Steven Grade, who swam for the University of Georgia from 2006-08, is on a hot streak. Grade is a contestant on the game show Jeopardy! this week, and so far he has won five games in a row. With his Tuesday night victory, Grade officially broke Season 35’s “4-win curse” and moved up onto the Tournament of Champions Tracker with 5-day winnings of $115,501. Until Tuesday, there had been a 96-game drought between 5-game champions. 8 4-game winners had lost their 5th game.
🚨The 4-game curse has finally been lifted! Steven is officially on a hot streak.🚨 pic.twitter.com/Uo3oZ9dU7v
— Jeopardy! (@Jeopardy) April 3, 2019
In an interview with Georgia Athletics, Grade likened his preparation for Jeopardy! with his career as a Bulldog. “It took a lot of hard work to prepare,” Grade said. “It was fun, it was stressful, it was exciting. I was exhausted at the end. It was a great experience that I’ll never forget. So basically, it was exactly like swimming for UGA!”
Georgia head coach Jack Bauerle said, “I’m excited about Steven being on the show. It’s one of my favorite shows. If any of our former swimmers had general knowledge and a great amount of it, it was Steven. I’m hoping he’s going to do great.”
While at Georgia, Grade competed in distance free, backstroke, and IM events for the Bulldogs. He redshirted in the 2004-05 season and was a letterwinner in 2006, 2007, and 2008. Grade was named to the SEC Academic Honor Roll three times. Before UGA he spent 11 years at SwimAtlanta. He graduated from Lassiter High School and was a three-time USA Swimming Scholastic All-American.
Doubt Jack ever had to pull strings to keep this guy eligible.
Jeopardy is my favorite game show. I saw Steven win last night but did not know he was an ex-swimmer. It only goes to show anyone that swimmers are usually the smartest athletes in sport! I’ll watch him tonight for sure. Go Steven!
Congratulations, Steven.
Awesome! Way to represent the swimming community!
Congrats from a one time Jeopardy winner – really hard to do and this is very cool!
Second smartest swimmer to ever come out of the SEC behind Lochte