Tom Sabbatelli noticed a missed call as he walked out of his statistics class in February. Little did he know it would escalate into a chance of a lifetime.

Sabbatelli, Class of 2009, watched one of his childhood dreams come true last Monday when an episode of Wheel of Fortune premiered -- an episode on which he won more than $49,000 in prizes.

Sabbatelli tried out for the show last June in Manhattan when his e-mail address was randomly selected from the database of applicants. The try-out included mock games, written tests and partially filled puzzles.Sabbatelli thinks his personality helped, too.

"I think they were also looking for a lot of energy just as much as they were looking for people who were good puzzle solvers," he said.

Sabbatelli was asked to be a participant on the show, filmed in February, and took the game by storm. He dominated the other two contestants by solving six of the seven puzzles in the main round.

Sabbatelli also solved the bonus round puzzle, adding an extra $25,000 to his total winnings from the prior round, which also include a trip to New Orleans.

It wasn't all easy though for Sabbatelli. One unlucky spin bankrupted him early in the game.

"It didn't faze me all that much since it was the second spin of the first round," he said. "It actually came back to me, and I solved the puzzle."

While Sabbatelli was ecstatic about winning, he had to keep it a secret until the episode aired.

"I knew people would be surprised, so I didn't want to ruin it," he said. "I knew there would be a lot in life to give me a distraction, like Thon and graduation."

Sabbatelli was a chairman for Thon and said he didn't want his win to detract from the event's importance. The episode finished taping at 6 p.m. the day prior to the beginning of Thon, and he had a 10:30 p.m. flight to Philadelphia afterward. His plane landed at 7 a.m., followed by a three-hour drive back to State College, and then he went straight to Thon.

When the episode finally aired on Monday, more than three months since it was filmed, Sabbatelli said it was surreal to see himself on television.

While he lives in Yardley, Pa., most of Sabbatelli's family is from Long Island, N.Y., so he said he took the party to them. They found a restaurant where they could watch him compete on 12 separate screens.

He said he was excited to see what he looked like on TV.

"I knew I came off as really super enthusiastic," Sabbatelli said. "I was hoping I didn't look too insane."

With his winnings in hand, Sabbatelli will have some financial security even before he starts his job this summer as a risk analyst. He graduated earlier this month with an integrated bachelor's and master's degree in meteorology.

Friends of Sabbatelli have loaded the episode to YouTube so it can be viewed. A search for "Tom Sabbatelli" will bring up the three-part video.