BRYDON Coverdale was not a typical farm boy.
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While his mates contemplated life on the land in Camperdown, Mr Coverdale had a very different dream.
“My life’s ambition was to be a contestant on Sale of the Century," he said.
Mr Coverdale never imagined he would surpass that dream, win $300,000 on a game show and secure a highly coveted spot on Channel Seven's The Chase.
”If you had told me when I was a kid I could get paid for playing games I would have been pretty happy,” he said.
The 36-year-old remembers he was always at trivia buff.
“I remember on a family holiday to Canberra when I was four or five I memorised all the Australian prime ministers,” he said.
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Teacher Rob Baker's quizzes at Camperdown Primary School were a weekly highlight for Mr Coverdale.
After graduating from Mercy Regional College, Mr Coverdale was accepted to RMIT’s journalism course.
In his first year of university he realised his dream and appeared on Sale of the Century.
After university he became a beef writer for Stock and Land and at the same time applied to appear on a number of game shows.
Mr Coverdale became a cricket writer for ESPN, a role he still holds today.
His big break came when he was the first person to win $300,000 Million Dollar Minute.
It was life-changing in more ways than one.
Mr Coverdale was able to pay off his mortgage, much to the delight of his wife Zoe, and he caught the attention of producers who were looking for quiz masters for the Australian version of The Chase.
Now he juggles filming with his role with ESPN and helping care for children Heidi, 2, and Fletcher, five months.
Mr Coverdale is one of five Chasers and is known as The Shark.
He said he loved being involved with the show and was great mates with the other Chasers.
“We’re all very good mates,” Mr Coverdale said.
“Issa the Supernerd and I are are good friends – he is 100 per cent like you see on TV. He is the nicest person you could ever meet.”
Mr Coverdale said he doesn’t believe he has a specialist topic when it comes to trivia.
“I’m pretty good on politics, geography and sport as well as current events,” he said.
Mr Coverdale said he did a lot of research to be able to tackle the raft of questions that are fired at him by The Chase host Andrew O’Keefe.
He has come up against a number of formidable opponents, including a man from Warrnambool who was part of a four-member team which took home a record haul of more than $100,000.
“We know it’s not the end of the world if we lose an episode but I do remember the episode in the first season where a record amount of $102,000 was won,” Mr Coverdale said.
“One of the team members was from Warrnambool.”
Mr Coverdale’s daughter enjoys seeing her dad on television.
"I’ll ask her ‘who’s going to be the Chaser today? Sometimes she will say ‘mummy’,” Mr Coverdale laughed.
His parents David and Valerie still live in Camperdown and Mr Coverdale enjoys returning to his home town.
He will be principal for a day at Camperdown College in October, a gig he is looking forward to.
Mr Coverdale said he had fond memories of growing up in Camperdown and spending time at Lake Bullen Merri.
“It was a great place to grow up,” he said.
