The entire nation is in mourning after the passing of longtime “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek, who died on Sunday at the age of 80 following a long battle with pancreatic cancer. On Monday, “Jeopardy!” executive producer Mike Richards spoke out to reveal why Trebek made a point of never giving anyone in the crew a name as to who should replace him on the show that he’d hosted from 1984 until days before his death.

“He never mentioned names to us. He really wanted to be the host of the show, while he was the host of the show,” Richards told Entertainment Tonight. “So we didn’t say, ‘Hey, what about this person? What about that person?’ It was his show until he told us he was going to retire and, amazingly, he never did. I think that’s a blessing.”

Though Trebek never gave Richards a name as to who would replace him, “he did talk about what it would take to be a good Jeopardy!host.”

“Typical Alex. He was self-deprecating [and] said, ‘It’s not that hard.’ Let me tell you that it is maybe the hardest show on TV to host; 61 clues in 22 minutes, accents, pronunciations, scoring, calling on people, ruling on the answers,” Richards said. “He talked a lot about how it needs to be someone that the audience will respect, that’s believable in the role [and] has credibility… He was so smart that you bought it, because you knew he knew the answer, too.”

Richards went on to say that the “Jeopardy!” team has “not actively pursued people” for the job just yet.

“We still had our guy and and now we don’t,” Richards said. “We will eventually, in a couple weeks, start having those conversations, because we owe it to Alex to keep the show going. That’s the only thing that will propel us, to be honest. That’s when we’ll start to really talk to people and see who can do this. It’s going to take someone with an amazing skill set.”

He added that Trebek made him and others “promise” not to end the game show after his death.

“That is the one thing he made us promise, that this great show was not done. He did not want to be bigger than the show. [He] fought that his whole time. He said, ‘It’s the show. It’s the clues. It’s the contestants,'” Richards said. “Obviously, we all feel that he was an incredibly huge part of that, but that was his take.”

The executive producer concluded by saying that when they finally do come back, they will make it a point to honor Trebek.

“We will be back. We’re in mourning now, as a group, as you can imagine, but we will be back and will honor his legacy by producing more great shows,” he said. “… Every show this season, obviously, will be dedicated to him.”

“I think the best thing that we can do to honor him is to come back and make great Jeopardy! shows. He loved a great competitive Jeopardy! game… He would look at the contestants and say, ‘Thank you, guys and thank you for watching at home,'” Richards concluded. “That’s how we honor him — you keep that hope, and that dream, and that intellectual curiosity going.”

This piece originally appeared in UpliftingToday.com and is used by permission.

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