Secret's Out: Bryan Seventh-grade Teacher Andrew Fuller Takes Second Place in Jeopardy!

The categories were interesting—Arnold Schwarzenegger, marsupials, guns—but what made Monday afternoon’s Jeopardy! much more interesting was the fact that Elmhurst seventh-grade teacher Andrew Fuller was one of the contestants.

It was the first time Fuller, of Elburn, had seen the Jeopardy! episode Fuller, his wife, Teri, their 4-year-old daughter, Lily, and his teacher-colleagues all huddled into a classroom at Bryan Middle School after school Monday to watch the show. When he got an answer right, they cheered.

On set, when no one got an answer right, Alex Trebek would “give us the stink-eye,” Fuller recalled.

Fuller started out a bit slow, but by the end was holding his own, neck-and-neck with Sarah Heard from Brooklyn, N.Y. She ended up winning it, with $15,201, but Fuller was only $601 behind her. He collected $2,000 for second place. John Paul Manuel of San Francisco came in third, with $10,400.

The Final Jeopardy question was “After Alaska, what is the largest state by area that doesn’t have a major league baseball team?”

“I was thoroughly happy with baseball” as the topic, Fuller said. He wrote his answer, finished early with a confident look on his face, and correctly answered “Montana,” wagering $7,000 of his $7,600.

But Heard also got it right, wagering $601.

“She was just a really great competitor, really hard-core,” Fuller said of Heard.

The show ended with a round of applause from the teachers.

Fuller also gave a shout-out to Bryan Middle School at Jeopardy.com.