Samo Grad Delany O’dea ‘24 makes Jeopardy! History

Delany O'dea, Samo alumni (’24) is now one of “Jeopardy!”’s youngest champions. She recently made her game show debut on Oct. 15, 2025, winning first place before finishing second in another game the following day. 

Delany O’dea/ Contributor

O’Dea earned a total prize of $21,600 between her two appearances on “Jeopardy!”.

The game show’s final prompt challenged contestants with a question to identify which historical figure said, “If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.” After the first contestants incorrectly answered — one answering with, “Who is John Lennon?”. It went to O’dea who correctly responded with, “Who Is Harvey Milk,” securing her “Jeopardy!” win. 

O’dea described how her background helped shape her interest in game shows like “Jeopardy!”. 

“I watched ‘Jeopardy!’ a lot with my mom and my grandma growing up," O’dea said. “I was always naturally interested in trivia. I also read a lot of fact books growing up and really enjoyed watching ‘Jeopardy!’, and then I joined Quiz Bowl when I got to high school, and that was the first time I really did any sort of competitive trivia.”

At Samo, O’dea practiced in Latin classes and participated in the Latin Club. She now studies Latin at Brown, a background that proved valuable during “Jeopardy!” During the game, she answered many questions pertaining to Latin language and roots, including one that asked for a Latin translation of “across the forest”, a reference to a region in Transylvania. O’dea identified ‘across’ as “tron” and ‘forest’ as “silva.” 

“Since I studied classics, like Latin and Greek, anytime that sort of thing came up, it helped a lot, especially during the first daily double I got in my first game,” O’dea said. O’dea cites her ability to understand many topics to her experience at Samo, a skill that was useful to her “Jeopardy!” career.

“I think I personally learned to be very inquisitive at Samo and to embrace interests in a lot of different fields instead of putting all of my effort into one thing,” O’dea said. 

O’dea credited her time at Samo and her study of classics as contributing to her success on “Jeopardy!”, saying the skills she developed at Samo through academics and extracurriculars prepared her for the game show.