James Holzhauer, our nerd husband, used a portion of his $2,462,216 Jeopardy! prize to honor Alex Trebek in a very personal way. The professional sports gambler donated $1,109.14 to a Pancreatic Cancer Research Walk in Naperville, Illinois. The number is his daughter Natasha’s birthday. According to the fund’s website, Holzhauer dedicated his donation to “Alex Trebek and all the other survivors.â€
The longtime Jeopardy! host revealed his stage 4 pancreatic cancer diagnosis in March of this year. By May, Trebek was happy to announce that some of his tumors had shrunk by more than 50 percent. He’s received love from fans, colleagues, and now, former contestants. James Holzhauer swept 32 episodes of Jeopardy!, winning $131,127 in one episode and setting a new record. Holzhauer’s kind gesture to Trebek is just one instance of him being super sentimental — he only went on Jeopardy! in the first place to fulfill a promise to his grandmother.