Students vie for a chance to win $2M

By Tara Sharma

and Elizabeth Kassab

Daily Staff Reporters

University students crowded into Rick's American Café yesterday for a shot to win $2 million.

Three hundred students packed Rick's to take a qualifying quiz for the Fox Network's game show "Greed." The show will air a college edition the first few weeks of May.

Students began lining up outside the bar and around the corner up to 30 minutes before the 5 p.m. quiz. Of the 300 who took the quiz, about 60 made it to the interview round.

The college edition of the popular game show is a good idea, said Kinesiology senior Jamie Kaplan. "I don't care about seeing a rich lawyer win. It's so much more exciting to see a 19-year-old kid win $1 million," Kaplan said, munching on pizza as he waited.

The inside of the bar was alive with excitement. Students were crowded around tables, standing at the bars and leaning against the shamrock-covered walls.

Event coordinators Michelle Meid and Casey Slade laid out the rules of the quiz and the dates students should be available for travel to Los Angeles should they be selected.

Meid quickly assured the crowd that most of the students would be turned away before the second round. "Quite frankly, most people don't pass," she said.

"We are going all over the country," Meid said. "We are only looking for a very small number from every school we go to." "Greed" is going to other Big Ten universities and Ivy League colleges.

The quiz tested general knowledge on topics ranging from Absolut Vodka to Dr. Seuss to cheese.

"It was pretty easy, although there were a few difficult ones," Rackham first-year student Eric Sheneman said. "You have to be an info junky. Reading a lot helps."

Grading began as soon as the first quiz was handed in. With a simple 'thank you for coming' or 'please stay,' the students' fate was decided.

While a group of friends waited for the interviews to start, they discussed what it would be like to be on the show.

The group decided that they'd give some money to charity if they won. "I'd go to the Far East," LSA senior Monica Fishman said.

Whatever happened, "whoever wins buys for everyone else," Kaplan said.

"It's about remembering something you heard six years ago," Kaplan said, who was asked to stay. He attributed his success in part to the amount of television he watches.

KIMITSU YOGACHI/Daily

LSA freshmen Jeff Dickerson, Jeremy Ortwine and Matt Kish and Music freshman Josh Breitzer answer questions during a "Greed" preliminary selection session at Rick's American Café yesterday.