Rhode Islanders have �more heart� than most people.That�s why the state has so many reality-TV winners, explains Derrick Levasseur, who joined that elite group Wednesday night at the finale of CBS� �Big...

Rhode Islanders have �more heart� than most people.

That�s why the state has so many reality-TV winners, explains Derrick Levasseur, who joined that elite group Wednesday night at the finale of CBS� �Big Brother� season 16.

The Central Falls Police Department sergeant became the second Ocean State resident to win a network TV reality show this month.

He and magician Mat Franco, who won NBC�s �America�s Got Talent� a week ago, are among more than 50 others from the nation�s smallest state who have appeared on reality TV shows since 2000.

Must be something in the coffee milk. Or Del�s Lemonade. Or calamari!

�When it comes to winning, we don�t take anything less than first place,� Levasseur said about all the R.I. contestants, in a phone interview Thursday morning from Los Angeles. �We got a lot of pride.�

�Big Brother� makes strangers live together in a house and vote each other out weekly. There�s almost no contact with the outside world or access to technology. In the end, the last nine evicted houseguests vote for a winner between the last two standing.

From start to finish, this season ran 97 days.

Levasseur, 30, a fan of the show, said he competed to better the lives of his wife of three years, Jana, and their 21-month-old daughter, Tenley. During episodes, he was emotional while speaking about them and said it was hard missing out on Tenley�s growth.

Born and raised in Central Falls, the smallest but most densely populated city in Rhode Island, Levasseur graduated from William M. Davies Jr. Career and Technical High School in Lincoln in 2002.

He has been a Central Falls police officer for the last 10 years, moving out of Central Falls last year to a location he won�t disclose because of his job.

�I think it is just the spirit of being from Central Falls � that warrior mentality,� said Central Falls Mayor James Diossa, who in 2012 became the city�s youngest mayor at age 28 and who told Levasseur to make the city proud before he went on the show.

�Even if we don�t win it all, we give it our all and he did. That alone makes me proud,� the mayor said.

Diossa watched Wednesday�s finale with many of the officer�s friends and family at Dave & Buster�s in Providence Place mall.

Levasseur�s strategy was to use his police experience to profile every housemate and find out what �things irritated them� and what things they liked. He never told them he was a sergeant and instead said he was a parks and recreation coordinator.

�I had to stroke a lot of egos in there, and it was always part of the plan,� he said.

Levasseur said he studied and strategized while the others slept. He won four in-show competitions, and admits to �throwing� some to make him seek weaker. He had alliances with many; the unions were called Bomb Squad, Detonators and Hitmen. Hitmen was a deal with Cody Calafiore, who took second place, to take each other to the finale.

Levasseur was also one of three members of Team America, a twist this season where viewers gave the team three missions to complete � such as convince the houseguests they had a rat � and a chance to win extra money. While debating whom to pick, the nine-member jury called Levasseur the �puppet master.� He told the jury he �never wanted to be at the forefront� of the decisions but always played a large part in them.

He also reminded the evicted houseguests that he was never nominated � there were more than 50 throughout the season � to sit in the weekly hot seats, where residents could be voted off.

Fans of the show know how impressive that is and have been comparing Levasseur on social media to Dan Gheesling, the Big Brother 10 winner and runner-up in Big Brother 14, considered one of the competition�s best players.

Seven of the nine jury members voted Levasseur over Calafiore. Calafiore gets $50,000 for his second-place finish while Levasseur won $570,000, including the $500,000 grand prize, Team America money and other prize money within the season.

He and his wife have yet to decide what they will do with the money, but Levasseur said, �It can go very fast if you do the wrong thing.�