Who is Ken Jennings?

Ken Jennings has been called the Joe DiMaggio of game shows. Or could it be that DiMaggio is the Ken Jennings of baseball?

No matter. Both streaks - for consecutive safe pro-baseball hits and for most wins on television's Jeopardy - are impressive.

But the streak everyone is talking about now is Jennings' Jeopardy streak, which ended Tuesday night at an astounding and unprecedented 74 victories.

Starting on the show last June 2, Jennings amassed $2,522,700 - a record prize for a game show - before a 47-year-old Ventura, Calif., real-estate agent named Nancy Zerg bested Jennings by correctly answering "H&R Block" to this Final Jeopardy clue: "Most of this firm's 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work only four months a year."

Jennings chose FedEx. But H&R Block chose Jennings. The income-tax preparation chain offered their services to Jennings free of charge for the rest of his life.

Such has been the luck of Jennings. Not on the show, of course. That took smarts and a quick thumb on the buzzer. No, Jennings' luck sprung from his improbable celebrity. The unassuming but witty 30-year-old software engineer from Salt Lake City found himself on national talk shows, and his name on millions of lips. Now, he has retained a Hollywood talent agency to explore possible careers as a TV pitchman or - and we like this option - a game show host.

Amid reality-TV mania - where the best way to become famous in this country evidently is to eat bugs, marry a millionaire or maroon yourself on a desert island - viewers found a true hero to root for: an average, clean-cut American guy who achieved success not by chicanery, but by using his head.

The answer is "Ken Jennings." The question is, "Who is an example of what's good and right about America?"