Over the past year, the best and the brightest spellers of five-letter words were invited for one final shot at a Suzuki Verona. In the end, it was Tim and Catherine who pulled it out to win the Tournament of Champions. Now, Alex Davis has submitted an interview he conducted with Tim of the winning team.

Alex Davis
interviewer

Alex: OK, first off, congratulations. That was sure a marathon of a game
and series, but you were the best.

Tim: Thanks Alex.

Alex: I'm sure this is the question that most people wonder. What was
your initial reaction when you got that car? Also, how was it holding
that secret for so long of the win?

Tim: I think for both Catherine and me, the initial reaction was pure shock. When we first auditioned for Lingo back in August 2003, we were terrible. We didn't even get our word right during the audition; it took us 7 guesses instead of 5! So to go from that to winning the Tournament of Champions was quite a turnaround, especially considering the caliber of players we faced. In terms of holding the secret… we weren't actually required to, I believe. We were never told to refrain from telling anybody about our win, probably because the secret of who won the Lingo TOC isn't as highly regarded as, say, the person who wins Survivor. All of my family and friends have known about the win since the day it happened, back in October. Though out of respect for Lingo fans and GSN, I never revealed anything on the GSN message boards, since that would have ruined the surprise for all the people who waited so long.

Alex: How was the whole experience on Lingo?

Tim: The Lingo experience was possibly the most exciting experience of my life. Catherine and I were best friends from high school, and we both had recently graduated from college. The job market is terrible right now, especially for recent grads without much experience. We had discussed being on a game show together in the past, and when we weren't able to find jobs, we decided this would be a great way to make some money.
I answered an ad I saw on Craigslist, and Catherine and I had an audition in Hollywood. As I alluded to earlier, the audition was terrible. We had practiced a little, but definitely not enough. Fortunately, not many people auditioned, and I think the casting director liked us because we smiled a lot and were very enthusiastic. So for whatever reason (definitely not for our playing ability), we were cast to be on the show. During all of the shows, the cast and crew of the show were tremendously nice. Chuck seemed to be a tad grumpy during our first show, but during the Tournament he was a pleasure to be around, joking around even when the camera wasn't rolling. Stacy is genuinely nice off camera as well. And the contestant coordinators, makeup artists, camera and lighting crew and all the others were a true pleasure to work with. They all seemed to be having just as much fun as we were!

Alex: Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Tim: Well, I'm 23 years old, and I was born and raised in Temple City, CA, a small suburb of Los Angeles, close to Pasadena. I met Catherine while we were in junior high, and we've been best friends ever since. We actually did many of the same activities in high school, such as band/drill team, volunteering at our local hospital, acting in musicals, and singing in our school's singing group, the Brighter Side Singers. After graduation, Catherine (our valedictorian!) attended Northwestern University, while I attended Yale University. She went on to graduate with a degree in communications, while I graduated with one in Philosophy. She's currently taking more courses at UCLA, where she's studying to become an interior designer. I just recently started law school at the University of Michigan. I'm not exactly sure what law I'd like to practice, but as an interesting side note, there's a law that states that all game shows must be supervised by an attorney. The attorney makes sure that all scoring is done correctly and fairly (when the host asks the "judges" for clarification, the attorney is one of the people consulted). I met an attorney during the Lingo tapings who had literally supervised thousands of game shows throughout his life, including many episodes of Jeopardy. Perhaps that would be an interesting way for me to use my law degree!

Alex: Obviously, if you tried out for Lingo, you are somewhat of a game
show fan. Is this true? What are some of your favorites on the
network and on TV in general?

Tim: Of course I love game shows! When I was sick and had to stay home from school, I would watch old game show reruns all day long. Press Your Luck, Pyramid, The Price is Right, and Match Game were some of my favorites. I also loved Supermarket Sweep, from the time I was in 4th grade. Actually, before I was on Lingo, I was also on Supermarket Sweep, that time with my mother as part of a Parent-Child tournament week. We won our first show with over $1400, but lost in the tournament finals by less than $10. To be fair, though, I was competing against a stuntman from Universal Studios, some I'm just proud that I was able to keep up with him at all!

Alex: How do you feel about all the changes that have been happening to
GSN recently? Not all the stuff is that bad, but at least 80% of the
stuff is. Especially the original fans are sore about this. Big
rated shows like Lingo and Russian Roulette are dead in the water.
What are your feelings about GSN now?

Tim: This question is what we in the legal field like to call a "leading question." Haha, just kidding. As a game show fan, I understand why people are upset. I love old reruns of classic game shows, and I also enjoy the GSN originals as well. But as a person who formerly worked in the entertainment industry, I understand where GSN is coming from as well. The bottom line, unfortunately, is not the quality of the product, but the results that the product produces. If GSN's new approach brings in higher ratings, it will result in higher ad revenues, and that is the bottom line. GSN has no moral obligation to its core game-show-fanatic constituency; if anything, it has a moral obligation to the investors who fund it in the first place.

As a game show fan myself, however, I wish there could be a compromise between these two competing interests. Perhaps a Nickelodeon/Nick at Nite approach, where two different philosophies can coexist on the same network, but at different times of the day. With the invention of Tivo, and with other innovations likely to come, GSN could afford to keep its actual game shows on the air, later at night perhaps, so that game show fanatics could Tivo them and watch them during the day.

I would also argue that GSN should consider reserving certain days strictly for game shows, perhaps days on which viewership of the current schedule isn't as high. Here's the premise: Fridays, for example, tend to be low ratings days. If GSN chose to reserve Fridays strictly for game shows, it might actually serve to boost revenue. The people who wouldn't be watching on a Friday wouldn't be affected anyway, but game show purists would now have a reason to stay in, clear the schedule, and watch the game shows they've been waiting for all week. Since this would be the only day for actual game shows, this might even result in Fridays being the highest rated days for GSN, since the game show purists, who had formerly watched game shows here and there when GSN was devoted entirely to game shows, would now combine their numbers into a single day of watching.

I see three benefits in this: 1) game show purists still have a source for the game shows they wish to watch; 2) GSN executives see a bump in their ratings on Fridays, provided by the formerly-exiled game show purists; and 3) GSN can have originals on the station without repeating them to death, a common complaint of the old system.

While this idea certainly isn't as preferable to game show purists as the old conception of GSN, it would certainly be preferable to the current state of affairs, and may indeed be even more profitable for GSN.

Alex: I hope you have, but have you gotten any recognition from anyone
about your big Lingo win?

Tim: When I went to visit law schools, I was approached by a current student who asked me if I was an actor. I told him no, but he wasn't convinced. I conceded that I had indeed been on TV before, but just on a game show, not in an acting role. And before I could say anything else, he shouted "YOU WERE ON LINGO!" Apparently Lingo was the guy's favorite show, and he had just recently seen the first episode, the one that got Catherine and I into the Tournament.

Also, a long-lost friend of mine saw the Tournament and recently contacted me. Another nice benefit of the show!

Alex: I have to divert again. How is the Ken Jennings mania going with
you? What are your feelings on all of this?

I think the Ken Jennings mania is certainly a good thing for Jeopardy, and perhaps it will have the effect of raising the ratings for game shows in general. Honestly though, I feel bad for the contestants he faces. It can't be much fun going into the show, knowing you're facing the best Jeopardy player in the history of the show.

Alex: It's time for the stupid question of the day. How is the car? Is
it good, or a piece of crap? And Suzuki doesn't read this.

Tim: I was convinced that I was going to sell the car and keep the money. But when I got the car in late February, I fell in love with it. I had been driving a 1994 Honda Civic, so this was certainly quite an upgrade. It drives so smoothly, has a great sound system, and it's a constant reminder that Catherine and I won the Tournament! Especially when Catherine and I are driving them together… we even got the same color! It puts a smile on my face to this day.

Alex: If Lingo had another season, what advice would you give people
before they played?

Tim: Practice Practice Practice, but practice smart! I saw lots of people in the audition lines, and even in the green room before taping, studying lists of words taken from the dictionary. At first it's intimidating to see this, but we quickly realized that memorizing words doesn't lead to good game play. Catherine and I simulated game play by choosing a word and testing the other on it, getting five chances just like in the actual game. We had a stopwatch, and gave each other 7 seconds for each guess. We did this during meals for a week or so leading up to the Tournament, and it made us very sharp. It's much harder to play the game by yourself, so when we were able to combine our brains, it actually made the game much easier.

This isn't to say that you should abandon word lists. Catherine and I made a couple lists of words, trying to find 5 words or so for each letter of the alphabet. Each letter group consisted of words that would get as many vowels out in play as possible. The key to Lingo is finding your vowels…once you have your vowels in place, it's 100 times easier.

Alex: I can't thank you enough for your time. I wish you the best.

Tim: I just want to thank all the viewers out there for watching Lingo. It was such a pleasure to take part in the show, and I hope you enjoyed watching the Tournament! Thank you very much.

Alex Davis is webmaster of tvzgames.tk.