Less than 24 hours after his $24,698 win on 鈥淲heel of Fortune鈥 was broadcast nationwide Wednesday night, the jokes hurled at Caleb Reyes 鈥22 started from his Tiger baseball teammates.
鈥溾橠inner鈥檚 on you tonight, right, Caleb?鈥欌 the kinesiology major and right-handed pitcher from Woodland Hills says with a grin. 鈥溾橶e gotta get you a kilt鈥欌濃攁 reference to the trip to Scotland that made up part of his winnings during the venerable game show鈥檚 College Week.
After taping the episode on March 3, Reyes was contractually silenced from discussing his performance against students from the University of Michigan and Cal State San Marcos until the show aired. But he was used to waiting鈥攈e auditioned for the show more than a year ago, after getting in the habit of watching with his parents during the pandemic.
One of the keys to his success decoding such phrases as 鈥淟iving on Campus,鈥 鈥淐areer Center鈥 and 鈥淥lympic Gold Medalist Chloe Kim鈥 was aggressively buying vowels. 鈥淭hat seems to be a running strategy on the show,鈥 Reyes says. 鈥淏efore the taping, they give you some tips, and they really preach buying vowels.鈥
Reyes plans on taking his Scottish trip this summer, after Commencement and before graduate school, where he will study for a master鈥檚 in exercise science. (He鈥檚 still waiting to hear from a few programs.) Parents Jayne and Alexander Reyes are 鈥減roud and thrilled,鈥 he says, but will never let him forget his inability to guess the puzzle on the bonus round: 鈥淕oing Home.鈥
If only he had picked an "O."
