First-year Brown student captures ‘Jeopardy!’ college championship

From a field of 15 championship qualifiers from universities across the country, Georgia native Dhruv Gaur won big in this year's tournament.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Answer: This prolific polymath and first-year Brown University student just captured the $100,000 grand prize as victor on this year's “Jeopardy!” College Championship.

Question: Who is Dhruv Gaur?

The Georgia native and longtime trivia whiz bested Tufts University student William Scott and University of Central Florida sophomore Hannah Sage in the final round of the College Championship, with the culminating show airing on Friday, April 20.

“Nobody can really walk into a competition like this with 14 other incredibly talented and brilliant students and immediately expect to win it all," Gaur said after the tournament. "I know I certainly didn’t. The idea of winning the whole tournament didn’t even cross my mind until somewhere during the first game of the finals. I was really just trying to take it one step at a time.”

VIDEO: Highlights from Druv Gaur's "Jeopardy!" run that won him this year's College Championship.

Though Gaur's championship victory became known to the world on Friday night, the taping actually took place in March in Culver City, California. The two-week tournament was taped over two days that started at 7 a.m. and extended into the evening. Gaur, who said his trivia prowess was aided by a steady diet of Alex Trebek during dinnertime when he was growing up, said the pressure was on because he wanted to represent Brown well.

“I haven’t been at Brown long, but I was incredibly proud to represent this school because I really love being here, and I wanted to show the world how great Brown is,” he said. “That was definitely a huge part of what motivated me.”

With the victory, the public health and economics concentrator earned himself a spot in the next edition of the game show’s Tournament of Champions. He says he’s not yet sure how he’ll spend his prize money.

“I’m just going to save it until I need it for grad school or to pursue an opportunity I might really want in the future,” Gaur said. “My little brother is really interested in investing, so I’ll give him some so he can give the stock market a go, and I promised my friends I’d take them out to dinner, but the vast majority is being saved for later.”