The Press Box - ESPN’s Paul Finebaum on College Football Chaos, His Callers, and Three Decades of Sports Radio

Episode Date: July 13, 2022

Bryan is joined by ESPN’s Paul Finebaum to discuss the latest round of college football realignment, his career starting out as a columnist, the importance of taking callers and listening to the fans, and his experience in radio. Host: Bryan Curtis Guest: Paul Finebaum Associate Producer: Erika Cervantes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Derek Thompson, the host of the podcast, Plain English. We tackle technology, politics, culture, history, everything that's happening in the world and why it matters. New episodes of Plain English drop every Tuesday and Friday on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, media consumers. Welcome to the press box. Brian Curtis of the Rigger here, along with producer Erica Cervantes. You know, some people have spent this summer taking that belated trip to Europe. Some have gone to the beach.

Me? I'm a little different because I'm going on a sports radio tour of the East Coast. Remember a couple of weeks ago I was in Philly to see Angelo Cotaldi? Well, this week I went south to Charlotte to see ESPN's Paul Feinbaum.

Paul Feinbaum's greatest subject is college football, and you could detect a certain glee in his voice as he talks about USC and UCLA leaving the Pact 12 for the Big Ten. Well, what has always interested me about the Paul Feinbaum show is how different it sounds

than other national radio shows. Instead of unloading a bunch of takes to the top of the hour, like a lot of hosts, Feinbaum is more likely to let them trickle out when he talks to a guest or a caller. Speaking of callers, a number of sports radio shows

have gotten rid of them, figuring callers are played out in the age of social media. FindBomb still takes lots of calls. The result is that Feinbaum has a national talk show that retains the intimacy of a local one. To me, that's what makes us. sports radio host. Not that he has a take, but that he has an almost magical ability to speak

to listeners directly. Findbaum is taking vacation this week, so the ESPN studio we sat in in Charlotte was quiet. The man, however, was not. Here's Paul Feinbaum. All right, Paul, is this round of realignment the biggest college football story you've ever covered? It seems like it, because I don't know where it's going next. Yeah, we've already covered Oklahoma and Texas last year. And as we're sitting here in a dusty studio, Notre Dame may have already agreed to go to the SEC, or the Big Ten or the ACC or to stay the course. So it's entirely possible that very soon we're going to see a blitzkrieg like what we saw in London at the beginning of World War II. Summer used to be slow on your beat, right?

It used to be. I was in New York last week eating at Joe's Shanghai in Chinatown. It's a great menu with the biggest problem being, I don't speak Chinese, so I didn't know what I was ordering. So I just kind of described it. And as we're, I'm sitting there with a friend of mine, I get this, somebody forwarded me a tweet that four teams have been added to the SEC. I'm like going, what can I do in here? I mean, it's, you know, and does anyone else? else in this restaurant care. And the answer was, you know, not to use the one billion Chinese joke,

but no, nobody else cared but myself. And I, that's what we're going to be having, I think. That's what we get used to since a year ago next week with Oklahoma and Texas and two weeks ago with Southern Cal and UCLA. As a student of the double speak of college administrators, what level are we at during this round of realignment? We're heading toward DefCon 1 because the next move is going to forever change. I mean, you know, get ready to hear the phrase an existential change to the sport. I mean, I mean, you know, dust that word off if you haven't been using it a lot lately, which, you know, something tells me you have.

I might have. Yeah. Also, the mandatory verb is bolt. Teams can only bolt from a conference. Yeah. I love it because one of my favorite stories of all time was I believe it was 10 or 11 you're a Texas guy so you could correct me when it looked like Texas was hijacking college football that was just unbelievable and it was so exciting because what what alignment does it brings everybody into the conversation so and it also ends the summer doldrums of of, hey Paul, you think Alabama's going to win, it's 97th national championship this year. So we'll get that next week or the week after, but right now it's a great, it's a great

respite from all that. Brings everybody into the conversation because you're either a have or have not. Yeah. Yeah, and if you're a have not, it's just that much more enjoyable to have you complained. There are a lot of, this is the end of college football as we know it takes. Where do you come down on that? Yeah, it is, but I think I've been. reading that since I was in fifth grade. I think Dan Jenkins first wrote that in the 70s.

I think what's happening here is that the administrators are on the verge of losing all credibility, not just some credibility. There was an old joke. I remember I used in a profile of somebody back in early my career that I had a chance meeting with, and it was how Cocell and there was this line that Buddy Hackett once used the comedian he said some people hate Howard Cocell like poison and some people just hate him regular and that's how I feel about the credibility of college administrators because I am to the point when the next time one stands up and says the most important thing is the mental well-being of the student athlete I mean I try not to

vomit in public when I can avoid it But that's how I feel, because that's, that's absurd. There was a real good piece today that we're talking by Sally Jenkins in the Washington Post. We basically just talked about the same people who, who are afraid, they used to be, you know, want to punish a quote unquote student athlete for taking a free t-shirt. And now we're upset and begging Congress to bail them out because they're. making money on the side are playing chess and monopoly and every other imaginable game with universities for billions of dollars. So let's pike down you folks who wear the bow ties and try to calm the rest of us

that the most important thing is that they get an education and that they have a good college experience when a softball player at UCLA is going to get on a plane in two years. to fly on a Tuesday to play a game at Rutgers. Let me ask you about your print career. 1980, you joined the Birmingham Post-Herald as a reporter, later became a columnist. What did you like about working at newspapers? I loved it.

I didn't think there was anything better. I grew up on Watergate, like so many others. And I started off as an investigative reporter and thought I was going to save the world by looking into malfeasance at universities. And a funny thing happened on the way to stardom. I had a huge story. I won't bore you with it because it's only 41 years old.

But we ended up getting sued. It cost me getting major jobs at newspapers, which were on the verge of hiring me. We litigated the lawsuit. It took about a year and a half. We were vindicated. And to save millions of dollars in legal fees, the newspaper called me in. And they said, listen, we think you're great. We're going to name you as a columnist.

And I said, wow, I was really full of myself. And then I realized they just don't want me reporting anymore because it's much harder to sue a columnist than it is an investigative reporter. That's fascinating. And I read about this in your book because you got sniffed out by the Philadelphia Inquirer to come up there and cover the Phillies from Birmingham. I get a call on a Friday night. I won the first place in the APSE contest,

which used to be in sports right. Oh, my goodness. Like, my goal was to win a Pulitzer by 30, and I won this APS Award at 25. And a guy named Jay Circe calls me on a Friday night. I think he just died, and I don't want to speak ill of the dead. He said, hey, listen, can you get up here Monday?

I said, I said myself, I'm doing the, I'm doing the night desk at the Birmingham Post Dary all the time. Yeah, I'll be there with time. And it worked at all that. I just won the, I mean, I knew he called me because I'd won the award. And the Inquirer was a huge paper. And I, it was a, I mean, I went out with my buddies and, you know, I mean, it was such a huge thing. And on Sunday, I got a call, Paul, And part of the reason they were getting me out there was about to be a hiring freeze. We had an economy then, much like we have now. And he said, Paul Jay Sersi, I said, yeah, yeah, Jay. He said, there's been a change. We're not going to be able to bring you up tomorrow. You know, something's come up. I mean, something just really not believable.

I said, so I'm not coming up there no more. He said, no. I said, what about next week? He says, probably not. And I hung the phone up. And it was like one of those love story movies when you find out your girlfriend has run off with somebody else. I mean, it was like, it was, I lost my dad at 15. So I'm not trying to equate it to a death in the family or of a pet or something that.

But in terms of my professional career, I would say it was the darkest moment. I thought it was all over. And I didn't think I was ever going to recover. And I'm not sure I have. So second price is the column in Birmingham. And what kind of columnist were you? I was never as good writing a column as I was as a reporter. But I was a shoot from the hip.

My first column was in the fall of 83, which was the first fall in 25 years at Alabama had not had bear Bryant. Ray Perkins was the coach. and one day I I mean I just excoriated this guy I mean he was I mean I wrote a line once that said you know you could catch her cold sitting next to Ray Perkins

and he had no personality he had no this and he had no that and he gave an interview to a local TV station they were doing a piece about me like who is this new guy and he said he said that guy doesn't bother me

he said when I was in New York with the Giants he said we had guys driving the newspaper truck that concerned me more than Paul Feinbaum. I said, okay, we'll see about that. And I mean, you were totally disrespected. I was in a place where the adjuration of Bryant was obvious and deserved. But I was covering a team that was no longer that good.

And it didn't concern me what I said. I was just trying to make a name for myself and get out of Birmingham as fast as possible. I read one of these columns, 1992, the University of South Carolina. Carolina had just joined the SEC. It lost a bunch of games at the beginning of the season. You wrote a column asking for them to be kicked out of the conference. How did that one go? I don't mean to be difficult here, Brian, but my current contract with the SEC Network

precludes me from ever addressing that column. That did not happen. I'm going to be like my great friend Charles Barkley. I didn't write that. You were misquoted in your own column in this case. Yeah, well, I will just add here for the. folks at home, that the Gamecocks then went on a winning streak, and you offered to let yourself be tared and feathered at midfield, I believe, if they beat Florida. And again, this probably

didn't happen, according to Paul Feinbaum, but the Gamecocks lost only by five points. Yeah, which I was quite pleased. I went to Columbia the next weekend for the Alabama game, and it was, it was scary. But that's, again, that was part of the drama of the early part of my career. What's a Pots during Column you wish you hadn't written? Oh, there's a lot of them. One thing I did early on, you know, I will never do again is I criticize players. It took me a while to, I called, I think it was in the early 80s. I think it was, I think it was Alabama, was heading toward its first losing season in 25 years. And I called the players a bunch of chumps and losers. And I had an older guy called me after that, and he said, you don't do that. That's,

And I learned from that, and I stopped. I never again criticized a player individually or use a phrase like it. It was a great learning experience. So coaches never bothered me criticizing them. They could be a chump and a loser. Yeah, but yeah, I mean, you always, you can always get caught up. Just, you know, newspaper columnists in today's world are in any world because there's a record of it. What you say in the radio, you can always.

talk your way out of that. You cannot erase the newsprint. Were you a fast writer or a slow writer in the press box? Very fast. And I just, I used to write in stream of consciousness. It was, I was not, I didn't think I was a great writer, but I just tried to be entertaining. I mean, when I compare myself to, you know, the greats of, of the former eras, you know, the Jenkins, became friends with some other guys from Sports Illustrated, you know, a later on the Lupacos and the Bayliss's guys that I just were, I was in awe of. I wasn't in their league, but I felt like after a long, a period of time, I got to know the audience. And I had an easy job.

I covered football in a state where at the time half the, half the fans were Auburn, half were Alabama. So it didn't, you didn't have to be a road scholar to figure out what was going to sell. It's column A or column B. And it had never been done before. So I was the first guy to ever criticize. And yeah, and it seems like I was the last guy based on some of the writing I see these days. What did your newspaper days teach you about SEC fans? SEC fans have great pride in their team and their league.

and as I got older, I began to sense and see that a lot of, that there was something to beholden that you could not, you could not keep them down. When I first got their NASCAR was almost as big as the SEC, and the NASCAR tried to jazz it up. They tried to become modern day. The SEC's never really, well, they may be doing it now, but for the most part, they never messed with the fans. and I mean every fan base always wants to talk about the way it used to be but with Alabama fans they either for when they weren't doing well

it was about the way they used to be and how they were going to be they were you couldn't keep them down and that really helped me I began to study the fan bases and then I had some really fortunate or unfortunate things happened along the way I began you know saving

Sabin really in many ways saved my career because I never covered a consistent winner at Alabama, and suddenly that's all they did. So, yeah, did I embrace Nick Saban? Sure, but why wouldn't you? Are you going to try to battle this guy that keeps winning Nash? You're going to say after his first one, he's never going to win again? After his second one, after he's won, I don't know, seven overall.

Yeah, because what you're criticizing is the team not winning. Yeah. It's not the personality of the coach or something like that. It's if that didn't win games or enough games. But I mean, I've dealt with some, I mean, we went through a period at Alabama where there were, you know, there was, there was Mike Dubos, who essentially, you know, had an affair with the secretary. He didn't get fired for that. He got fired because he lost, he won three games the next season. And then Dennis Franconi took over.

He lasted two years and bolted. And then my favorite Alabama coach of all time, with all due respect to Paul Bryant and Nick Savan, but my favorite coach never coached a game, Mike Price. Oh, I don't know why. I don't know who's in charge of 30 for 30 now that Conner Schell has left, but how could they not do a 30 for 30 on Mike Price? And all you young people out there are going, who's Mike Price, Google it. Mike Price was hired from Washington State.

And in, he coached at the, scrimmage in mid-April. And then he went on a golf trip to Pensacola, Florida, where exactly what happened now is open for dispute. Sports Illustrated ended up doing a piece on it that claimed that he, I guess you can put in the journalistic words, because I'm just quoting them, that he met two women. Might be a charitable description, but he met two women. at a bar, a bar called Erides Angels, went up to their room.

And in the SI article, they claimed that they were screaming, while they were all together, they were screaming roll tide and it's rolling. Well, he sued them. They settled for, what I'm told, a very large amount of money. And then he blew the settlement, I think, speaking about it. So that's why he got fired. He didn't make it. And he was replaced by Mike Shua.

So you had three mics almost in a row. Dubos fired, Price fired, and Mike Shula, who was a complete disaster, he got the job on him because of his father. 1980, sports radio stations

start recruiting columnists like you to come on the radio. And some columnists thought the medium was really weird, and some thought it was a logical extension of what they were doing

at the paper. Where did you come down? I was like everybody else. I thought anybody that wasn't doing what I was doing was a hack. I mean, I mean, again, I wanted to be a sports driver. I didn't ever want to do anything else.

I thought the ideal life would be to be in my 60s, you know, sitting there with, you know, a cold hot dog and a warm ice drink in my hand, you know, munching peanuts, watching Alabama play Tennessee. But I got, I dab. I began to dabble and talk radio and found out I liked it. And then it got better and better. And at some point, I had to make a choice. So, yeah, I was one of those guys. And look at me now.

I was surprised to learn you were the sports guy for Mark and Brian. Two guys who were on the radio in Birmingham and then went on to become big national host. What did you do for them? I was the potster. I mean, they were two very talented guys who made it been. And before they made it big, every day. And now here's the sports. And it wasn't like straight sports.

It was like if you were the sports reporter for Howard Stern, what would you, your job is to please them, not to please the audience because they are the only things that matter. So yeah, I had a blast doing that. And it was fun to watch them explode. And how did you get your own show? Well, my first show was fussing with Finebaum. it came on, it was because the host of the host of the show was a guy named Eli Gold, who was a big NASCAR guy. And he would fly off to Daytona every Tuesday to host NASCAR Live,

which was the Bible of the NASCAR industry. And so I was on, it was in 1984. And I was at war with the head coach at Alabama. I'm on the Alabama station. And you, I handed me the keys on Tuesday night. And I revved people up to get the head coach fired. And then it led right into the head coach's show. And some of them carried over.

I'm in Birmingham, it's the number one market. At the end of the season, Ray Perkins, they went five and six, I think, or four and seven, whatever it was. He went to the station manager and said, you fire him, or I'm yanking the Alabama. So the Alabama games off the network. He also tried to get me fired at the newspaper. Was that a tough choice? Fire a guy making $150 a week or something brings.

So they fired me. And the next day, I got a call from a fairly wealthy guy in town, who I knew really well. He said, here you got fired. So, yeah. He said, how'd you like to work at this station? I said, what's the deal? He goes, they're the Auburn station. Maybe more than happy to have you.

So there you go. go. And that led to Mark and Brian and getting my own show a couple years later. I read a newspaper, Ed, that said, if you've taken issue with some of Paul Feinbaum's controversial comments, here's your chance to talk back. So the idea was you've pissed them off in the newspaper, now they're going to get to call the radio show and confront you. And I mean, if you listen to me today versus then, you would not recognize me. I felt like I had to, I felt like it was a show that was on, you know, that was on the New York, and I was going to fight everybody that called up. And I was going to ask questions that, I mean, I don't reckon, I mean, I always hear

people say, man, I used to love those. I mean, what I was doing was, was good for the time. It was very important. But it was a little too much. You asked me, you know, are there a lot of columns? Was there a column I could take back? I mean, I would like to take back that entire era because I just was. it was too much. But it also, but it, it served the purpose. I mean, it developed an audience.

Again, there wasn't a lot of competition for that. I mean, there were shows, but not, I mean, and most of them were just, you know, sick of fans, you know, sucking up to whatever the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, sports? The one I do now is it's a little more balanced. Back then, it was 100% college football. And then we got into, then I moved to a news talk station, which led into Rush, which followed Rush Limbaugh. So during the Clinton era. So it, we, we talked a lot of politics because you couldn't avoid it. It was, it was a very important thing at the time. And I had fun with that. Politics is one of my, one of my loves. So, but currently what I do is a lot of it's depending on the season.

College football is always the main theme. But yeah, in the basketball season, I mean, we spend a couple of weeks hardcore basketball. We don't do much else, but we have guests on that represent other sports. So in those early days, you're following rush, you're talking politics. Do you find the audience was okay with that? As long as you gave them college football, they would stick around for a little political talk? Yeah, but again, there was another sports station in town that was just hardcore.

I was trying to take an audience from a political audience and build it. I felt like a sports audience was limited. Everything was still on AM radio back then, so you couldn't have the kind of audiences that you can command today on FM or could have commanded before organizations like yours, just destroyed radio for good. So you're thinking we can only have this sports audience is going to be this big, but if I can bring in a political audience, I can build something even bigger. Exactly.

And I think it worked to an effect. And finally in 2007, I bit the bullet, did something I never thought I would do. I went to the sports station in town. And what was funny, I went two weeks after Nick Saban arrived, Alabama Network Station. And suddenly the mail demo. 2554 within a year quadrupled. I got a lot of credit for it. I deserve none. It was all Nick Saban. I mean, the fact that Alabama had a legitimate football coach changed everything. You're known now for callers. Did you take a lot of calls right from the beginning?

Yeah, I always believed in that. I mean, I talked too much early on, but I learned at some point that the callers really were the most important thing. And at some point, I went from being an antagonist to being a friend. And it changed over the years. It changed even more dramatically in the last couple of years, especially something that we talked about once before during COVID. But now I almost feel as if I'm an advocate for the fans. I'm not trying to make this show into anything it's not,

but most talk show hosts simply don't care. about the fans. I had, I was with Tony Corny Cornyzer a couple of years ago on his podcasts and afterwards we, we grabbed some coffee and I, I would not attempt to imitate Tony Cornheuser, but he basically said, why do you talk to these effing idiots every day? He can't understand it. Why? From New York. He's

opinionated a lot, but he's not alone. I hear from other people that, I mean, he's the only one that I feel comfortable mentioning because he won't be listening to this. But others might, and I don't want to call them out without running it by them first. But yeah, a lot of people in the industry think the callers make no sense. They're a wasted time. I've been criticized countless times, Brian, you know, been saying the guy, the guy, you could put anybody in that chair and do what he does. You basically hit a bunch of buttons.

It takes no common sense. It takes no creativity. I would argue that it takes patience, though, and I believe in the callers. So how do you make callers good on the air? You listen and you're curious. And I think a guy calls up, a guy called up a couple of years ago, and he was having a hard time making his point. I said, what do you do? He said, I'm a grave digger.

I go, what do you do? And he started explaining being a grave. I was I was enthralled by it. That's what I do. I want to learn about callers. We had a couple of months ago a man call up who had just he had I think he had yeah he had called at one time and said his mother-in-law was very sick and then he called back after she passed away from cancer and at the funeral he he read a letter that she had written about me and the show and she had left a donation in my honor at the University of Tennessee School Communication, and it really moved me. I've had many stories like that. My wife told me she's a physician that she had a patient, and I hope I'm not violating Dr. Klein, whatever here, sue me. But her patient told her that her mother just died a couple of months earlier.

She had four or five brothers. And she was the youngest and just typical family that she just didn't have a relationship with her father. He was an older guy, you know, in his 80s. And she went over to see him one day in the afternoon. And he's glued to the radio. He's listening to this thing that I do every day. And she said, what are you doing? And why are you doing it?

He said, oh, this is the best show. This guy's great, blah, blah, blah. She started listening to the show. and every week when she would go see him, they talked about the show. It gave them a bond. And that really made an indelible impression on me that we do make a difference. And I'm not trying to change the world. I'm not trying to cure anything.

But by listening to people, I had a guy called me from an assisted living center in Kentucky a couple weeks ago that, you know, he's in very bad health. He said, your show keeps me going every day. And I'm, all I can do is try to enhance that, that experience for people. And I really take it seriously. Do you have a theory about what listeners like about hearing callers on the air as opposed to hearing a guest or hearing you? It makes them feel like they're being respected and paid attention to. I mean, we have a lot of guests.

But after a while, how many different. opinions can you get from some guy from some digital website. I mean, these, these are all knowledgeable people, but I find myself, especially in times like this, you can ask the same question 50 times during the week. So do you think this is Nick Sabin's last year? Do you think the expansion? Do you, you do a lot of that in terms of not so much asking the same question, but there is a method to it where callers like to hear themselves. They feel they feel like they can kick their shoes off. They're not being talked down to. There's a talk show host that I know who doesn't want anybody, he doesn't want sports writers on the show. And this is not a direct

conversation I had with him, but one of my friends did. He asked, why not? He said, what do they know? They never played the game. Oh, okay. Well, neither did I. Neither did most of the people who do a really good job. And that's something we both have heard throughout our career. But in my mind, the caller, they didn't play either. Maybe they played high school football, whatever. But I want them to feel at home. And I think, you know, they don't have to like me. And there's almost a cottage industry of people who say they don't like me.

I mean, there's a line in a New Yorker piece about me many years ago, which you may have seen that Wright Thompson used at the beginning of the 30-for-30-30-rolled Thai War Eagle, where half the people, I think in Alabama, this is when I was there, say they don't listen to the Fine Bomb show, and they're all liars. But I don't know, but I really care about the audience. It's not a line that I'm giving you. It's sincere, and I try to portray that on the air. I care about them a lot more than the coaches we have on. 2010 in Alabama fan named Harvey Updike called the show under an alias.

Unfamiliar with that name. Yes, and said he had poisoned the trees at Tumor's Corner. What did you think initially when he said on the air that he'd done that? I thought he was a wacko. I didn't believe it. I almost lost the call. It is the most famous call in the history of the show. And when I die, hopefully it's not any time soon.

If somebody at your publication decides to write an obit on me, it would be Paul Feinbaum comma who took, the most stunning call in sports radio history. Okay, I've already written it for you. Thank you, Paul. You don't need the, you don't need the media column that week is out of the way. Yeah. I got argumentative with him because he was not calling to talk about poisoning the trees.

He was trying to tell me that in 1983, that Auburn fans rolled tumorous corners when the news broke that Bear Bryant died. And I said, you're out of your mind. I've heard that before. He's got very argumentative, and I was about to show you what a great talk show host I am. I was about to hang up on him. And I said, that's ridiculous. I mean, I just like lost it. And most of the time you do not lose it as a talk show host.

You're supposed to be professional. He said, well, I'll tell you what I did. And at that point, and then he proceeded to tell me about poisoning the tumor trees. Do you believe him? it had an air of plausibility but I didn't give it too much thought and then a couple of days later we got a call wanting the tape of the interview and then I knew it was legit when about a week later my partner in the show Pat Smith got a call from a friend of ours who worked on the Homeland Security subcommittee of Richard Shelby's office and said that there they were in investigating this guy for poisoning the water system in Auburn. And then the story broke. And I'll never forget going home that night.

And I put on the national news. And it was the last story on the NBC News with Brian Williams. I'll leave it to the audience to say whatever they want. I happened to, I used to watch him. And I said, I mean, it was like, oh, it's until I heard it, it was still somewhat hard to believe. And then it changed everything. The next day, you know, I'm on PTI. I'm on this show.

I'm on that show. And I thought it was going to cause a revolution in college sports. But what happened was this story dominated the news for about a month, maybe when it, and then something else happened that changed everything. and it was this devastating tornado in Alabama that really changed the show and changed the state. So, I mean, Updye came back later. I went to see him in jail. I had conversations with him. He even called me at one time asking if I could give him some advice on a lawyer because

nobody wanted to represent him. I said, listen, I really don't like you that much. And by the end, I really grew to detest him for what he. stood for because we would work out a deal than a couple months later for him to come on and apologize. I thought, we could help him. He comes on and I said, well, at the end of this interview, I said, well, Harvey, isn't there something you want to say? He said, yeah, I really apologize to all the Alabama people that I've hurt. I might say, that's it. He goes, yeah, Paul, I just want to say one more thing. And then he uses, you know, roll down.

I'm like, and he hung up and at this point I began to really hate the guy because and we gave him a chance to absolve himself a little bit and he made it worse. He doubled down. Late 90s, early 2000s sees a big rising college football message boards. The kind of people that would be calling your show start posting there and posting there a lot. And I said this is a 20 year subscriber of such websites. Did that have any effect on the kind of calls you were getting or the number of calls you were getting that people had another outlet?

Yeah. websites and message boards in the 90s began to really change everything they made talk radio they made the environment there was another thing that happened too and I'll get to in a second they made it more toxic everyone had a voice and and those callers those message board people when they called in a show had to amp up their game more and the biggest thing that I think changed everything on top of message boards was coaching salaries. Once coaches started making a million dollars a year, you couldn't feel sorry for them anymore. And I know that sounds a million dollars a year is now basically what the production manager on

Monday Night Football makes. But everything, all bets were off. You know, the four years, five years to build your program, we're out the window. Everybody started making money and then look at us now. That's and that just changes the tone of calls and people. Yeah, because, you know, as a, there's only so many calls you can take that go, Paul, don't you think Nick Saban is the greatest coach of all the time? I mean, we've established that, but people still feel like they need to say it. It started, you started, you know, started to get spitting a lot of vitriol out.

And, you know, we used to have a thing on our show when I was in Birmingham, the, you know, the, introduction where coaches are fired. And it turned out that we did, I never felt felt like we fired coaches, but the forum did. And I never really believed that until one day I was speaking to a college administrator. Actually, it was a college president. And he was lecturing me on how evil the show was. And I said, I don't believe, I don't, what does that have to do with what you do? He said, you have to understand that I'm not listening to it. Of course not. I mean, he's a college president.

He's far too important to lower himself to listen to a, you know, a sleazy talk show that people enjoy. But he'll get a call from a booster or a friend. And they'll catch three minutes of the show where their coaches on the hot seat and the next, that's all they know. So they think. And, you know, that was 20 years ago. And now you have athletic directors who literally spend the day reading Twitter and make up their mind on what and how to do something. I mean, there are some who are, I mean, they're, they're in time. I mean, they don't use any common sense other than what the latest trend line is on Twitter.

So you mentioned Nick Saban getting to Alabama. SAC also wins seven BCS championships in a row. So you start to get more listeners. what else changes about your show during that period? Well, the biggest change I felt when the show went to Series XM. That happened in 2010. I mean, I really thought. I was out covering the Rose Bowl.

Alabama played Texas for the National Championship. And I would say it was, you know, one of my favorite experiences ever. And I hope Colt McCoy has recovered from that injury, whatever it was. And my producer called me when I, while I was out there, he said, Sirius wants to put the show on their channel, their sports channel. I'm like, are you kidding? And what it really did, and I answered this question in part in the 90s, but in the 2010s, callers suddenly called up and they took great pride in being a national caller.

They were no longer Birmingham, Gatchton, Montgomery, and everybody up their game. and what happened next updike and it was you know things started really it was like a hurricane and then the national media started paying a little more attention there was a new yorker article which literally changed my life but you know we'll talk about that on the sequel but we don't have to so your radio show at this point syndicated across the south yeah primarily in Alabama, but a few spots elsewhere. We were gaining traction, but it was still an Alabama armored show. But yeah, we were on in the, you know, fringes, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, a little bit. 2013, you get hired by ESPN. How did you get on ESPN's radar? I got on ESPN's radar, I believe,

because of the, initially the Roll Tide War Eagle documentary that came out in 11, they focused the show primarily through our eyes because of the update call. And I also met a couple of people there, which later played a really big role. And again, I don't want to go into long, drawn-out stories, but I'll tell you how some of that happened. That happened. And then the two executive producers that were Bruce Feldman and Joe Tessitore. And that would later be a very important moment because in 2000,

and 12, I began, my contract was beginning to unwind at the sports station of Birmingham, WJOX. And I started thinking, I had a really good local lawyer who represented coaches, but I felt like I needed someone to represent me nationally. Series XM was attempting to hire me. I mean, that was already in the works. And I thought, man, I'm going to series X-M. I'm going to be the next. I'm going to be the sports version of Howard Stern. That's what they were trying to sell me on. So I asked my friend Mike's Live at lunch one day.

I said, is there somebody you know, and he recommended a guy? And I'm not going to mention his name. But he was as big as anybody. And it took six weeks to get a meeting with him. This is an agent. So I fly up to New York. Uh-huh. My career is going to change.

I go to his office and I had three meetings that day. I was doing a, I was writing a column at the time for s.i.com. So I dropped by to say hello. Remember Richard Deich came out of his office. Hey, have I ripped you lately? I said, I don't think so.

I mean, it was just funny. I just remember that to this day. I didn't know Richard at the time. I had another meeting late in the afternoon. And then I had my main meeting with this super agent. So I walked past the Apple. store and go up in this big building in New York, 40th floor, you know, wait 30 minutes and get ushered in to see this super agent.

And I thought, you know, the fact that the commissioner of the SEC had hooked us up, I was in. I mean, what did I need to do? He said, hey, hey, you know, blah, blah, blah. I mean, I felt like I was on a subway all. I mean, I knew it was a bad vibe. he said so what can I do for you what I mean I just didn't I mean again my parents were from New York I've been around New Yorkers I said well I didn't think I was gonna have to I said

Sirius XM has been talking to me about and he says serious is not gonna hire you I go okay he said you're a local guy I mean they're not they're not bringing you up I go okay I mean I I mean I was prepared I mean I've been up since four in the morning so I was a little fatigued, so maybe it wasn't going to be. I said, and what else? I go, well, ESPN has been on my radar. He said, ESPN's not going to hire you. What are they going to do with you?

You're a local talk show host. I go, well, I mean, I was, I don't think I knew. I could not formulate words at this point. And he said to me, he said, you know, you know who I represent? that and he listed the names and they were top notch. And I'm like, I feel like somebody has just like hit me in the gut with a crowbar. And I'm just,

as opposed to wanting to cry, I want to just get out of there. Finally, he goes, he said, there was another guy in there. There was actually the president of the company had also dropped in to say hello. And he said,

well, maybe we could, the guy knew I was being blown off. I mean, blown off doesn't describe this. in the dictionary next to Bums Rush, there was my picture. And he said, maybe we get some Paul some work doing sidelines. You know, we own all these college contracts.

I'm like, then he goes, I tell you what, the main agent. I said, I really am not interested in doing sidelines. I mean, I said that very nicely. He said, well, I'll tell you what, I'll, you know, since you're a friend of the family, that was some weird way of saying since Slive and I, you know, we do business with Slide. I'll call Steve Cohn when I get a chance at Sirius XM and see what I can find out. I said, well, thank you very much. I would really meet a great deal to me.

I go down 40 floors. I walk out, I guess there's Central Park south there. I was talking to myself. I called my wife and I said, do you had to go? I said, it was a disaster. I said, we're not leaving Birmingham because we were already, I thought I was going to move to New York. because Sirius had indicated that they would like me to do it from up there. And I'd always wanted to live in New York.

So I walk around for about a half hour like a bum talking to myself because I really didn't know what else to do. And I went over to the, my last meeting was to coffee shop. First I met it, we went to Starbucks on 50, whatever, and it was so crowded. So then I met this guy named Reeves Weidman. And we went, I said, let's go to, so we went to the coffee bar at Rich Carlton. And I'm like, I'm not listening to what he said. He said, well, he said, he had sent me an email.

I know this is a long story, but there's a point to it all. I love it. Keep going. He said, he had sent me an email a couple weeks earlier. You know, if you ever, I'd like to talk to you, if you ever in New York. And he had been a blogger for the New Yorker website. And I'm like going, wow. Great. So I figured that's what this was about. He wanted to talk to me and do a piece for the, he said, you know, we were, and I'm still not really listening to him. And I heard him say, we have not done a piece on a college football person in about 10 years. And David Remnick suggested perhaps this would be a good time and he mentioned your name. I had actually sat next to Red Remnick in 1983 covering a Birmingham style.

Washington federal's football game. And I heard the name David Remnick, and I was like, oh my goodness. I mean, this was, you know, I guess if you're in fashion, it's anointeur, but David Remnick, I said, so what are you thinking about doing? He goes, he suggested a five, six thousand word profile. And I like, holy cow. I mean, suddenly I, my day had gotten a lot better. I leave the meeting.

I tell Slive the next day or two. It still happens that Joe Tessitort called me out of the blue. I told Joe this story. He said, don't know, I don't think how well you know. He said, don't move. I said, okay, Joe. He said, don't go. Two minutes later, he calls me back.

He said, you're going to get a call in five minutes from Nick Con. So Nick Con wants to all of a sudden wants to come see me. I said, I don't trust any, I mean, I don't trust, I barely trust my wife at this point. I said, I'll tell you what, I'll meet you halfway. So two weeks later, I meet Nick Kahn at DFF. We eat a three-hour lunch at some dinky Mexican restaurant there where he lays out my future, which, by the way, he nailed to a tea. In December, second week of December, the article comes out in the New Yorker.

I happen to be in New York at the time. I'm speaking the next day at the sports business journal. I'm on a panel, not speaking. I mean, I'd exaggerate. The day before I get a call from a guy who knows a guy who says, I called the guy back, he's a literary agent. He said, yeah, every New York? I said, I'm in New York right now.

He said, I'm on Park Avenue. Can you meet me? I said, I'll be right there. He has an idea for a book, which turned out to be the first book I did. There's a similar story with that guy a couple weeks ago. And the article comes out. I'm in Bristol in two weeks, you know, doing a try,

just kind of a run through on a Saturday morning. And I get hired a couple of months later, the book deal, constantly. All this stuff happens. It's just like, it's in it. And Nick Khan represented me until he decided to go to the WW. And, I mean, it was just,

it was a life-changing period of time. There are a lot of tributaries to it, but that's really what it's, happen. So to review, Super Agent blows you off. Same day, New Yorker says they want to write a giant profile of you in the magazine. Then you get another agent soon to become the super agent of sports media, then book deal then hired by ESPN. Right. And this is over a six month period. Yeah. And the book and the, and the, I would say of all the experiences I've had in my life that I probably enjoyed the most, it was the book experience because I'm a literary geek. And the guy called me,

the day before I went up there, his name is David Villiano. He's actually spelled with a G. He calls me. So we got a fairly well-known guy. So we got an offer from Blue Rider Press. I don't know what press. $75,000 on your memoirs. I go, ho.

I call a friend of mine who runs a local independent bookstore. I said, what do you think? to take it. He like screamed. I came back from two days of meetings in New York with a $650,000 offer. And I called him, he said, I've never heard anything like that. He called me back. I know I'm getting all over the map here, but this is a similar experience occurred

about four weeks ago. Another bit up from one number to the other number. Wow. And he's And he Whatever I don't I'm not asking the questions here

But we can come back to it But anyway Yeah that's really What happened Back then And I'm convinced to this day That the only reason Nick Con wanted me

Was because the other guy Now I didn't tell Nick The whole story I didn't tell him if the guy blew me off Nick only knew That I later told him And Nick only knew the guy was after me, and Nick won to essentially put this guy out of business.

That's the world of agency in New York, as you well know, and Beverly Hills. Anyway, I've gone off track a thousand times there. So you get hired by ESPN, part of the deal is moving up here to Charlotte. Yeah. How did you feel about that? I hated it. I mean, I didn't want to move here. And my wife was the chief of staff at her hospital.

She just had another couple of months in her term. And I went to her. I mean, we've been married now 32 years. And I said, I don't have to take this job. I can find a part-time. I can have a relationship with this company without being, she said, go for it. So I came up here, a community for a couple of months,

until we finally moved. I mean, I spent eight months at some executive at the Stabridge Hotel, which is around the corner here. They sent me a fruit basket when I finally moved out. I mean, they don't do that normally with the kind of creeps that come in there. And one thing that fascinates me about sports radio, and your show in particular, is the intimacy between host and listener.

How do you preserve that sense of intimacy when your show became an ESPN show? with great difficulty because a lot of the only thing that I had going from me is I was off the air for a couple of months because of a contract dispute with my previous employer had to had to sit out three months and then it became a little bit longer I think that helped help help me a little bit but I take it very seriously there I think any talk show host who comes on and talks about his own authenticity is full of crap but I do believe you have to be real with the audience. You have to, and I think it goes back to what I said previously,

you have to care about what they say because nobody else does. And most, Colin Calhard is not concerned. I'm a fan of his, but Calhard and Jim Rome and Mad Dog and Mike Francesa, well, may he rest in peace, don't care about the caller's opinions. I do. And I'll fight any of those guys to the death with a little help maybe that I'm right, that I do. because I get to know them. I try to get to know them when I'm on the road. I want to talk to them.

I want to listen. I'm not trying to sound like Sam Walton 50 years ago going into every dry goods store in Bentonville, Arkansas. But I think it's the only way to know how they feel. And I care more about that than anything. And I've had, I've rubbed, I've ruffled feathers at ESPN doing that because, you know, but you know what? I don't really care. I care about the callers.

They are, to me, the life flood of this industry, as they are the life flood to sports. And some more people ought to take notice of them. Ruffled feathers because callers are less controllable than you and guests talking on the air. And callers can be very dangerous. And I've gotten better about it. I mean, we have standards. And I've been pretty loose with, I mean, we had the situation. I mean, we've got, you know, one of our best.

known callers. I mean, he is famous. He's a convicted murderer. I mean, so, I mean, there was a situation years ago. And we had a caller guy named Robert, his name was Robert Fisher, called from Iowa. First time he called, I couldn't understand a word he said. I didn't, I don't, I thought, I found out that he, that he had some serious disorder. and a couple, he called me one day after we got to know him.

And he stuttered, he spoke very poorly. But that was, he was trying to overcome, you know, I think it was multiple distory. And he said, will you come see me? I said, yeah. A couple of minutes later, a guy called in and said, you're full of crap. One of our famous callers, who's now passed away. I said, you're not going to see that guy. You're the biggest hypocrite.

It just so happened that in the studio that day had a guy who was an orthopedic surgeon. He was in the same practice with Jim Andrews, the famous guy. He also owns a plane. And he looked at me, like, take a break. So he said, I'll fly you guys out there. So I wanted to bring a caller. And I couldn't decide. It came down to two people.

lady named Tammy, who passed away a couple years ago and literally stopped the sports world when she died. She died in a terrible crash. Or legend, the guy that convicted murder. And I was concerned about what the extradition laws were in Iowa. So we went with Tammy. But I really thought legend would have been more fun. And we were not there. And I would say, Brian, it was one of the most enjoyable days of my life.

You know, seeing the joy of this guy, he, we pulled, we, we, we, we, we, we, we wrote down the street in, uh, uh, in Iowa, Waterloo, Iowa. They, everybody had their fan, you know, there were Iowa banners out. Everybody was having, it was like, everybody had their banners out and the neighbors came over. And you went to the refrigerator and there were notes like it, like when I was a kid. And it was just so much fun. And we went to a sports bar. We had to get back so I could do the show. So we went to a sports bar at 11 o'clock, and there's Robert 32 years old in a wheelchair, popping down, you know, Miller lights, you know, having the time of his life. And I'll never forget that day. I mean, you can take me to, you know, the Summer Olympics, the World Series, Nick Saban winning is 94th National Championship, and none of them will top that day

for me. Absolutely. I always think covering college football is hard because there's so many teams. What's your approach to that problem? We're not an equal opportunity employer on this show. We talk about what's hot. You know, this is off the record, of course, but, you know, Vanderbilt's 0. I really don't care. I mean, I'm sorry. My wife's have, you know, got a degree from Vanderbilt.

She can go on her favorite message board. But, I mean, we talk about the hottest stories of the day. And that's always, that's a challenge when you're, I mean, we're sitting in the studio of the SEC network. We talk to all the coaches. We want to promote the league. We have a partnership. But we're also in business here. And you don't see at the top of sports center at 6 o'clock, you know, going over the worst NBA teams lineup.

You see it's LeBron. It's KD. And I feel the same way. I mean, you know, we will talk to anyone that's part of the league. And we do. I've gotten to know so many women's coaches. And I've had a blast with them. Don Staley's a regular.

But no, I mean, I'm probably not talking equestrian, you know, this afternoon. Did being aligned with ESPN change the way college football coaches thought of you? Sure. I think a great deal of them probably hated me before this. And some still do. And that's fine. I've had the joy or the misfortune of being recruited by them at an early age, and it's all transactional. I mean, I'm not, I have never taken too many relationships seriously.

And, you know, if Nick Saban wants to speak to me, fine. If he doesn't, that's fine, too. It doesn't matter to me. I can still sit here behind this microphone and do the show. It's like, I remember an all boss of mine. he was asking me, he asked me, what took me so long in the locker room?

I said, well, I'm trying to get some more quotes. He said, why do you need quotes? He said, you can't give it a, you can't write a story without like quoting some offensive linemen.

And it's the same way. The callers are the most important thing to me. And yeah, if we have Nick Saban, if we have Lincoln Riley, great. And if we don't have them, that's fine too.

Yeah, when you say transactional, it goes two ways. Because I see you getting a war of words with the coach, Jim Harbaugh a couple years ago. And they're getting something out of that because they're not doing as well as they want to. But let's let's, you know, unite behind this common enemy against this common enemy,

fine bomb, this guy down there talking about it. I mean, I've had Jim Harbaugh, I'll sound like a subject here. The media has made a lot out of that feud. But a couple of years ago, around now, I got a call literally in the middle of the show from Tom Crean. And I couldn't answer it. I'm sitting here at Jim's house, and we're celebrating his father's 80th birthday, and he wants you to come up here next weekend.

I mean, it was like mortal enemies. And it just, I mean, everyone's got a life, and everyone's got a schedule, but I thought that would really be cool for a guy that has, you know, it turned out I was heading to Hollywood. It was in the middle of a sitcom presentation, which quite frankly was more important than Jim R. I never did it, and now I think it's probably too late.

But yeah, I've had public spats with Nick Saban on the air, one very famous. It was ugly. I caught a lot of flack, but I believe that I don't regret it. How do you get an interesting interview out of a college football coach? With great difficulty. On the air, most of them are very predictable. You hope to get something out of them, but at some point you just have to This is not like doing a, you know, Gary Smith, Brian Curtis profile where you want, you're going to get a psychological evaluation or examination.

I mean, you're on television, you're on radio. You can tell very quickly whether the person's going to be expansive or not. Sometimes it's fun. Sometimes it's a blast. And sometimes it's a drag. Them doing it because they think they need to. Yeah. Most of the time, they're.

Oh, they're doing it only because they have to. So, yeah, I mean, I view every interview differently. I want the subject to feel comfortable, but, I mean, you know when it's not happening. And the difference between today and probably 15 years ago, I would still go for broke 15 years ago and ask the kill shot question. Today, I know when it's going to be a bad interview. The ESPN job came with a TV simulcast. How did you feel about that? I had some trepidation.

There's something about talking on the radio. You can close your eyes, you can think. And now basically for 20 hours a week, I stare straight at a camera while, you know, waiting to know when the second it goes to the caller screen, I can take a break. But that's okay. I mean, television is unique. I mean, there's a couple of things about tele. A couple of years ago when I was doing Game Day, I walked off the set.

onto our bus and there sat bill murray and like i mean again my generation bill murray and i'm walking over to him and he goes paul how are you doing and i'm like holy cow we talked for a few minutes he said like how did you get on this show which was which was a major shot by the way a couple of minutes later i asked jean wojahoski i said gee i mean i was so full of myself i said jean i said can you believe you And Gene's, Dean and I went to college together. He was on Game Day. I said, how do you think Bill Murray knew who I was?

He said, you're the stupidest human being on the face of the earth. I go, well, how do you say that, Gene? He goes, we're all sitting here with a television. And guess who's on the television 15 minutes ago? You, with your name underneath. That's how he knew. And I'm like going, but it's, you know, that is something that takes getting used to with celebrity. I'll tell one story.

I feel like I'm doing a stick here, but this is one of my favorite stories about celebrity. I'm in, we're in L.A. We're going out there about four or five years ago. Just, you know, Nick, one, we're going to have dinner with Nick Kahn, you know, do the whole, my wife had never been to Beverly Hill. I'll speed this story up because we'll be here the rest of the night.

I meet a guy in the streets on Rodeo Drive, and he goes, he stops him. I don't expect to be stopped on Rodeo Drive. He goes from Birmingham, blah, blah, blah. He just so happens to be out there with the Kennedys. His father, I think it was his grandfather, excuse me, was a federal judge during the George Wallach. Robert Kennedy Jr. stayed with his grandfather or father and did a book on that era.

Anyway, so next day he picks us up, we go out to Malibu. I'm put we go to lunch with some of the Kennedy children and I'm sitting there at lunch and the guy sitting across from me is named Connor Kennedy went to Harvard Law while he goes to the restroom I Google him what I mean nothing like big guess who he was dating at that point in time he's he's Robert Kennedy's grandchild he's Robert Kennedy Jr's son he's dating Taylor Swift. Oh. So I'm like, I could, so we have a touch football game afterwards.

I mean, I'm at the time, it just turned 60. I mean, I'm really a threat. So there's a point of the story, I think. I threw two pick sixes to Connor Kennedy. So that night, they invited us to a party. It's a fundraiser for like one of the 10 Kennedys who were running for governor of Illinois. And my wife, and there's going to be multiple celebrities. there. And my wife is like, you know, she's, where are? I said, they'll be here. Warren Beatty was

supposed to be. I saw Anna, what's his wife, Anna, whatever her name is, being. I saw a couple of minor celebrities, but she finally comes in. So you're ready to, there's, there's nobody here. I said, Linda, come. I said, yeah, I know you're, I mean, I say, you're a doctor, everything's black and white. We'll see, out of the corner of my eye, I see a guy. I see a guy. I'm like, like going, holy cow, he's walking, bald guy, getting closer. I like saying, I think this guy's going to say, just don't say anything. He walks over, Paul, what's going on? We're talking.

She's like pulling my arms. She's looking over him, around him. And finally, he said, do you live, do you live in L.A.? I said, no, no, no, other than Charlotte. I mean, whoa. finally my wife no idea who he is and she goes well

do you live here I mean for an intelligent woman there was really a stupid question but because everyone knows where this guy lives he said no I spent a lot of time out here so I kind of I said well what brought you here he goes I had an idea for a sitcom and I said

had to work out he said okay we spent 25 minutes talking he walks away and my wife said who was that i said that was larry david and now come worked out okay and now every time he's on television which is like every moment of the day she goes how come we didn't get a picture and i look at her and said because you didn't know who he was you know it was so i now of all the things that ESPN brings you it brings you a few good things now and then even if your wife doesn't know who the person is circle back to game

day for a second how did you find that experience it was the most bewildering four months of my life because i was not hired to do game day i was hired to be on the first show i wasn't hired to be on the first show they asked me to be on the first show uh which i was yeah i didn't i had not been ESPNized yet. So when they ask, the first question they asked me is, well, how do you think Auburn's going to do under Gus Malazahn?

I said, I think they're going to do great because Gene Chiswick was the coach, and he's the worst coach in college football history he'd ever win a national championship. And the next thing you know, Twitter breaks down. I gave other takes like that. And then four weeks later, I'm on a show, and everybody in game day

love Lane Kiffin. I mean, he's just a lovable guy. I feel the same way today. Chris Fowler goes Paul, we're in Athens, Georgia. Paul, so what's going to happen with Lane Kiffin in the quarterback situation? He lost the first game or two.

I said, I don't know. I said, but one thing I do know, I said, Lane Kiffin is not going to make it at USC. I said, if USC has half a brain, they'll fire him tonight as soon as they lose to Arizona, Arizona State.

I got back afterward. Everybody usually has a quick lunch before they head to the airport. Some people stayed for the game. No one spoke to me. Fowler turned his head. Herb Street. Fitting, like, looked at me like I, I said, okay. Wojahowski and I drove back to Atlanta.

And I'm just like a mile of minute. He said, it'll be okay. I said, no, I'm done. I'm done. Game Day, they're not having me back. He said, well, I don't know. I mean, he admitted, I could be in trouble.

Fly home to Burmany. I'm still commuting. Fly home to Birmingham for the weekend. Even my wife picked me up at the airport. She said, why did you do that? I said, oh, thanks. Thanks for the encouragement. She said, there's just no need to be that personal.

I said, okay. The SEC Network was still nine months off, 10 months off. Pretty upset because I knew I'd blown it. I get up early about 640, 630, whatever. I'm walking in the kitchen. I pick up my phone. Nine missed calls. I don't even look at it.

I just flip on the TV. Breaking news. Lane Kiffin fired on the tarmac. The next thing I see is my clip calling him the Miley Cyrus of college football from yesterday. And I think for that reason and that reason only fitting kept me on the show. because otherwise. And it became a roller coaster ride, going to places I'd never dreamed.

I'm doing a game day from Lake Michigan where Ohio State's playing Northwestern. I'm in Oregon, Washington. I mean, all these USC. And it just became the most incredible experience. It was such great fun. And they wanted me, I don't think I've ever said this.

I probably should. Fitting wanted me on the show full-time. I was a made man without being a mafia, a mafioso. I couldn't, I'm going to be on college game day until I was told I wasn't going to be on college damn day by my bosses at the SEC Network because they heard about it. And they said, so how's it going with game day? I said, great. I said, you're on SEC Nation. We're not letting you go to game day.

I said, okay. That took some getting used to. But I got over it. And I'm happy as I can be now. And ESPN's the greatest company in the world. They're the greatest people. The bosses are great. But that moment, it was all about Lane Kiffin, though.

And so Kiffin, I see him two weeks later. They have him out to Washington to be the Sarkisian as a coach. I thought he might walk over and punch me. I walked over to him. He was going to be the guest, the first interview. And we became fast friends after that. We just kind of, he sent me a text the next day saying he's listening to wrecking ball by Miley Cyrus and yeah it I mean oh it's only Kiffin can do but that was that was

that was the moment it's a really thin line between a hot take artist and profit yeah and uh kiffin later told me the story I'll share and then shut up because I think we're into overtime here though this is like a soccer game we're into overtime you just don't know how much longer we have so I'm gonna keep you guessing I'm the ref here just so how did so how did Kiffin get fired He tells me the story. That morning in Arizona, the president of the university of USC is having breakfast with Pat Hayden, the athletic director. And Kiffin's not about to get fired. I mean, he's in trouble, but he's not going to get fired.

And game day's on, and they hear me with my diatribe. And the president looks at Pat Hayden. He's angry. Because, I mean, I had told the truth about Kiffin. It wasn't like I, it was, you know, some crazy hot take. You know, wasn't mad dog or anything. It was, he looked at Pat, he said, if we lose tonight, fire his ass. And Kiffin swears that happened, that Pat Hayden told him that later.

And that's why he got fired that night. Now, did I get playing Kiffin fired? I have no idea. I don't really care. He's done okay since. you mentioned that you and I talked last in April 2020 sports world had just shut down for COVID what happened to your show during that period it was it was like unlike anything I'd ever encountered it was over overnight overnight it just became what what I thought was the most

important story of my life it's an exaggeration now, I think, to think to have thought that. But the audience was hurting. The audience was in pain. Nobody knew what to believe. And we made a decision to change over. I'll never forget the Monday of after the Thursday that ended the sports world. My producer called me and he said, so what do you think we ought to do today?

I said, I think we need to talk about COVID and what did the effect on sports. everything else. He goes, I was thinking maybe a mock NCAA field. The boy would have looked like. I said, no, and I screamed. I was walking outside at the time. I said, we have, and I was insistent. We have to talk about this. I just felt like, I think it was the journalism background in me, told me this, I didn't know this was going to be one of the stories of our time. And then we just, we broke the bank, we broke the rules. We had guests on from every walk of life. It didn't. matter who they were, you know, news, news, sports, entertainment. And I think at some point we

probably overdid it, but I was, I was more than happy to overdo it. And then it became, it went from COVID. Are we all going to survive to something far more important? Is the college football season going to start on time? But for a while there, your show was about COVID and kind of just about COVID. It was incredible. And, you know, I knew, when people didn't understand it. People, you know, listen, we don't, this is not the forum to discuss the distrust of the mainstream news media. But I was trying to educate, you know, when people would say, well, what is this really, what it's all about?

I'm basically relating what my wife had told me that morning at breakfast as a physician. I was trying to, and I began the emotions I started to pull back. But it was hard. And you had calls like any other show about what families lost. I mean, everybody had their own story back then, and everyone knew someone. So I just, we had done it before on our show with the tornado in Tuscaloosa. So at other interval, 9-11. And I just felt like this is one of those moments when sports, sports didn't matter anyway

because there were no sports. And there's only so many times you can talk about the fact that there aren't any sports. But so, yeah, we had infectious disease specialists on. We had countless other people, you know, primarily to educate. And after a while, we moved, we turned a little bit more toward, you know, Barclay. It didn't matter. anybody that we could find and people came on

that normally wouldn't have come on so yeah but once we once we made the pivot it was it was we never completely got away from it because some people we had drawn a lot of people over

and by the way there was nothing on ESPN at the time so it wasn't like we had a lot of competition so we yeah and then we became really the meeting place of of college football

where commissioner we had every commissioner wrong. We had every AD all. We had every coach on because everybody was sitting around doing nothing. It became a really important moment. A few more before I let you go. We've been talking a lot about realignment and how that that is going to affect the way fans view the sport. Do you think college football could do something to itself to make a large number of fans not like it anymore? Yes. I mean, I think you have to, it's an imperfect model, but I think you have to study how NASCAR lost its groove 15, 20 years ago by trying to modernize it.

College football is essentially an experience. And I think there's already danger there. When I travel every Saturday, ADs before COVID had the same complaint. People aren't going to the games. I think we're going to be right back to that. I mean, I have friends my age in their 60s who are bitterly complaining when they get the renewal because it's very expensive. And I think that's the biggest threat to college sports.

It's not the players are getting paid because in the end, you don't really care. I mean, you can say you care as a 68-year-old. I played college football back in Valdaqa, Georgia. I've heard that over and over again. It's, I think, what's a bigger threat is what's happening now, is the game of moving teams. Because when you send UCLA off to a completely different environment, you do lose something. You lose a lot of tradition.

And at some point, you know, will the young fans care? Will people 30 and under be as interested as they were? I mean, I go to tailgate parties on Saturday, and there are four generations at the tailgate parties. you know, I walk out, our show ends at noon Eastern time. And for the noon games, as we're departing our set on, whether it's in Athens or Tuscaloosa or wherever, I see a lot of young people walking. I mean, they'll come by and see the show and they're going to a bar. Wi-Fi is not good enough in the stadium for them, but for all the things they're doing. I mean, there's an old line, as long as there's a betting line on a game people will watch, there's a certain semblance of, there's a certain truism there.

But will they go to the game? And if you, you know, did we like the games two years ago when there was nobody there? No, I mean, part of the college experience is being there, you know, for the tailgate. You go to LSU and you see the sites at 3 o'clock in the afternoon for a 7 o'clock game. And I think we run the risk of losing a lot of that. So what's a solution beyond better Wi-Fi in the stadium? There isn't a solution because the college sport, because right now, you know, people want to say it's going to be NFC versus AFC, whatever.

It's about that. And it's also about, if I can say so here, at an ESPN property, it's about ESPN versus Fox. Let's not kid ourselves. That's the driving force here. And neither one of them are going to go out of business depending on. But they're both going to survive very well. but the little guy is not going to survive. This is reminded me a little bit of the 60s, 70s, 80s when all the dry goods stores in

every small town got put out of business because you had a Walmart and a target. If you're an unsuccessful, yeah, if you're a school based in academics, you may still collect your check, but you're not going to win. and at some point there's going to be a reckoning about that you know if you're a fan of duke or northwestern or you know pick your poison wherever you want to go across the country do you want to support a loser no uh people argue why did texas get into the the SEC i think texas needed a bigger platform and it was the best one for them because it was it's still the best league i think they'll do better

Look at recruiting since Arch Manning showed up. So I think the big schools will survive, but I think the middle class is going to get wiped out. And the lower class, which really isn't the lower class, it may be the higher institutions of the academic institutions of higher learning are going to be non-existent. Now, they may break off. They may not. That's not something I have to worry about sitting here every day. I'll leave it to the people that run college athletics. But a lot of this could have been avoided.

we want to blame Mark Amhert. He's the worst person that's ever lived. I don't like him. I think he was a, I think he's been an absolute disgrace. But it's not his fault. I mean, he's the president of the NCAA.

Who does he answer to? He answers to college presidents. It's their fault because they have the most power. And they make, they make all these decisions. And, you know, college athletics is all about, the money. That's not a new story. That's not breaking news. It's not going to be flashing on Times Square. And there are a handful of people that control college athletics. And you have several people

who have cost universities more money than they'll ever get back. And they're well known inside the Beltway. These are not secrets. Everybody knows where the bodies are buried. In this case, they're not bodies buried. They're living human beings. How long do you want to host a radio show? I don't have an easy answer. I'm not one that wants to leave and go paint in the afternoon to play golf. One of the best things ever happened to me about four or five years ago, I had a herniated disc and I went to a bunch of surgeons and they advised not to play golf. I am now recovered from it. I've done a lot of therapy. I mean, I could, and I still haven't played golf. And I think because I don't want to play golf every day. I like doing what I'm doing. Now, some of the it depends on this project I'm currently working on because it's a big book project.

And if it's successful, it could open the door to do more writing. I never wanted to do another book. I thought I'd left writing behind, but I'm finding the reporting part of it very exhilarating. This is the book about the NIL? Yeah, I'll spare you the story. But the day after the whole feud between Jimbo and Nick Saban, I got a call from the guy I haven't spoken to in seven or eight years, the literary agent on Park Avenue. And he said, I got a call from Scott Moyers, who's a publisher at Penguin. He said he thinks you would be

ideal to write this book. And so let me think about it. Because I'm already on the record in interview saying I'm not ever writing another book. So I don't want to be a complete hypocrite, maybe just a partial hypocrite. I gave it some thought. Is that really what I want to to do what I want to do over the next couple of months. And then, Brian, you dealt with literary agents, you know, the way it goes. It comes down to, do you do it for the love or do you do it for the money? And David, the agent, who had done the previous deal for an enormous amount of money, you know, in the book world. Now, let me, for those who, we're not talking Joe Buck, Troy Aitman money here. We're talking book world money, which is a totally different scale.

But, you know, he came back and said, you know, I think there's going to be some nibbles from Hollywood, which is interesting because I've done the Hollywood routine once, and it was very interesting. And I had a great time with it. And he came back with an offer that exceeded the last one. And I said, count me in. I mean, it just at some point, no matter what you make, no matter what you do, when somebody offers you a sum of money to do a book that exceeds what you really thought anybody would ever offer you, you have to. to take it seriously. Paul Feinbaum, thanks for coming on the press box. It was my pleasure, I think. All right, it's time for the second weekly edition of David Schumacher guesses, the strained pun headline. Yeah.

Tuesday's headline about a Marvel movie that didn't live up to the hype was Thor loser. We'll see if David can replicate his eerily fast performance from last time. David, today's head. headline comes to us from valued listeners Lake Kelling and Daniel Bramlett. Appropriately enough, it's from the Charlotte Observer.

The Carolina Panthers acquired embattled quarterback Baker Mayfield from the Browns last week. I want you to think of truly horrible strained puns about bakers. Bakers, as in the job, the

people who bake, what was the Charlotte Observer's strained pun headline. Is it something that Baker's dozen. Bakers, baker, uh, butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker. What is something that bakers do? Give me kind of a, a motion, a kinetic motion the baker's doing. Mix. Mix. Um, um, need. No. Uh, needing baker, baker needs dough. Baker needs. be a good one.

Well, just a little more general. The Panthers have a bad quarterback situation. Panthers need Baker, Cain. What is it? Needing. Yeah, well, they're just a little more general. Just needing Baker? Well, it needed help.

And I'm not kidding. Feel free to click on the link here. This is the headline on the sports section. Needed help. Oh, my God. It's just needed it with a kid. Needed help. Needed help.

Wow. That's an odd part of speech. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Erica Servantes, Shoemaker, Nightbeck Monday. More lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David.

See you later, Brian.