USA TODAY Sports writer Eddie Timanus first appeared on Jeopardy! in 1999, where he became a fan favorite when he won nearly $70,000 during a five-game run before being retired. (Under the old rules of Jeopardy! a contestant could only appear on five consecutive shows.)

Timanus has been blind since he was a child, so for the show he is given a Braille printout with the categories, a computer keypad to type his Final Jeopardy response and wager on, and the show plays an audible tone to let him know it is time for him to buzz in.

Timanus has returned to the show a few times for assorted Tournament of Champions appearances, most recently on Monday, when he came back for their Battle of the Decades. We here at For the Win exchanged emails with Timanus after the show, in which he finished in second place.

How was this time around on Jeopardy! different than your previous trips?

Traveling was a bit different – had a wife and son along this time. The first time I went out I was still – on the market, as it were, so just a buddy of mine went along.

As for the game play, I knew I was going to be up against elite competition. In that regard it was similar to the Masters Tournament in 2002 or the Ultimate Tournament of Champions event in 2005. Otherwise, the game itself has remained pretty much unchanged over the years.

Did Trebek remember you?

Heh. Of course. How could anyone forget me? :)

Do you call him Trebek or Alex?

Oh, we just call him Alex. That ‘Trebek’ thing is just an S.N.L. affectation.

Did you know you were going to dominate the 90s music category? [Timanus swept the category on the show.]

I’m actually better on more, well, what you might call classic rock – oldies if you like –, but those just happened to hit my wheelhouse.

What’s it like to say “I’m Too Sexy” on national television?

It was the highlight of my TV career!

What’s your buzzer strategy? Do you make sure you know the answer before you buzz or just try to get in there quickly if you think you’ve got it?

Against this level of competition, you’ve pretty much got to get in whenever you can, unless you’re quite sure you have no idea. That was the case quite a few times in this game, unfortunately, but that was the case for all three of us. As you saw, there were a lot of untried clues in the game. The writers outdid themselves for us, I’d have to say – pretty difficult material.

But to answer your question in more detail, sometimes you buzz in with the idea that you’ll be able to think of it in the few seconds you’ll have after Alex calls on you. I know that sounds kind of crazy – “How do you know what you think you’re going to know, you know?” – but trust me, the elite players can make it work. It jumped up to bite me once in that Elements category – I thought I could come up with the Greek word for moon, but all that popped into my head was the Latin ‘luna,’ which I knew wasn’t associated with an element name so I wound up blanking out on it. Seems obvious now – selenium – solenoid, but so it goes.

That doesn’t seem that obvious to us, but you are the Jeopardy! champion. Can you tell us a little bit about the beeper system the crew set up for you?

I’m not sure about the technical details of it. I know it was synched up with the lights that indicated when the buzz-in system was activated. It worked. They tested it with all the players for the week in rehearsals, since we didn’t know who would be playing in my game, so everybody would know what to expect.

You were in the lead right until the very end. Were you surprised at how difficult that Final Jeopardy was? [The answer was the only 19th century president served two terms with the same vice president. The question — Who is James Monroe?] No one on the FTW staff even had a guess at the right answer.

I was pretty confident when the category was revealed. There are a lot of questions about Presidents on the show, so I thought I’d have it covered. It was a bit surprising how hard it was. I was pretty comfortable with my guess – you could see I was pretty much done writing before the music hit the halfway keychange. I looked over the clue again but couldn’t come up with anything better – unfortunately.

Is there any off-air trash talk between contestants?

Heh. Nah, we’re a pretty friendly lot. I’d say a great deal of mutual respect.

There was some grumbling about the strategy employed by the contestant, Rachel Schwartz, who beat you. You were very gracious last night in a tweet, but do you feel differently now in the cold light of day?

Absolutely not. The thing is, when you enter Final Jeopardy in second place, you’re most likely not going to win the game unless the contestant ahead of you misses, even if you get it right. She absolutely played it the right way. I couldn’t count on her doing that, of course, so I had to bet to cover in case she went for the double-up.

On air you said your son loves the Clue Crew lady [Sarah Whitcomb Foss]. Did he get to meet her?

Indeed he did. He’d actually met her before. The show put out a special DVD a few years ago featuring some of their more memorable contestants. Sarah did that interview with me and my family, so he got to know her then. We went to a taping a couple of years ago here in D.C. for the finals of a teen tournament, so he got to see her again there. He was very excited that he was going to see Sarah again.

Jeopardy! contestant Arthur Chu grabbed headlines earlier this year when he employed a quirky strategy that used game theory to try and locate Daily Doubles early. Did you think that his gameplay was unsportsmanlike or arrogant? Would you ever employ similar strategies?

It’s not all that revolutionary, really. Ken Jennings did it, Chuck Forrest did it way back in the ‘80’s. Personally, I prefer to go in order just to get a feel for the categories, but there’s absolutely not a rule that says you have to play them that way. Quite the contrary, they make it clear to everyone in the contestant briefings that you’re free to choose any box on the board you want at any time. I would do it if I needed to find a daily double to catch up, but if that’s part of his master strategy, then more power to him for making it work. It’ll be quite interesting to see how long he can go.

Lastly, what’s some advice for people out there who want to become a Jeopardy! champion?

First and foremost, watch the show. That’s the best practice there is. You get to know all the nuances as well as all the areas the writers tend to concentrate on. You have to pass a test to get to the audition phase, but there’s no limit to the number of times you can try it. If at first you don’t succeed, and all that… Also, you might make it past the audition phase and actually be in the contestant pool but still not get called. Don’t sweat that, either. It’s not personal. They always have more people in the pool than there are slots available for a given season. Try out again. Then you’ll be even more familiar with the process.