The untold truth of Alex Trebek

We’ll take “Basketball Facts” for $200, Alex!

In a special Jeopardy! segment, Alex Trebek revealed that he played for his high basketball school team in his native Canada (where most kids are practically born with a hockey stick in their hands). “We didn’t have much basketball so, although I had never played basketball in my life, I tried out,” he told the interviewers. Though he didn’t expect to make the cut, “after three or four weeks of practices, when they selected the team, [he] was on it as point guard.”

After relocating to the United States in 1973, he said, he became a fan of the Los Angeles Lakers and he appears to be a diehard fan, as of this writing. He told interviewers that if he could build his own Mount Rushmore, it would feature Lakers superstars such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, and Magic Johnson.