is where he says he felt he had an opportunity to stand out. And according to Oxman, what stands out most among a typical crowd of super-smart Jeopardy applicants is being as normal as possible. “At this point, I knew I had to charm them, say a cou- ple of jokes,” he says. A senior at Columbia High School, Oxman is a real Renaissance teenager. He describes himself as a curious person who’s passionate about science and learning, and would like to study chemical engineer- ing in college. For fun, he plays the trombone with What Is… the Experience of a Lifetime? South Orange teen showcases his smarts and personality on Jeopardy this season BY KELI A. TIANGA Oxman had only one month to prepare before he entered the Jeopardy studio in Los Angeles to play in its Teen Tournament.