FORT WAYNE – Evan Roberts wasn’t told by ESPN to keep the results of his appearance on the new game show “The Schwab” a secret.
But he didn’t want to give away the outcome anyway.
“I haven’t told anybody how it went, because I want to keep the suspense going,” said Roberts, who lived in Fort Wayne from about 2000 to 2008, attending Homestead.
The new show will air on ESPNU as part of it’s late-night entertainment show, “UNITE,” which is on at midnight Wednesday.
It pits three students from the SEC against Howie Schwab, an encyclopedic man of sports knowledge, who previously had the game show “Stump the Schwab.”
“I grew up watching it,” Roberts said in a phone interview, “and when I was at Homestead, we had this teacher, Adam Schenkel, and he was a sports guru and we’d always do quizzes and videos. At that time, we’d talk about the Schwab, who had dominated everybody.”
Roberts, 22, attends Auburn, where he’s a senior majoring in economics. He also works in media relations, working primarily with the men’s golf team, and he hopes to pursue a profession in the sports field.
He called football, basketball and baseball games on 91.1 FM in Fort Waayne.
He got on “The Schwab” after ESPN got into touch with SEC schools and his boss asked if he had interest in participating. He applied and then was interviewed by producers via Skype.
“They asked about four or five sports questions and then some pop culture questions, like about Katy Perry’s No. 1 hits and who Taylor Swift had dated,” Roberts said.
The show was also recorded via Skype last week, and he competed against contestants from Mississippi and Georgia, which was awkward since he couldn’t see his opponents. The winner of each show gets an ESPN prize pack, Roberts said, and will get entered in a championship bracket of competitors.
Schwab began working with ESPN in 1987 in research and is a coordinating producer in studio production.
Roberts still has friends in Fort Wayne and comes back often. He might soon have something to brag about.
“I’m one of the few that goes North for vacations,” he said.
