David Madden (Jeopardy! contestant) Biography

David Madden(full name: David “Dave” Madden) is an American game show contestant, academic competition organizer, and art historian. He is a former 19-day champion on Jeopardy!, which had previously been the second longest streak in Jeopardy history.

(As of 2019, it now ranks third.) Madden is also the founder and executive director of the National History Bee and Bowl, the International History Bee and Bowl, the United States Geography Olympiad, the US Academic Bee and Bowl, the National Science Bee, the National Humanities Bee, the International History Olympiad, and the International Geography Bee.

David Madden (Jeopardy! contestant) Age

David “Dave” Madden is an American game show contestant, academic competition organizer, and art historian. He is a former 19-day champion on Jeopardy! and holds the fourth-longest streak in Jeopardy history. He was born on 13 June 1981, David is  38 years old as of 2019.

David Madden (Jeopardy! contestant) Early life

During his time at Ridgewood High School in Ridgewood, New Jersey, he competed on his school’s Quiz Bowl team and attended the National Academic Championship, where he was later named to the Hall of Fame, is one of only 19 people named to it in its 25-year history.

Madden led his Ridgewood team to consecutive titles at the Eighth & Ninth Annual Omar Q Beckins Academic Challenge Tournaments, an offshoot of the Westchester Academic Challenge of Knowledge Organization, in 1998 and 1999.

He was Omar MVP in 1999, after placing second to Sahir Islam of Somers High School. (Sahir was the 1998 Jeopardy! Teen Tournament Champion). David was inducted into the Omar Q. Beckins Hall of Fame in 1999 (one of only 19 in the twenty-year history of OMAR).

Madden attended Princeton University, graduating as a Woodrow Wilson School major in 2003. He went on to attend the Free University of Berlin, receiving a Master’s Degree in international relations.

David Madden (Jeopardy! contestant) Family  | Wife

David “Dave” Madden is an American game show contestant, academic competition organizer, and art historian, according to his wife there is no information about the wife, children, family and when he married but stay ready for the update

David Madden (Jeopardy! contestant) Image

David Madden (Jeopardy! contestant) Jeopardy!

Making his first appearance on the July 5, 2005 episode, Madden continued on a winning streak through September 19 of that year, winning a total of nineteen games and $432,400. His last appearance during non-tournament play was on September 19, 2005, when he was defeated by Victoria Groce, a musician from Decatur, Georgia.

During the 2006 Tournament of Champions, Madden won his first-round match (defeating the eventual winner of the Tournament, Michael Falk), but failed to win his second-round match, taking home a consolation prize of $10,000 and bringing his total to $442,400. Read also Roger Craig (Jeopardy! contestant)

Madden had first watched Jeopardy! with a babysitter when he was 11–12 years old. While watching at that age, Madden would get the correct response to more clues than his babysitter. Madden claims to have studied a great deal in preparation for the show, which helped him with the clues. His parents did not realize Madden was going to be on Jeopardy! until his first game aired.

Madden’s streak of 19 wins in regular games was the second-longest on Jeopardy! (after Jennings) until Julia Collins won 20 games in 2014; his dollar winnings in regular games are still the second-highest, after Jennings and slightly ahead of Collins. Madden was invited to take part in 2014’s Battle of the Decades Jeopardy! event but declined to participate due to contractual issues.

He was again invited and able to take part in its 2019 All-Star Games tournament featuring 18 past champions. Madden was selected as the 7th out of 12 picks in the All-Star Games Draft in September 2018, thus becoming a member of “Team Brad” led by all-time US game show winnings leader, Brad Rutter along with his former Princeton University Quiz Bowl teammate, Larissa Kelly who was the 6th pick in the draft.

Team Brad won its first-round match and in the final episode, airing on March 5, 2019, “Team Brad” won the All-Star Games Tournament grand prize of $1,000,000, which was split between the three team members.

After Madden’s share of the prize was received, his all-time Jeopardy! earnings totaled $775,733.33, which as of March 2019 ranks third all-time on the show behind Rutter and Jennings respectively.

David Madden Work as an academic competition organizer

In 2010, he founded the National History Bee and Bowl, two academic quiz competitions for students with a history focus (the Bee is for individual students, the Bowl is for teams).

Madden oversees all aspects of NHBB and has expanded the competitions to include colleges and middle schools in the USA, and high schools in over twenty foreign countries. The competitions outside the USA are known as the International History Bee and Bowl.

In 2012, he organized the National History Bee Middle School Competition, whose National Championships were filmed in May 2012 for broadcast on History.

Also in 2012, Madden founded the US Geography Olympiad, which serves as the qualifying competition for students in the USA who are looking to attend the International Geography Olympiad. At the 2014 International Geography Olympiad, Madden served as head coach for the American team, which included the overall champion student, James Mullen of Cupertino, California.

In 2015, Madden founded the International History Olympiad, which brought 111 students from 14 countries together for its inaugural competition, held at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.

In 2016, he founded the United States Academic Bee and Bowl, the National Science Bee, and the National Humanities Bee, all of which are currently directed at students in eighth grade and younger. The inaugural National Championships for all of these events was held in Arlington, Virginia, in May 2016.

In 2017, Madden founded the International Geography Bee as a worldwide geography quiz competition. The inaugural IGB World Championships were held in 2018 in Berlin in conjunction with the 3rd International History Olympiad.

David Madden (Jeopardy! contestant) Other work

Madden is a co-author of the 2010 catalog raisonné of the American artist Richard Anuszkiewicz.

From July 2007 to February 2008 he hiked the length of the east coast of the United States as a fundraiser for the Fisher House Foundation, a charity that provides free accommodations for family members of veterans at American military hospitals.

David Madden Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions

The Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions is an annual tournament featuring the longest-running champions and biggest money winners from the past season or seasons of Jeopardy! The tournament began in 1964 during Art Fleming’s tenure as host and has continued into the Alex Trebek era of the show.

There have been seven years in which the Tournament was skipped altogether (1984, 1997, 2005, 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2018), and eight seasons (1, 17, 20, 23, 27, 30, 33, and 35). The brief 1978–79 revival, which aired for five months, is known to have had a Tournament as well.

In 2002, Jeopardy! held a Million Dollar Masters tournament featuring fifteen previous champions, and in 2005 the show held an Ultimate Tournament of Champions for over three months, which featured over 100 champions from previous years instead of a regular Tournament of Champions for just the previous year; that season’s Tournament of Champions began on September 20, 2004,

featuring any remaining season 19 champions who hadn’t qualified for that year’s tournament as well as all of the season 20 qualifiers except for Ken Jennings, who had just resumed his winning streak two weeks before the tournament started (Jennings’s streak was interrupted three times that year; the other two times were for the show’s annual Kids Week in October 2004 and the College Championship in November 2004).

The season 25 Tournament of Champions was taped during the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada.

In 2014, Jeopardy! held a Battle of the Decades tournament featuring 45 previous champions, with 15 from their respective decade (1984–93, 1994–2003, and 2004–13).

All of the players competed in a week-long slate of games, respective of a decade, from which the winners out of each game would become quarter-finalists. Those 15 winners would then return to compete in a regular tournament format, with the winner taking home $1,000,000.

The latest Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions, featuring contestants from seasons 32, 33, and 34, began November 6, 2017.

In 2019, Jeopardy! held an All-Star Games tournament featuring 18 champions grouped in 6 teams of three. All of the players competed in two sets of two games, with the two winners immediately advancing to the final; the three highest scoring non-winners competed in a two-game wild card match to determine the third spot.

Those three teams then competed in a two-game final match, with the winning team receiving $1,000,000 (split equally among the three contestants).

Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions Field

According to surviving microfilm records of broadcasts from the era, the original 1964-1975 Tournament of Champions format generally featured the top 9 winners in the given season, inviting the highest earning five-day champions, with four-day and three-day champions invited if necessary in order of winnings.

The 1969 edition was an exception; as numerous high scorers were involved in the 1968-69 season (including what would stand as the two highest-scoring contestants in the daytime version’s history), 18 contestants were invited to a two-week tournament.

In the current version of the show, the Tournament of Champions includes 15 players. Most of the slots are reserved for regular-season players who have won the most games since the previous championship contestants were chosen, followed by the most money in the case of the same number of games won.

Prior to the end of the five-game limit, champions of five games were traditionally guaranteed a slot in the event, while four-day champions have been involved in most Tournament of Champions fields, and if necessary, three-day champions may qualify (which has occurred in seven tournaments to date.)

In the one instance where there were more five-day champions in the qualifying period than available slots in the tournament, the most recent overflow contestants were held over for the following tournament (which occurred in 2001, with the last two five-day champions held over to the 2003 event.)

Notably, 2004 74-day champion Ken Jennings gave up his bid in the 2006 Tournament of Champions in favor of an automatic finals bye in 2005’s Ultimate Tournament of Champions, and therefore never competed in the regular tournament.

Winners of the annual College Championships and Teachers Tournaments are also guaranteed slots in the Tournament of Champions. For many years, the winners of the annual Teen Tournament and Seniors Tournaments also participated, but the Seniors Tournament was discontinued after 1995, and a Teen Tournament winner was last invited to the Tournament of Champions in 2000, none ever having won the event.

Scheduling occurrences can result in multiple winners of a given annual tournament in the same Tournament of Champions field, most recently with two College Champions and two Teacher Champions in the 2017 event.

Due to academic study commitments, two College Champions (Vinita Kailasanth in 2001 and Joey Beachum in 2008) have deferred their bid in their original intended Tournament of Champions to the following tournament.

For Jeopardy!’s first nine Tournaments of Champions, the tournament was held each November, with the qualifying period for the event is the entire previous season.

Starting after 1993’s installment, the qualifying period was modified to any games played between tournaments, and following 1996’s installment, tournaments moved to a more fluid schedule, and are no longer solely held in November; it is usually, but not always, held during a “sweeps” month (February, May or November) to maximize the show’s Nielsen Ratings.

As a result, qualifying periods now vary in length, and the tournament does not have to be held in a given season or calendar year. Due to scheduling delays from prior special events, producers have the option to begin a qualifying period prior to the start of the previous tournament if necessary, such as for 2015’s installment.

A sixteenth player, who is the next highest player with the most wins, then by the amount of money won, not in the field, is also invited as an alternate contestant in the event that a qualified champion is unable to attend.

In the 2001 event, the two overflow five-day champions (Mark Dawson & Alan Bailey) were both invited as alternates, due to travel concerns in the wake of the September 11 attacks, though no one was unable to compete, and both were included as planned in the 2003 tournament.

As well, the highest earning contestant to not advance out of the prior round is assigned as an alternate for the semifinals and finals in case of emergency. In 1986, 2014, 2017, and 2019, the sixteenth player participated and a seventeenth player, also based on the same criteria, was the alternate.

The first two instances were based on violations of eligibility requirements, as in 1986 Barbara Lowe had appeared on another game show within the probationary period, and in 2014 Jerry Slowik was indicted on sexual abuse charges of a 15-year-old girl, and his court case had not come to trial at the time of the taping; he eventually pleaded guilty in February 2015, including a 30-day prison sentence, five years probationary period, and registration as a sex offender.

Two qualifying contestants have died before reaching their respective Tournament of Champions. Six-day champion Cindy Stowell died of colon cancer shortly after she taped her appearance on the show and well before she would have appeared on the 2017 Tournament of Champions.

Stowell’s estate was awarded the $5,000 she would have been guaranteed as a quarterfinalist, plus an additional $5,000 donation, which in accordance with her wishes and along with the rest of her earnings from the show, was donated to charity.

The 15 qualifying contestants and first alternate who participated each wore dark blue ribbons for colon cancer awareness, and the producers posted the Web site of the charity during the tournament in which 2016 Teachers Tournament winner Jason Sterlacci had the idea to get to remember her. Larry Martin, the winner of the 2018 Teachers Tournament, died in January 2019 shortly after his win.