Steven Olson always dreamed of playing on the game show Jeopardy one day.

Knocking off a 7-day champion and winning four games was not a part of that dream.

The Princeton High School and Logan Junior High School band instructor won four straight games before being knocked out of the champion’s perch, pocketing more than $76,000.

“I was just very happy to be there,” Olson said. “After each game, (host) Ken Jennings asked me about the money and I told him it’s just all gravy. Just being there is the important part and I didn’t have any expectations. Especially when I saw how good Paolo (Pasco) was, the 7-day champion I beat, I had even less expectations because he was a phenomenal player.”

Olson became an overnight celebrity around Bureau County and beyond after the story was first broke by Shaw Local. While he has come accustomed having strangers come up to him because of his job teaching students, all the attention was overwhelming.

“The scale of it has just been crazy because it really has been everywhere and all the time. It’s been a crazy couple weeks,” he said.

Olson said the real show is much harder than he imagined compared to playing it at home because it’s so fast and relentless and there’s a lot of pressure being there.

“As soon as I got there and saw the podium and I was looking at the board from that perspective, it really hit me that I was really there and really doing it. I would say it was the most stressful thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Olson said.

“The speed of it is not any different than it is when you watch at home, but it just feels faster being there and being under pressure. There are breaks on the show, but when you’re going, it’s just constant. It was hard to keep yourself in the right mindset if something went wrong. If I missed an answer, it was hard to get back on it and get back on track.”

The one thing people have most asked him about is when he lost a bet of $17,162 on Final Jeopardy on his third game. He said the category, Children’s Literature, was one he felt good about and thought it was a good risk to take since he had an insurmountable lead.

“I had told myself going in if I was in a position like that in a run-away game where I couldn’t be caught and as long as I didn’t do anything stupid at the end, I had no mathematical chance of losing, I was going to be aggressive because I didn’t have the money in my hand yet anyway,” he said. “And I just wanted to take a swing at it as long as it wasn’t costing me a chance to win because the most important thing to me was the opportunity to keep playing.

“Obviously, I would have rather not lose $17,000 in 30 seconds, but I never had it to begin with. If it had been something I was really weak in I wouldn’t done that.”

Olson said it was all fun while it lasted and he had no regrets.

“Even on the game that I lost, I don’t think it was any one thing I did. I think it was two other players that were just as good or better than me and a set of categories that wasn’t my favorite,“ he said. ”There were clues on several games that I looked back on I watch it and thought, ‘I should have known that.’ But really no regrets.”

Olson went out with a little showmanship when he drew up a cartoon watermelon when he didn’t know the Final Jeopardy answer.

“I knew I had no idea on the answer and I did write a joke on that because I knew I couldn’t win and knew I was done,“ he said. ”I was mostly proud I could draw a little cartoon watermelon in five seconds. I’m not an artist. I felt pretty good about that.”

Each week of the Jeopardy games shown on TV is taped in one day, Olson said. His four games were taped over two days, his first show was the end of one tape day and the final four on the next.

Olson said he was instructed to bring five changes of clothes, but “I didn’t think I was going to need them.” He brought one suit, three dress shirts and a few ties and picked up a fresh shirt from the wardrobe department for the fourth show.

Olson just missed out on being automatically invited for the “Tournament of Champions,” which features Jeopardy winners of five games or more. But he is on the list to be brought back to fill out the tournament if needed.

“More often than not, four-game winners are invited. I would say I have a better than even chance, but not a 100% chance,” Olson said. “It would be amazing. If I thought I had no expectations of winning the first time, I’ll have even less expectations going up against people who have exclusively won multiple games.”