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Speaker 1: This is Wins and Losses with Clay Travis. Play talks

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Speaker 1: with the most entertaining people in sports, entertainment and business.

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Speaker 1: Now here's Clay Travis. Welcome in. I'm Clay Travis. This

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Speaker 1: is the Wins and Losses Podcast. I hope all of

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Speaker 1: you are enjoying our conversations as we continue to roll.

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Speaker 1: This is a weekly show. This is the first one

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Speaker 1: you've ever heard to. You're about to listen to Paul

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Speaker 1: Findbaum of the SEC Network of ESPN, Jock's Radio Network,

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Speaker 1: all different sorts of different places he has been over

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Speaker 1: the years as a friend of mine. I think you

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Speaker 1: guys are gonna enjoy this conversation and if you enjoy

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Speaker 1: this one, you'll probably like Jason Whitlock, Shannon Terry, SEC

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Speaker 1: Commissioner Greg Sanky, as well as Washington State head football

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Speaker 1: coach Mike Leach. The goal with the podcast is to

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Speaker 1: examine some of the wins and losses that we all

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Speaker 1: have in our career as we moved throughout the process

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Speaker 1: of our lives. And without further ado, let me go

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Speaker 1: ahead and bring in Paul find Bomb. You can find

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Speaker 1: him on Twitter at find bomb. You can listen to

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Speaker 1: him every single day from two to six Eastern on

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Speaker 1: the radio. You can watch the simulcast of that radio

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Speaker 1: show on the SEC network. And recently, down at the

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Speaker 1: beaches of Destined, there was a Cosmopolitan, which was a

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Speaker 1: drink named after Paul find Bomb at the five year

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Speaker 1: anniversary party of the launch of the SEC network. And

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Speaker 1: I want to start there, and we'll probably cycle back

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Speaker 1: around to a lot of different questions, but I wanted

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Speaker 1: to jump off right there. First of all, Paul, thanks

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Speaker 1: for coming on. Secondly, if I had told you five

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Speaker 1: or ten years ago that there would be a cocktail

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Speaker 1: named after you at an SEC and ESPN event, your

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Speaker 1: response would have been what, I can't well, I probably

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Speaker 1: could say it, but I try not to curse too loudly,

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Speaker 1: but I would say you you were out of your

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Speaker 1: effing mind. Yes, um, you know, when I saw your tweet,

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Speaker 1: I had not gone down to the cock party yet.

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Speaker 1: I was up in my room, and by the way,

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Speaker 1: I didn't have it. Although I would have liked to,

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Speaker 1: I didn't have it. By the way, I found it

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Speaker 1: to be pretty good. I felt that I obligated to

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Speaker 1: try it. You know me pretty well, Clay. So you're

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Speaker 1: you're You're not going to raise your eyebrows A sum might,

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Speaker 1: but I'm I'm still kind of amazed what's going on today?

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Speaker 1: So yeah, I would not have believed it because you

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Speaker 1: had to understand the times, and you had to understand

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Speaker 1: the toxic nature between me and many people in college

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Speaker 1: athletics for from top down to the bottom. Uh. So

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Speaker 1: let's kind of circle back around because one of the

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Speaker 1: good things we get to do on wins and losses

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Speaker 1: is I'm sure you get asked this question all the

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Speaker 1: time because you're on college campuses on a regular basis,

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Speaker 1: and kids, undoubtedly boys and girls have come up to you,

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Speaker 1: kids in school and they'll say, I love your job.

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Speaker 1: How did you get that job? I get it a lot.

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Speaker 1: Anybody in the world of sports, I think gets it

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Speaker 1: a lot. So I want to go back all the

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Speaker 1: way to Paul find Bomb. You are growing up in Memphis,

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Speaker 1: ten see right, Uh, you are a young kid. What

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Speaker 1: is your upbringing like in Memphis? And as we circle through,

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Speaker 1: the goal is to give people an indication of not

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Speaker 1: that you necessarily can follow the same path, but how

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Speaker 1: to be tough, how to stick to your guns, so

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Speaker 1: to speak, and how you end up doing a job

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Speaker 1: like yours or mine or any other of the number

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Speaker 1: of people that we're going to talk to on this podcast.

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Speaker 1: But you're growing up in Memphis. What was your youth

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Speaker 1: like in Memphis? It was pretty normal, Uh, at least

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Speaker 1: for a while. I was the youngest of two two

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Speaker 1: New Yorkers, including my sister was from New York. I

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Speaker 1: was born in Memphis by about three or four months,

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Speaker 1: so you can figure out where I was conceived. And it, Uh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was just a listen looking back, you know, literally baseball, basketball,

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Speaker 1: Uh when we we just were we were not we

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Speaker 1: were kind of lower the middle class. Uh maybe slowly

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Speaker 1: moving up in the world with the times, and you know,

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Speaker 1: I there's just there was just nothing really extraordinary about it.

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Speaker 1: I mean I was a happy kid. I was interested

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Speaker 1: in a lot of things, sports being number one, and

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Speaker 1: then I gravitated a little bit toward politics. My parents

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Speaker 1: were fairly uh involved in that as well. And and

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Speaker 1: and that was really the pretty much the base you know,

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Speaker 1: from you know, five to ten, the thirteen up until

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Speaker 1: fifteen when it all changed, all right, And I'll get

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Speaker 1: to what happened when you were fifteen years old. But

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Speaker 1: as a kid growing up, you are Jewish. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I don't think that's a great surprise. Did you have

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Speaker 1: did you have a sense of feeling a little bit

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Speaker 1: like an outsider in Memphis? Or and I don't. I

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Speaker 1: don't really genuinely have an answer for this. I'm curious

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Speaker 1: what you what you'll tell us. Sometimes, you know, the

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Speaker 1: Jewish community and even a city where Memphis doesn't have

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Speaker 1: a huge Jewish population, but it can feel so welcoming that,

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Speaker 1: you know, you you don't even realize how different you

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Speaker 1: might be than everybody else who's going to Christian church

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Speaker 1: and whatnot Memphis, which is a very religious and UH

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Speaker 1: and and Christianity based city. Did you feel different? Did

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Speaker 1: you feel a little bit like an outsider? Or were

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Speaker 1: you even cognizant of the distance between you and maybe

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Speaker 1: other people? Not at first, because our our neighborhood, we

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Speaker 1: lived about three or four blocks from a synagogue. In

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Speaker 1: our neighborhood was primarily UH refugees from from Brooklyn and

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Speaker 1: UH the majority were Jewish. So I mean I grew

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Speaker 1: up in that world. Um as I got a little

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Speaker 1: bit older, I began to sense the difference. Uh. I

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Speaker 1: was very proud of what I was, but you know,

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Speaker 1: I had friends who uh were always taking an insult

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Speaker 1: the wrong way. I didn't. That was a little more

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Speaker 1: open minded. So it was I can't say, Clay that

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Speaker 1: it held me back at all. Um. I was always

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Speaker 1: fairly open minded to other people, and and that changed

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Speaker 1: a little bit later when I went to a Catholic

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Speaker 1: high school. Yeah, so how did your family? How did

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Speaker 1: your mom and dad end up in Memphis? Because you

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Speaker 1: said they're from New York. I mean that's a pretty

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Speaker 1: big departure. What was it that brought them to Memphis? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was it was really related to my my my

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Speaker 1: mother's brother. Uh. He was in the service and was

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Speaker 1: relocated or based somewhere in jack I think it was

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Speaker 1: near Jackson, Tennessee. Don't remember exactly why. Uh So my

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Speaker 1: my my grandmother, who was widowed at an early age,

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Speaker 1: and my mom, who was still in high school, moved

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Speaker 1: to Jackson. And then my my my uncle married a

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Speaker 1: lady from Memphis, so they moved to Memphis, and my

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Speaker 1: father followed my uh my uncle uh in uh in business,

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Speaker 1: so he moved there as well. All right, so, uh,

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Speaker 1: you grow up and uh in Memphis at the time

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Speaker 1: you're a young kid, do you remember Uh. For instance,

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Speaker 1: Martin Luther King being assassinated in nineteen sixty eight. Do

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Speaker 1: you have any any what do you remember about then? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean I was twelve years old and uh eleven

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Speaker 1: or twelve, I'm trying to remember. Uh may have been eleven.

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Speaker 1: And it was a big deal. I mean I was

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Speaker 1: very much into the news at the time, Clay, unlike

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Speaker 1: maybe your normal kid at the at that age who

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Speaker 1: was watching more sports. Uh, this is a big story

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Speaker 1: I'm about to break. But this is pre ESPN and uh,

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Speaker 1: so I remember the night very well, um, and I

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Speaker 1: was very emotional and moved by it. I had my

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Speaker 1: parents had bought me a record. Now I'm I'm talking

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Speaker 1: about a vinyl record a year or two earlier of

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Speaker 1: famous speeches, one being John F. Jfk Uh, the second

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Speaker 1: being Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech and

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Speaker 1: I memorized that speech. This is before he died, and uh,

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Speaker 1: he was an important person to me. Um, and I'll

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Speaker 1: never forget. Three days after he was assassinated, there was

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Speaker 1: going to be a march in Memphis, and my best

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Speaker 1: friend and I wanted to go, uh and and show

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Speaker 1: our respects. I mean we were eleven years old, and

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Speaker 1: my parents of course forbid us from going. But I mean,

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Speaker 1: I was that was an eleven year old activists at

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Speaker 1: the time. It was. It was a seminal moment in

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Speaker 1: my youth, his assassination. How did that impact overall in

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Speaker 1: Memphis in your mind, because I mean it's hard. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I guess people who maybe live in Dallas and were

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Speaker 1: around when JFK was shot, there is a certain level

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Speaker 1: of I want to say, almost malaise that almost descends

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Speaker 1: over a city when it's connected to something like that.

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Speaker 1: And I think about the school book depository in Dallas,

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Speaker 1: and it's obviously been fifty years since that happened in Memphis,

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Speaker 1: But as a kid, did you kind of have that

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Speaker 1: feeling at eleven, twelve, fourteen years old that's something bad

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Speaker 1: had happened in the city and it kind of hangs

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Speaker 1: over the city, no doubt. No, the city was Memphis

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Speaker 1: was unlike a lot of cities. Uh. It was a

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Speaker 1: big metropolitan area, a little bit like Nashville maybe, where

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Speaker 1: you didn't have all this. I lived in Birmingham later,

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Speaker 1: which had I think thirty seven different municipalities in one

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Speaker 1: county for obvious reasons, Memphis wasn't like that. So I mean,

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Speaker 1: you you, you were you. You engaged UH people of

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Speaker 1: different races all the time, but the city was torn apart,

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Speaker 1: and it was really not to jump too far ahead,

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Speaker 1: but it was really a sporting event that happened five

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Speaker 1: years later that saved the city. And that was when

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Speaker 1: Memphis State UH went to the n C Double A

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Speaker 1: Championship game to play a u C l A. It

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Speaker 1: was a night Bill Walton went out of twenty two

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Speaker 1: from the field, and that one event brought the city together.

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Speaker 1: And I think without that singular event, that that run

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Speaker 1: to the final four, Memphis would have been destroyed by

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Speaker 1: the way. It didn't come out of it that well anyway,

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Speaker 1: because Memphis for a long time was the dominant city.

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Speaker 1: And UH, about thirty years later they blinked and the

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Speaker 1: next thing you know, Nashville had blown them away. All right,

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Speaker 1: So let's let's go into you said you went to

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Speaker 1: a to a Catholic high school. I think you said,

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Speaker 1: how good of a student were you? Were you committed

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Speaker 1: to school work? I mean, how would you characterize yourself

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Speaker 1: from an academic perspective? I was interested it in what

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Speaker 1: I cared about, Uh, so when it when it came

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Speaker 1: to history or you know, literature, things like that, I

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Speaker 1: was all over it. I was not much on math

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Speaker 1: and science. So I mean I was a good student,

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Speaker 1: I wasn't a great student. Um I I've had it

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Speaker 1: kind of in my mind. Maybe by the time I

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Speaker 1: got to high school. Uh my, my interests were changing.

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Speaker 1: This is now in the early seventies, Watergate had happened.

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Speaker 1: I began gravitating towards in my mind newspapers and journalism

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Speaker 1: and politics. These were things that fascinated me. So I

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Speaker 1: was still somewhat unclear what I wanted to do. I

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Speaker 1: probably at the time, if you said what what would

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Speaker 1: you like to be involved with, it would have been

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Speaker 1: politics of some sort. I read your most recent book,

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Speaker 1: which I believe my conference is better than your conference.

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Speaker 1: You can tell me if I'm I'm messing up the

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Speaker 1: title there. It's a fantastic book. I would tell people

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Speaker 1: to go check it out. Um. And you mentioned about

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Speaker 1: what happened at the age of fifth teen and how

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Speaker 1: much it impacted your life. What happened to you when

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Speaker 1: you were fifteen, Well, I had uh my my dad

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Speaker 1: had had a heart attack about three or four years

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Speaker 1: earlier and had not been well. I mean, he had recovered,

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Speaker 1: but you could tell he was still fragile. And Uh,

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Speaker 1: on a you know, at the age of forty nine,

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Speaker 1: on on the early morning hours of March five, v one, Uh,

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Speaker 1: he suffered a massive heart attack and and died, you know,

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Speaker 1: with my with my mom and myself and my older

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Speaker 1: sister around him. We weren't a hundred percent sure, but yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean you knew even a fifteen you knew what

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Speaker 1: was going on. And it was that moment, Clay that

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Speaker 1: you know, this idyllic life where you know, two my

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Speaker 1: two parents and car pools and camp and and singing

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Speaker 1: songs going off to a family vacation in the car

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Speaker 1: all came to a a shattering halt. Uh, life turned

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Speaker 1: upside down. And what was interesting is that it didn't

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Speaker 1: It may not have hit me until a little bit later,

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Speaker 1: because uh, you're fifteen, you're on your way to being sixteen.

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Speaker 1: Your your life is changing as well. So uh from that,

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Speaker 1: I mean there's a line of demarcation in that line

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Speaker 1: in the in the Jewish world, when you when you

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Speaker 1: are bar mitzvahed at thirteen, you're supposed to become a

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Speaker 1: man Uh. It took me two years later. But but

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Speaker 1: I didn't understand why my mother was uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: completely turned upside down. I didn't know a lot of

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Speaker 1: other things. But what I what I found out pretty

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Speaker 1: quickly was people, uh, without really being intentional, it could

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Speaker 1: be fairly cruel by by by really their inaction all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden, you know, a week for a week,

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Speaker 1: everyone comes to your house, uh, and everyone's sorry. And

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Speaker 1: then the next Monday comes around and nobody, nobody cares,

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Speaker 1: nobody remembers uh. And and you're part of a family

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Speaker 1: who you know, we we were doing okay, and suddenly

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Speaker 1: we really didn't have very much at all. And you know,

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Speaker 1: I was, you know, it was even now, and I

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Speaker 1: struggled to completely put it into perspective because, uh, it

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Speaker 1: was one of those shattering moments, those lines in your

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Speaker 1: life that you'll you know, maybe I'm still not over it,

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Speaker 1: because I still have a hard time talking about it.

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Speaker 1: So that happens when you're fifteen years old. You then

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Speaker 1: go on to high school and you said you had

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Speaker 1: a sister. How old was she at the time? She

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Speaker 1: was nearly five years older. Than me. So she was

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Speaker 1: a little more Uh. I mean she was already in school,

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Speaker 1: in college, so she she may may have been a

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Speaker 1: slightly better prepared. Now, now I will say Clay, that

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Speaker 1: you know, you turned sixteen, you started driving. I I

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Speaker 1: got my mother quickly pulled me out of the Catholic

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Speaker 1: high school and I went to public school. And but

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Speaker 1: for a while, it's not you know, you get through

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Speaker 1: it because you start meeting people, you start having friends,

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Speaker 1: you start going out, you start and and I all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden, your life becomes a bit of a blur. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And it hit me a little bit later, uh, really

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Speaker 1: a lot later, what really happened? What? What? How my

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Speaker 1: life had changed, not not in so much my life,

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Speaker 1: but my mother's life. I guess it is maybe the

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Speaker 1: more accurate way of putting it well. And also what

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Speaker 1: it does is at an age like that, you go

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Speaker 1: from maybe not being that cognizant of finances, right, I mean,

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Speaker 1: if you're fortunate enough to have two parents and things

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Speaker 1: are going fairly well, to suddenly you snap your fingers

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Speaker 1: and your dad, who I'm assuming was the primary breadwinner

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Speaker 1: in your family, is not there. And that probably breeds

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Speaker 1: a little bit of financial insecurity, not only at that

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Speaker 1: point in your life, but to a certain extent, has

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Speaker 1: to impact you for years ahead. Now every everything. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I yeah, from that moment on, I never owned a

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Speaker 1: stitch of clothes that wasn't bought at a at a

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Speaker 1: going out a business sale. I mean I just uh,

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Speaker 1: you just got used to it. Uh. And by the way,

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Speaker 1: you didn't really care because you didn't know any better.

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Speaker 1: But the day it really uh, I think hit me

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Speaker 1: the hardest, Clay, Uh was the day I went to

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Speaker 1: school at Tennessee. Uh I. Uh. Memphis is still a

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Speaker 1: pretty good distance from Tennessee, but I went up there.

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Speaker 1: Uh I did not have a car, um, So how

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Speaker 1: did you get there? So for people who don't know

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Speaker 1: who are listening to us, who may be in different

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Speaker 1: parts of the country, Memphis and Knoxville are in the

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Speaker 1: same state. But you can drive quicker from Nashville to Canada.

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Speaker 1: This is not an exaggeration. You can Nashville to Canada

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Speaker 1: faster than you can go Memphis to Knoxville. So the

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Speaker 1: way the state of Tennessee is set up, there's a

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Speaker 1: huge geographical expanse between Memphis and Knoxville. Or I should say,

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Speaker 1: Memphis all the way to the end of the state,

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Speaker 1: not just to to Knoxville, because somebody will get on

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Speaker 1: Twitter and correct me. But it's a huge, long, expansive state.

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Speaker 1: So it's a different culture. So how do you get there?

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Speaker 1: I mean I went there on a greyhound bus. So

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Speaker 1: you're going to way to college and you waved to

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Speaker 1: mom and get on a greyhound bus and the next

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Speaker 1: stop you're off in Knoxville. Yeah, and uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: I get there and I had a trunk and that's

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Speaker 1: about it. And yeah, so I moved into my dorm.

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Speaker 1: But what was so what was so shattering to me?

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Speaker 1: I walked around. You get there on a Saturday or whatever,

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Speaker 1: two or three days before class starts, and everywhere I

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Speaker 1: went there were families and moms and dads and kids

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Speaker 1: and grandparents, and I was alone. And that's that's when

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Speaker 1: the reality hit me that, uh, things were really different

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Speaker 1: in my life. I mean I knew from financially they were,

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Speaker 1: and I knew emotionally my mother was a wreck um.

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Speaker 1: But I was, you know, sixteen then seventeen, and I'm busy,

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Speaker 1: and I'm I'm you know, just doing all the things

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Speaker 1: at sixteen year olds do that are crazy? Um, But

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Speaker 1: that day, I mean, those were like two of the

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Speaker 1: longest day of my life when when when the boomerang,

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Speaker 1: the aftershock started to enter into my consciousness and there

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Speaker 1: was nobody to call, nobody to talk to. Um, and

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Speaker 1: it was it was really a very lonely depressed I mean,

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Speaker 1: it should be the greatest day of your your life,

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Speaker 1: you're going off to college, and instead it may have

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Speaker 1: been the most impressing of mine. Do you remember it

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Speaker 1: being physically painful watching all the dads and the moms

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Speaker 1: kind of hugging their kids goodbye, and you're there with

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Speaker 1: a you know, just I guess sitting in your dorm

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Speaker 1: room watching all this happen, right, or walking around I mean, finally,

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Speaker 1: I think I just went to the library and hung

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Speaker 1: out with you know, everyone else who didn't have a

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Speaker 1: family from all over the world. And yeah, but yeah,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, listen, you're you're in Knoxville, Tennessee, clay and

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Speaker 1: and suddenly things do start to change. But it but

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Speaker 1: it was that was the reality that was the reality

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Speaker 1: check though that Uh and again, you're right, what you

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Speaker 1: said is maybe the most accurate finances. You couldn't have

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Speaker 1: a conversation without finances because uh, you know, my dad

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Speaker 1: left a little bit of money, but not much. My

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Speaker 1: mother went back to work, she became she was a

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Speaker 1: clerical receptionist at I R. S. She had worked there

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Speaker 1: during the war. So, um, you know I didn't. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think not having a car was probably the most

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Speaker 1: startling difference between me and almost everyone else, because you

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Speaker 1: didn't need one that badly at Knoxville. But you also,

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Speaker 1: I mean all of a sudden, people Yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: you knew people were looking at this guy and going,

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Speaker 1: he's wearing like old clothes that are out of style.

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Speaker 1: I didn't have the the eyot on my polo shirt.

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Speaker 1: I didn't have the button downs and the khaki's, uh

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Speaker 1: the deck shoes. Um, and and I didn't have a car.

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Speaker 1: So you feel a little bit out of sorts in Knoxville. Um,

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Speaker 1: how did you do start? First of all, how did

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Speaker 1: you pay? How did you pay for school? At at

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Speaker 1: UT Well, I was able to go on mostly scholarship money. Um,

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Speaker 1: there was and uh, you know, people can knock the government,

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Speaker 1: but it helped. I mean there was a little bit academic,

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Speaker 1: a little bit um you know, financial aid. There was,

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Speaker 1: there were there we was there was it was a

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Speaker 1: combination of things and and uh, you know we had

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Speaker 1: we had a little bit of money. Uh so my mother,

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Speaker 1: you know, would maybe give me a hundred dollar bill

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Speaker 1: when I left or something, and uh but no, there

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Speaker 1: wasn't a lot of money though, So I mean I

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Speaker 1: got by um Uh, I think the first thing I did,

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Speaker 1: uh was gained thirty pounds because I had one of

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Speaker 1: those meal cards. Uh So I mean, you know I

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Speaker 1: had breakfast, uh that I had lunch and uh then

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Speaker 1: you know if I was you know, a lazy move

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Speaker 1: with my buddies and maybe go back for a second lunch.

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Speaker 1: And I mean, I mean it was like, I mean,

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Speaker 1: the expanding man was me because I never stopped eating

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Speaker 1: my first uh my first quarter at Uto. So you

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Speaker 1: said you got interested in journalism a little bit during Watergate.

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Speaker 1: You obviously we're talking about the impact of cultural affairs.

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Speaker 1: When you were growing up in Memphis, when did you

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Speaker 1: start to think maybe I'll major in that. Were you

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Speaker 1: a journalism major at the get from the get go

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Speaker 1: at Tennessee? What did you major in and how did

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Speaker 1: you move into the air to the new newspaper I

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Speaker 1: was my major. I think I had a double major

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Speaker 1: political science or maybe a minor in history. I did

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Speaker 1: not think about journalism. I was more thinking governmental work.

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Speaker 1: If you had said at the time, what were you

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Speaker 1: gonna end up being? Uh, you know, was law? Possibility?

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Speaker 1: Was teaching a possibility? Was governmental work? I mean, these

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Speaker 1: were all things that were rolling around. I mean, again

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Speaker 1: the time frame, this is around the time Nixon resigned. Uh,

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Speaker 1: I mean politics was was. I mean, I'm not sure

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Speaker 1: it's comparable to today, but I mean it was front

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Speaker 1: and center. No matter where you went, there was something

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Speaker 1: going on. So I U I was thinking along those terms,

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Speaker 1: and you know, probably around my third year at Tennessee, UM,

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Speaker 1: I began drifting like what in the world in my

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Speaker 1: going to do? Uh? And I saw an ad one

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Speaker 1: day in the ut Daily Beacon that's the student newspaper

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Speaker 1: for a reporter, and I said, you know what, I'll

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Speaker 1: just go down there. Didn't tell any of my friends

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Speaker 1: or what I was doing. And they asked one of

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Speaker 1: the pre requisite questions was can you type? And I

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Speaker 1: really couldn't type very well. So they sent me to

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Speaker 1: cover that. They gave me an assignment. Um, I'll try

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Speaker 1: to make this quick because I can tell you the

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Speaker 1: story for three hours, but it was it was fairly simple.

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Speaker 1: There was there was like a shuttle service between campus

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Speaker 1: and the airport and they had discontinued it. And Clay,

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Speaker 1: I will tell you, after about six hours of phone calls,

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Speaker 1: I had I had uncovered some major scandal payoffs, black mail,

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Speaker 1: um And when I went to the editor, I mean,

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Speaker 1: they were like, are you out of your I mean,

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Speaker 1: this is unbelievable. So I wrote it up. Of course

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Speaker 1: I wrote it in longhand because I couldn't type. And

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Speaker 1: then finally I started taking at a at a typewriter

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Speaker 1: and and they hired me as a reporter and based

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Speaker 1: on my my reporting skills. And then after about a

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Speaker 1: two or three months of that, I realized, you know what,

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Speaker 1: covering covering the student government is not going to really

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Speaker 1: be the ticket. So I gravitated towards sports. Be sure

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Speaker 1: to catch live editions about kicked the coverage with Clay

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Speaker 1: Travis week days at six am Eastern, three am Pacific.

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Speaker 1: We're talking to Paul fine Bam. You can follow him

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Speaker 1: on Twitter at fine Bam. This is the Winds and

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Speaker 1: Losses Podcast. I am Clay Travis. Thanks for hanging with us.

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Speaker 1: So when did you pivot then? Would you remember the

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Speaker 1: first article you wrote about sports for the University of

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Speaker 1: Tennessee student newspaper. Yeah, I believe that it was a

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Speaker 1: it was a basketball article. Uh. I think Uh, Ernie

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Speaker 1: Grunfeld and Bernard King had had Uh We're doing an

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Speaker 1: interview that day to try they were trying out for

428
00:22:47,560 --> 00:22:50,040
Speaker 1: the Olympic team or something. So I interviewed them and

429
00:22:50,080 --> 00:22:52,919
Speaker 1: I caught the bog and as you know, Clay, Uh,

430
00:22:53,280 --> 00:22:56,080
Speaker 1: it's funny. I ran interviewed Grant Williams the other day

431
00:22:56,280 --> 00:22:58,879
Speaker 1: and we were talking about, you know, what's the greatest

432
00:22:59,119 --> 00:23:02,240
Speaker 1: period of basketball Tennessee history, and and there's always a

433
00:23:02,240 --> 00:23:05,000
Speaker 1: debate this year. This year was really good. But but

434
00:23:05,040 --> 00:23:07,960
Speaker 1: the Bernie and Arnie show is still being talked about

435
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:10,920
Speaker 1: forty three years later. So that that's what I had.

436
00:23:11,080 --> 00:23:14,639
Speaker 1: I had another year of that. Uh, football was I

437
00:23:14,640 --> 00:23:17,280
Speaker 1: think Bill Battle was still there, so he was in

438
00:23:17,320 --> 00:23:21,600
Speaker 1: his last season, so that these were the introductory moments

439
00:23:21,640 --> 00:23:24,080
Speaker 1: to sports. I knew something was up when one of

440
00:23:24,240 --> 00:23:27,280
Speaker 1: the first big stories I covered was somebody had sent

441
00:23:27,320 --> 00:23:30,879
Speaker 1: a moving van to to build Battle's house in West Knoxville.

442
00:23:31,600 --> 00:23:33,840
Speaker 1: And I think Bill Battle may have been the first

443
00:23:33,840 --> 00:23:38,120
Speaker 1: coach to ever be on the hot seat. So at

444
00:23:38,119 --> 00:23:40,720
Speaker 1: this point in time, are these opinion pieces? Are they

445
00:23:40,720 --> 00:23:44,720
Speaker 1: pretty much straight news? Uh? And they started as straight news,

446
00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:49,600
Speaker 1: and Uh, I gravitated to opinion pieces, and I think

447
00:23:49,600 --> 00:23:53,120
Speaker 1: after I think after a couple of months, I ended

448
00:23:53,160 --> 00:23:55,760
Speaker 1: up being the sports editor, which was a great job.

449
00:23:55,800 --> 00:23:59,359
Speaker 1: I mean, Clay, you're you're in college. You you have

450
00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:03,080
Speaker 1: your own little desk. Uh. I mean it's it's it's

451
00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:06,640
Speaker 1: journalism's version of animal House where you go down there

452
00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:10,080
Speaker 1: every day. You have a group of friends, you go

453
00:24:10,119 --> 00:24:12,639
Speaker 1: out and drink beer together. You get to go that.

454
00:24:12,720 --> 00:24:15,560
Speaker 1: You get to go as a student two football games

455
00:24:15,600 --> 00:24:17,920
Speaker 1: for free, sitting in the press box. And you also

456
00:24:17,960 --> 00:24:21,120
Speaker 1: get to fly on a plane. I chartered plane two

457
00:24:21,240 --> 00:24:23,560
Speaker 1: road games and do the same thing in basketball. I mean,

458
00:24:24,040 --> 00:24:27,520
Speaker 1: I was, you know, I'd finally overcome the beginning of

459
00:24:27,560 --> 00:24:31,919
Speaker 1: my career at UT and had certainly uh touched on Nirvana.

460
00:24:32,560 --> 00:24:34,720
Speaker 1: Had you flown on an airplane before you said he

461
00:24:34,760 --> 00:24:37,280
Speaker 1: took Greyhound up to uh. Had you gone back to

462
00:24:37,280 --> 00:24:40,000
Speaker 1: the East Coast where your family was from at that time? Yeah,

463
00:24:40,640 --> 00:24:42,960
Speaker 1: I mean I've probably been by the time I went

464
00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:46,359
Speaker 1: to college, I've been on maybe three or four planes,

465
00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:49,720
Speaker 1: I mean not many, not many though, and never so

466
00:24:49,800 --> 00:24:52,200
Speaker 1: getting on an airplane to go cover a sporting event

467
00:24:52,280 --> 00:24:55,640
Speaker 1: was I was like, uh, an incredible achievement, right, oh man,

468
00:24:55,720 --> 00:24:58,080
Speaker 1: I mean I'm there forget one of one of the

469
00:24:58,160 --> 00:25:00,240
Speaker 1: years I was up there. We we flew think the

470
00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:03,960
Speaker 1: first road game was intended. Tennessee didn't play a lot

471
00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:06,720
Speaker 1: of road games in um so. I think we went

472
00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:10,040
Speaker 1: to uh Birmingham for the Alabama game. And I mean

473
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:13,200
Speaker 1: you talk about an experience having my own hotel room

474
00:25:13,320 --> 00:25:15,840
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, sitting in the press box at

475
00:25:15,880 --> 00:25:19,480
Speaker 1: Legion Field and then going wherever else we went that year. Uh,

476
00:25:19,720 --> 00:25:22,400
Speaker 1: it was it was. I mean I I started to think,

477
00:25:22,440 --> 00:25:25,800
Speaker 1: you know what, this is pretty cool. I ran into

478
00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:28,240
Speaker 1: somebody once and I asked him about being a sportswriter.

479
00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:31,640
Speaker 1: He said, you may not make a million dollars. This

480
00:25:31,680 --> 00:25:36,440
Speaker 1: is before Rick Riley and all that, but but you'll

481
00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:39,400
Speaker 1: you'll live like a you'll feel like a millionaire. Uh

482
00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:41,560
Speaker 1: and live like a millionaire and be around me and

483
00:25:41,680 --> 00:25:45,560
Speaker 1: and it really was intoxicating. Uh And I was, I

484
00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:48,400
Speaker 1: was all in and and suddenly I had to figure out, well,

485
00:25:48,800 --> 00:25:50,840
Speaker 1: what am I gonna do with my career because I didn't.

486
00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:53,679
Speaker 1: I started taking a couple of journalism classes, but there

487
00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:56,080
Speaker 1: was no way I was ever going to be around

488
00:25:56,160 --> 00:25:58,879
Speaker 1: long enough to get a degree in journalism. So do

489
00:25:58,920 --> 00:26:01,760
Speaker 1: you remember the first time that you wrote something and

490
00:26:01,840 --> 00:26:05,400
Speaker 1: it provoked a reaction either positive or negative? Somebody came

491
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:07,680
Speaker 1: up to you who you didn't know, or you heard

492
00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:10,639
Speaker 1: people talking about your opinion. When you were at the

493
00:26:10,680 --> 00:26:13,520
Speaker 1: University of Tennessee. Writing in that experience sometimes people do.

494
00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:16,360
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the lightbulb moment of Oh, I've

495
00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:20,240
Speaker 1: impacted the conversation in some way. Oh yeah, I mean

496
00:26:20,520 --> 00:26:23,560
Speaker 1: I had been critical of the ten the Tennessee football

497
00:26:23,560 --> 00:26:28,199
Speaker 1: team my last year there was terrible. Um uh, you know,

498
00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:33,080
Speaker 1: Johnny Majors was his first year, and I remember being

499
00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:35,159
Speaker 1: at a practice on them. They they used to practice

500
00:26:35,200 --> 00:26:38,520
Speaker 1: on Monday night. Idiom and I'm struggling to remember the

501
00:26:38,520 --> 00:26:40,240
Speaker 1: guy's name. And he was a quarterback. It was a

502
00:26:40,280 --> 00:26:44,040
Speaker 1: backup named Joe somebody like Joe. I can't remember Joe

503
00:26:44,119 --> 00:26:48,640
Speaker 1: Huff maybe was his name. Um, and he saw me

504
00:26:48,800 --> 00:26:53,280
Speaker 1: and literally came, I mean he started charging toward me.

505
00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:57,159
Speaker 1: And Johnny Majors was was about five ft away and

506
00:26:57,240 --> 00:27:00,440
Speaker 1: kind of caught it and and through a and threw

507
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:04,000
Speaker 1: a block on this guy to to stop him from

508
00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:07,560
Speaker 1: literally he would have killed me. I mean, there's no question. Uh.

509
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:11,359
Speaker 1: And he later threatened to kill me. Uh and he

510
00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:14,399
Speaker 1: said if you ever and I really uh, I thought

511
00:27:14,520 --> 00:27:17,560
Speaker 1: I was gonna die. But so you know what it

512
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:21,600
Speaker 1: really uh it had the reverse effect, did emboldened me.

513
00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:25,960
Speaker 1: Um and I but but there were plenty of There

514
00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:28,840
Speaker 1: were plenty of moments when I walked around that campus

515
00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:31,240
Speaker 1: and then probably some of the more controversial stuff I

516
00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:34,680
Speaker 1: did involved basketball. Um. It was also the year after

517
00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:40,879
Speaker 1: Bernie and Ernie and uh I Ray Meares was the coach.

518
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:43,920
Speaker 1: But but he had uh, he had he had gone

519
00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:47,880
Speaker 1: on leave. He had had some psychological problems and they

520
00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:52,040
Speaker 1: had an interim coach. And I wrote the Tennessee lost

521
00:27:52,040 --> 00:27:55,399
Speaker 1: a Georgia on a Saturday at home when Georgia at

522
00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:58,120
Speaker 1: the time was the worst team in the league. By

523
00:27:58,119 --> 00:27:59,440
Speaker 1: the way, not much as really yeah, and I was

524
00:27:59,440 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 1: gonna say uh and uh, and I wrote, I wrote

525
00:28:04,880 --> 00:28:10,960
Speaker 1: a column in the form of an obituary. It was

526
00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:13,720
Speaker 1: like just like you know, it said like balls nineteen

527
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:19,959
Speaker 1: o nine and it was we put black borders around it.

528
00:28:20,119 --> 00:28:24,520
Speaker 1: The Tennessee balls Uh died Saturday night. It was seventy

529
00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:26,800
Speaker 1: eight years old. Everything right out of an O bit

530
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:29,879
Speaker 1: and my last line I'll never forget, I said, you know,

531
00:28:30,040 --> 00:28:33,160
Speaker 1: and and and the and the school has requested uh

532
00:28:33,320 --> 00:28:36,679
Speaker 1: and in Louis Flowers all contributions to go to the

533
00:28:36,760 --> 00:28:42,480
Speaker 1: Lewton's cough Drop Company for future research on choking. And

534
00:28:44,040 --> 00:28:48,600
Speaker 1: I uh got a call that afternoon the basketball coach

535
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 1: wanted to see me, and I went over there and

536
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:55,240
Speaker 1: he slammed the door and he grabbed me by the

537
00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:57,720
Speaker 1: collar and threw me up against the wall and started

538
00:28:57,760 --> 00:28:59,920
Speaker 1: just he went crazy. I mean, these are the kind

539
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:03,240
Speaker 1: of things Clay that today, I mean, you you're your

540
00:29:03,400 --> 00:29:05,400
Speaker 1: your site would be on fire for a week, for

541
00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:10,800
Speaker 1: two weeks on um. But it was just, you know,

542
00:29:11,800 --> 00:29:14,080
Speaker 1: so it was just it was it was not that

543
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:17,040
Speaker 1: unusual for me to have a running like that. And

544
00:29:17,360 --> 00:29:21,320
Speaker 1: the school they decided to ban me from future travel

545
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:24,800
Speaker 1: as the sports editor of the school paper, which probably

546
00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:26,840
Speaker 1: hadn't happened before, right, I mean that had to be

547
00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:29,880
Speaker 1: kind of uh So did you take a perverse form

548
00:29:29,920 --> 00:29:36,080
Speaker 1: of pride in that? Well? Fortunately, Uh, an enterprising reporter

549
00:29:36,520 --> 00:29:39,240
Speaker 1: to Marvin West, who was a legendary reporter to the

550
00:29:39,360 --> 00:29:42,520
Speaker 1: Knoxville News Sentinel. Uh, he picked up on it and

551
00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:44,800
Speaker 1: did a big story on it, and it created a

552
00:29:44,800 --> 00:29:49,560
Speaker 1: lot of national news. So the school rescinded the ban. Um.

553
00:29:49,600 --> 00:29:53,920
Speaker 1: But I mean I knew then, Hey, this is what

554
00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:58,520
Speaker 1: I want to do. I mean, I'll never forget Woody Page. Uh.

555
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:04,360
Speaker 1: The legendary columnists and now TV pundit told uh. I

556
00:30:04,400 --> 00:30:07,120
Speaker 1: was told by I think it was Bud Ford, who

557
00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:10,200
Speaker 1: was a sports information was that sports information director at

558
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:12,400
Speaker 1: Tennessee for like two generations. I mean he was there

559
00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:16,440
Speaker 1: forty or fifty years. He told me that he said

560
00:30:16,440 --> 00:30:18,719
Speaker 1: what we always thought what he Page was the worst

561
00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:21,040
Speaker 1: person we've ever dealt with, he said, But you have

562
00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:24,280
Speaker 1: put him to shame. And the relationship between the the

563
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:26,600
Speaker 1: school paper, in the in the s I d. S Office,

564
00:30:26,640 --> 00:30:31,080
Speaker 1: I think had been set back fifteen years. Um. But so,

565
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:34,880
Speaker 1: needless to say, by the time I graduated, the the

566
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:38,960
Speaker 1: athletic department was not throwing me going going uh a

567
00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:43,600
Speaker 1: congratulatory graduation dinner. I mean there were some But well,

568
00:30:43,600 --> 00:30:46,760
Speaker 1: what it did, though, Clay, was it toughened me up.

569
00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:49,640
Speaker 1: It taught me a lot. And you talked about a

570
00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:54,160
Speaker 1: laboratory education in dealing with conflict. I had it. And

571
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:56,760
Speaker 1: you know, I learned how to show up at a

572
00:30:56,880 --> 00:30:59,800
Speaker 1: place when you could certainly write the book on this

573
00:30:59,840 --> 00:31:02,360
Speaker 1: times over, but when no one would talk to you,

574
00:31:02,480 --> 00:31:05,480
Speaker 1: when you were looked down on, and it it gave

575
00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 1: me a pretty good, uh primer on on what was

576
00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:13,080
Speaker 1: to come. You know what. It's a great lesson because, um,

577
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:16,080
Speaker 1: I wrote Dixie Land Delight without access to any press boxes.

578
00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:17,840
Speaker 1: And Bud bud Ford is a good guy. I mean,

579
00:31:17,840 --> 00:31:20,440
Speaker 1: he's got a lot of boss positive traits. But I

580
00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:22,880
Speaker 1: remember I wrote a column making fun you'll appreciate this

581
00:31:22,920 --> 00:31:27,200
Speaker 1: probably as well. Mississippi State, I think it was Alabama.

582
00:31:27,280 --> 00:31:32,320
Speaker 1: Alabama's season tickets they misspelled Mississippi on them. Right. Remember

583
00:31:32,360 --> 00:31:34,320
Speaker 1: this was probably like a decade. I've been twelve or

584
00:31:34,320 --> 00:31:36,680
Speaker 1: thirteen years ago. I don't remember the exact year, but

585
00:31:36,800 --> 00:31:40,600
Speaker 1: they misspelled Mississippi on the on the tickets, and I

586
00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:44,360
Speaker 1: wrote a column making fun of it. And uh, and

587
00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:46,400
Speaker 1: I you know, because I mean, let's be honest, I mean,

588
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:49,200
Speaker 1: the state of Alabama misspelling Mississippi on their season tickets

589
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:51,920
Speaker 1: and nobody noticing in the whole athletic department everything else.

590
00:31:52,080 --> 00:31:53,520
Speaker 1: I mean, one, it's a big swing and a miss,

591
00:31:53,560 --> 00:31:55,560
Speaker 1: but it's also funny, right, Like it's it was a

592
00:31:55,640 --> 00:31:58,400
Speaker 1: humor column. It wasn't like I was, you know, writing

593
00:31:58,400 --> 00:32:01,600
Speaker 1: a really serious piece. And uh, Bud emailed me and

594
00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:03,479
Speaker 1: he said, if you want to make a living in sports,

595
00:32:03,480 --> 00:32:06,200
Speaker 1: you can't make fun of people like this. Uh and

596
00:32:06,360 --> 00:32:08,040
Speaker 1: uh and he was like, and it makes you know,

597
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:11,040
Speaker 1: everybody question whether we should have any relationship with you

598
00:32:11,120 --> 00:32:13,200
Speaker 1: at all. And you know, I mean, the truth the

599
00:32:13,200 --> 00:32:15,000
Speaker 1: matter was. I mean, I've had a lot of those

600
00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:17,320
Speaker 1: kind of comments that have been made to me over

601
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:19,880
Speaker 1: the years. But I think the reason why people listen,

602
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:22,800
Speaker 1: or the reason why they read, is because you really

603
00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:24,560
Speaker 1: try not to pull punches. And I'm gonna get to

604
00:32:24,600 --> 00:32:26,800
Speaker 1: that in a little bit. You certainly have had your

605
00:32:26,920 --> 00:32:30,000
Speaker 1: fair share of incidents over the years too. But I

606
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:32,440
Speaker 1: want to go, so you graduate from Tennessee. You've set

607
00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:36,480
Speaker 1: back the relationship between the student newspaper and the athletics

608
00:32:36,520 --> 00:32:39,400
Speaker 1: program by fifteen years. How do you go about getting

609
00:32:39,400 --> 00:32:41,200
Speaker 1: your first job and how do you decide what you're

610
00:32:41,240 --> 00:32:43,800
Speaker 1: going to do? Well, Listen, I can tell you I

611
00:32:43,800 --> 00:32:46,040
Speaker 1: didn't have a lot of offers. Um I ended up

612
00:32:46,120 --> 00:32:49,440
Speaker 1: with UH. Some people tried to help me. There was

613
00:32:49,880 --> 00:32:53,920
Speaker 1: an old sports writer in Nashville that I've got to know,

614
00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:57,200
Speaker 1: a guy named Edgar Allen. He was at the Nashville Banner,

615
00:32:57,800 --> 00:33:00,680
Speaker 1: and he introduced me to a few people. UH. And

616
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:03,840
Speaker 1: another guy named Tom Siler, who was legendary and Knoxville,

617
00:33:04,360 --> 00:33:06,200
Speaker 1: tried to help me a little bit, even though I

618
00:33:06,240 --> 00:33:08,160
Speaker 1: mean there were people that liked what I was I

619
00:33:08,200 --> 00:33:14,000
Speaker 1: was doing, even though it was not necessarily uh acceptable.

620
00:33:14,520 --> 00:33:20,400
Speaker 1: So I ended up getting uh an offer from the Bristol, Tennessee,

621
00:33:21,080 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 1: Virginia whatever it is, Harold Courier and the Shreveport Times

622
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:31,120
Speaker 1: and or Journal whatever the name of the newspaper was

623
00:33:31,120 --> 00:33:34,200
Speaker 1: at the time. So I had two offers. Um I

624
00:33:34,280 --> 00:33:37,000
Speaker 1: really did I was. I debated it. I was. I was.

625
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:41,320
Speaker 1: I was very seriously involved with a young lady from Kingsport,

626
00:33:41,400 --> 00:33:43,920
Speaker 1: Tennessee at the time. And while that seemed like the

627
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:47,880
Speaker 1: logical decision, Clay, I don't know what prompted me not

628
00:33:47,920 --> 00:33:51,960
Speaker 1: to take it. UM. I knew by take by going

629
00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:56,560
Speaker 1: west to Shreveport, I was probably going to but but

630
00:33:56,600 --> 00:33:59,720
Speaker 1: I think it was just time. I couldn't see going

631
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:03,880
Speaker 1: through the college experience, um, and then living in East

632
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:08,920
Speaker 1: Tennessee and very likely, I mean almost positively marrying someone

633
00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:12,600
Speaker 1: from East Tennessee. UM. So I took the job in Shreport,

634
00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:17,200
Speaker 1: didn't know us al and uh I saw Knoxville, Tennessee

635
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:19,760
Speaker 1: in my rearview mirror. Do you remember what they paid

636
00:34:19,760 --> 00:34:23,160
Speaker 1: you to start in Shreport? Yes? I do. They paid

637
00:34:23,200 --> 00:34:27,400
Speaker 1: me one and thirty five dollars a week, one thirty

638
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:29,480
Speaker 1: five a week. And so you get down to Streeport.

639
00:34:29,520 --> 00:34:33,600
Speaker 1: If you bought a car by this point, uh, for

640
00:34:33,600 --> 00:34:41,759
Speaker 1: for graduation, wonderful late mom bought me a powder blue

641
00:34:41,920 --> 00:34:49,239
Speaker 1: Ford Maverick and and I I listened. I was emotionally

642
00:34:50,560 --> 00:34:52,400
Speaker 1: thrilled that she had done it. But as soon as

643
00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:54,200
Speaker 1: I got in the car, I'm like going, oh my goodness,

644
00:34:54,520 --> 00:34:57,200
Speaker 1: this car may not get me to Sport. How many

645
00:34:57,280 --> 00:35:00,200
Speaker 1: years old? How many years old was the college? It was? Was?

646
00:35:00,320 --> 00:35:03,479
Speaker 1: I don't it was definitely it was used. And knowing

647
00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:05,839
Speaker 1: my mother, I let her rest in peace. I mean

648
00:35:06,120 --> 00:35:09,759
Speaker 1: she got a bargain. Um, and it's it's it's bit

649
00:35:09,840 --> 00:35:14,200
Speaker 1: fire out of the back. Somebody wants not jumping. Someone

650
00:35:14,239 --> 00:35:17,160
Speaker 1: once ran into me in Birmingham when I had the car.

651
00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:19,960
Speaker 1: I didn't get a scratch, and I think they totaled

652
00:35:20,040 --> 00:35:23,719
Speaker 1: the car. I mean it was a literal take. Oh

653
00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:26,000
Speaker 1: it was. But you know what, I didn't care. I

654
00:35:26,320 --> 00:35:32,160
Speaker 1: got to I got to Shreveport, uh and uh graduated college.

655
00:35:32,160 --> 00:35:34,440
Speaker 1: I was. I mean it was I was just glad

656
00:35:34,480 --> 00:35:36,600
Speaker 1: to get out of there. Um, I really was. It

657
00:35:36,680 --> 00:35:39,400
Speaker 1: was time to start something new. So what do you

658
00:35:39,440 --> 00:35:43,719
Speaker 1: cover in everything? Uh? That was the great part about

659
00:35:43,719 --> 00:35:46,120
Speaker 1: the job. It was one of these places that you

660
00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:49,600
Speaker 1: go and you do everything. It was. It was an

661
00:35:49,600 --> 00:35:52,640
Speaker 1: afternoon paper when I started, and you get there at

662
00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:54,719
Speaker 1: four in the morning. You know, you do the deskwork,

663
00:35:54,800 --> 00:35:59,160
Speaker 1: you do whatever there is to do. I covered uh

664
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:02,000
Speaker 1: in my am I pretty much my first and only

665
00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:06,320
Speaker 1: year there, I covered. I started covering some Cowboys games

666
00:36:06,320 --> 00:36:09,080
Speaker 1: and exhibition games. I covered. Uh. They sent me to

667
00:36:09,080 --> 00:36:13,080
Speaker 1: New Orleans for the uh Muhammad Ali's last championship win,

668
00:36:13,640 --> 00:36:17,600
Speaker 1: which was unbelievable. Uh. While you're there grabbing grab an

669
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:19,520
Speaker 1: l A shoe game, grab a Saints game. I mean

670
00:36:19,520 --> 00:36:22,160
Speaker 1: it was it was like right out of some old

671
00:36:22,400 --> 00:36:25,960
Speaker 1: newspaper movie. So, I mean, I I primarily covered l

672
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 1: A shoe but I but I covered some pro football

673
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:31,600
Speaker 1: as well, and uh yeah, I had a blast. I

674
00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:33,640
Speaker 1: mean I didn't know what I was doing, but I

675
00:36:33,680 --> 00:36:36,160
Speaker 1: was learning on the job and it was a great

676
00:36:36,160 --> 00:36:38,800
Speaker 1: experience for me. So how many articles are you writing?

677
00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:41,160
Speaker 1: How many articles a week would you be doing at that?

678
00:36:42,239 --> 00:36:45,279
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm literally churning stuff out. I mean there

679
00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:47,080
Speaker 1: was this. I mean, by the I didn't know anyone.

680
00:36:47,560 --> 00:36:49,960
Speaker 1: Uh this will become as a big surprise. But not

681
00:36:50,040 --> 00:36:53,640
Speaker 1: long after my move there the the girl in in

682
00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:58,920
Speaker 1: Kingsport dumped me. Um, she dumped me for like the

683
00:36:58,920 --> 00:37:02,800
Speaker 1: the the guy who the adviser to the the annual.

684
00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:06,279
Speaker 1: I hope she's happy. So she called you. She called

685
00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:09,640
Speaker 1: you on the phone. Let me tell you this story.

686
00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:13,160
Speaker 1: This is one of my favorite stories that I never tell. Um.

687
00:37:13,280 --> 00:37:16,360
Speaker 1: She came to see me once. Um, maybe maybe twice,

688
00:37:16,400 --> 00:37:18,800
Speaker 1: I can't remember, but I mean the first time was great.

689
00:37:18,840 --> 00:37:21,759
Speaker 1: She spent a week or two and uh but I

690
00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:23,279
Speaker 1: think she took a look. She took a look at

691
00:37:23,280 --> 00:37:26,080
Speaker 1: this apartment of mine and my lifestyle, and so there's

692
00:37:26,080 --> 00:37:28,839
Speaker 1: no way. Uh so she came back again. I could

693
00:37:28,840 --> 00:37:33,759
Speaker 1: tell things. We're you just kind of knew. So I

694
00:37:33,840 --> 00:37:35,880
Speaker 1: get I get a letter. I mean this. This is

695
00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:38,120
Speaker 1: just think about this. You get a letter, I mean

696
00:37:38,239 --> 00:37:39,960
Speaker 1: you hear about the Dear John letter. I got a

697
00:37:40,040 --> 00:37:43,640
Speaker 1: letter from her saying, you know, she really hated to

698
00:37:43,680 --> 00:37:46,920
Speaker 1: write this, you know, put it in writing. Um, but

699
00:37:47,239 --> 00:37:54,080
Speaker 1: she was moving on. She had teun someone new and

700
00:37:54,160 --> 00:37:56,200
Speaker 1: that we were done. Well you're laughing now, but I

701
00:37:56,200 --> 00:37:57,799
Speaker 1: bet when you got it you were like, oh, my

702
00:37:57,840 --> 00:38:01,360
Speaker 1: life is over because I remember it. I remember to

703
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:04,280
Speaker 1: this day. It was in October morning, during football season.

704
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:07,560
Speaker 1: I'm still making a hundred and may I may be

705
00:38:07,680 --> 00:38:11,759
Speaker 1: up to one forty a week now, I'm not sure. Um.

706
00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:15,960
Speaker 1: I was distraught. Uh, we put the newspaper out. She

707
00:38:16,040 --> 00:38:18,439
Speaker 1: sent it to the newspaper for whatever reason. I don't

708
00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:20,839
Speaker 1: know why. I mean just I mean, let's let's make

709
00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:26,520
Speaker 1: this as informal as possible. And UM I went I

710
00:38:26,560 --> 00:38:29,480
Speaker 1: went home to call her because I was so I mean,

711
00:38:29,520 --> 00:38:32,720
Speaker 1: I didn't I mean yeah, I wasn't smart enough to

712
00:38:32,840 --> 00:38:35,400
Speaker 1: see this one coming, even though I did so I

713
00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:40,359
Speaker 1: got I got home to my duplex apartment and by

714
00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:43,359
Speaker 1: the way, I kid you not, I uh, the upstairs was.

715
00:38:43,800 --> 00:38:46,520
Speaker 1: This was right as the fall of the Ayatola had

716
00:38:46,560 --> 00:38:50,320
Speaker 1: fallen in Iran, and my My next door neighbor was

717
00:38:50,360 --> 00:38:57,000
Speaker 1: an Iranian exchange student and he uh. So I got home.

718
00:38:57,360 --> 00:39:00,520
Speaker 1: I Uh. The first thing I did was get a

719
00:39:00,520 --> 00:39:03,200
Speaker 1: glass of water from the from the from the sink.

720
00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:12,200
Speaker 1: This was before model water. My water spiga didn't work. Um.

721
00:39:12,320 --> 00:39:17,040
Speaker 1: I grabbed the phone to call my girlfriend in East

722
00:39:17,040 --> 00:39:20,799
Speaker 1: Tennessee and my phone was didn't work. It had been disconnected.

723
00:39:20,880 --> 00:39:24,520
Speaker 1: My water had been disconnected, and you know, and finally

724
00:39:24,560 --> 00:39:28,239
Speaker 1: I turned on the TV. Uh, and it had been

725
00:39:28,239 --> 00:39:32,520
Speaker 1: my power had been turned off. You had power, the

726
00:39:32,600 --> 00:39:36,959
Speaker 1: water or the phone bill. Everything in my life ended

727
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:43,480
Speaker 1: that day. It was all shut off. And I finally, Uh,

728
00:39:43,600 --> 00:39:46,000
Speaker 1: I went back to work and called my mother and

729
00:39:46,040 --> 00:39:50,120
Speaker 1: told her I needed some money pretty desperately. Um. And

730
00:39:50,160 --> 00:39:52,640
Speaker 1: so I got everything turned back on fairly quickly. UM.

731
00:39:52,719 --> 00:39:57,040
Speaker 1: But that was it. The lady uh at the time

732
00:39:57,160 --> 00:39:59,760
Speaker 1: she married the guy, and I sent her note wishing

733
00:39:59,760 --> 00:40:03,120
Speaker 1: her and I not seen her or heard from her since. UM.

734
00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:05,719
Speaker 1: But yeah, it was It was quite a It was

735
00:40:05,800 --> 00:40:08,600
Speaker 1: quite a start to my my professional life in Shreveport.

736
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:11,320
Speaker 1: That was a really Uh. It's kind of hard to

737
00:40:11,400 --> 00:40:15,239
Speaker 1: hit more rock bottom than that. So you're in Streport,

738
00:40:15,280 --> 00:40:18,320
Speaker 1: You're there for a year, Uh, you've let your your power,

739
00:40:18,520 --> 00:40:23,080
Speaker 1: your your electricity, your phone, your water, everything's dying. You're

740
00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:25,600
Speaker 1: making a hundred and thirty five or forty dollars a week.

741
00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:27,920
Speaker 1: What happens? How do you get Because for people out

742
00:40:27,920 --> 00:40:30,080
Speaker 1: there who may not be familiar, the idea was from

743
00:40:30,080 --> 00:40:33,799
Speaker 1: a writing perspective. You want to continue to climb sort

744
00:40:33,800 --> 00:40:36,200
Speaker 1: of the newspaper food chain. Right, you're a young guy,

745
00:40:36,239 --> 00:40:37,759
Speaker 1: You're on the up and up, like you don't have

746
00:40:37,800 --> 00:40:40,719
Speaker 1: any real connection to Shreveport. How do you move from

747
00:40:40,719 --> 00:40:44,439
Speaker 1: Shreeport to the next level, so to speak of your career? Well,

748
00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:47,400
Speaker 1: the great thing is, uh, there were so many opportunities,

749
00:40:47,440 --> 00:40:50,640
Speaker 1: and I broke a couple of big, big investigative stories.

750
00:40:50,719 --> 00:40:54,279
Speaker 1: I I ran into Howard co cell Clay at a

751
00:40:54,280 --> 00:40:56,680
Speaker 1: at a Monday night game in Dallas and ended up

752
00:40:56,719 --> 00:40:59,719
Speaker 1: doing uh this was pre Quay Travis, but you were

753
00:40:59,800 --> 00:41:01,920
Speaker 1: have I hung around him for about a half hour

754
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:05,399
Speaker 1: forty minutes and then did a did an opus off

755
00:41:05,480 --> 00:41:08,319
Speaker 1: based on that. Uh that won me some award, So

756
00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:10,799
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's a classic case. I started getting

757
00:41:10,840 --> 00:41:14,279
Speaker 1: noticed and I started looking for a job because I

758
00:41:14,360 --> 00:41:16,200
Speaker 1: knew that I could not spend too much more time

759
00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:21,640
Speaker 1: in Shreveport, and I finally UH had some A lot

760
00:41:21,680 --> 00:41:25,840
Speaker 1: of my friends from college had had gravitated Birmingham and

761
00:41:26,239 --> 00:41:29,879
Speaker 1: there was an opening. And finally, after about a year,

762
00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:33,240
Speaker 1: I got I got a job in Birmingham, which UH

763
00:41:33,840 --> 00:41:35,840
Speaker 1: was pretty I'm telling you what it was pretty. I

764
00:41:35,840 --> 00:41:38,440
Speaker 1: felt like I was back home when I when I

765
00:41:38,480 --> 00:41:43,359
Speaker 1: pulled the Ford Maverick into Birmingham, Alabama. So you get

766
00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:45,720
Speaker 1: to Birmingham, and at that point in time, you're twenty

767
00:41:45,760 --> 00:41:48,560
Speaker 1: three four years old, I'm assuming and your thought is

768
00:41:48,840 --> 00:41:50,919
Speaker 1: I'm only going to be in Birmingham for how long?

769
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:52,719
Speaker 1: If I had told you're gonna be in a Birmingham

770
00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:54,919
Speaker 1: for three years, would you have been disappointed? Or would

771
00:41:54,960 --> 00:41:58,000
Speaker 1: you have already wanted to move on to another place? Clay,

772
00:41:58,080 --> 00:42:00,959
Speaker 1: I would have been mortified. Who have been there three years?

773
00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:04,239
Speaker 1: I had a goal that if I wasn't at the

774
00:42:04,239 --> 00:42:07,600
Speaker 1: New York Times by thirty, my life was a complete failure.

775
00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:12,560
Speaker 1: And I at this point UH started. I had met

776
00:42:12,600 --> 00:42:19,640
Speaker 1: a lot of people. UH was making contacts UM and

777
00:42:19,719 --> 00:42:22,040
Speaker 1: not long after I got to Birmingham. I mean, I

778
00:42:22,040 --> 00:42:26,120
Speaker 1: had sent out so many resumes that I mean it

779
00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:29,359
Speaker 1: had to hit eventually, and it wasn't long after I

780
00:42:29,400 --> 00:42:33,480
Speaker 1: was in Birmingham. I got an offer from a tabloid

781
00:42:33,520 --> 00:42:40,200
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia, and uh, I thought, my my, but I'll

782
00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:42,759
Speaker 1: shorten the story. I got up there, and uh, I

783
00:42:42,760 --> 00:42:45,000
Speaker 1: asked the I asked the cab driver. I said, the

784
00:42:45,040 --> 00:42:47,520
Speaker 1: name of the newspaper was the Philadelphia Journal. I mean,

785
00:42:47,520 --> 00:42:50,520
Speaker 1: back then every town had three or four newspapers, especially

786
00:42:50,560 --> 00:42:53,320
Speaker 1: the big cities. And he's, oh, that's a great newspaper.

787
00:42:53,560 --> 00:42:55,120
Speaker 1: I said, really, what do you like about that? You know,

788
00:42:55,160 --> 00:42:58,400
Speaker 1: they showed the show Women's Boobs on the front stage,

789
00:42:58,520 --> 00:43:03,200
Speaker 1: and like, you know, I'm going anyway. I at this.

790
00:43:03,520 --> 00:43:06,319
Speaker 1: I mean, they offered to triple my salary and I

791
00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:08,560
Speaker 1: turned it down. I mean, I think that was the

792
00:43:08,600 --> 00:43:13,200
Speaker 1: moment when I started thinking, Uh, I began being pragmatic

793
00:43:13,239 --> 00:43:15,560
Speaker 1: about my career. People thought I was insane, but I

794
00:43:15,640 --> 00:43:19,240
Speaker 1: knew in the bottom of deep down the paper folded

795
00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:21,759
Speaker 1: in six months. So I made a good decision there.

796
00:43:21,800 --> 00:43:23,759
Speaker 1: But I still did not want to stay stay too

797
00:43:23,840 --> 00:43:27,400
Speaker 1: long in Birmingham, and and uh I didn't waste a

798
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:29,160
Speaker 1: lot of time. I got off to a pretty fast

799
00:43:29,239 --> 00:43:33,400
Speaker 1: start there and got involved about about a year and

800
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:35,879
Speaker 1: a half. About a year in on an investigative story

801
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:39,040
Speaker 1: about a high school player in Huntsville that was bought

802
00:43:39,080 --> 00:43:44,080
Speaker 1: by Alabama. Did I say that that was allegedly bought

803
00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:48,040
Speaker 1: by Yeah, yeah, that would be unbelievable. With Alabama, it

804
00:43:48,160 --> 00:43:53,800
Speaker 1: became a massive story. Uh that Uh that turned around

805
00:43:53,880 --> 00:43:56,239
Speaker 1: to win me every award. I mean, but I had

806
00:43:56,239 --> 00:43:57,759
Speaker 1: a partner on the story. I don't want to like

807
00:43:57,800 --> 00:44:00,799
Speaker 1: it was all mine. But that was more than more

808
00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:02,799
Speaker 1: than anything just to keep me out of trouble. It

809
00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:06,279
Speaker 1: was the more the elder statesman of the newspaper. And uh,

810
00:44:06,320 --> 00:44:09,040
Speaker 1: I mean I Clay, I mean at this age, Uh,

811
00:44:09,280 --> 00:44:11,400
Speaker 1: I mean, I was, I was, I was. I was

812
00:44:11,440 --> 00:44:14,640
Speaker 1: a hurricane walking into any any any office building, any

813
00:44:14,640 --> 00:44:19,600
Speaker 1: any d a's office, any anybody's office. And uh the

814
00:44:19,680 --> 00:44:24,000
Speaker 1: story won all the Alabama Awards, won all the regional awards, Sigama,

815
00:44:24,080 --> 00:44:27,440
Speaker 1: Sigma Delta Kai Awards, and it won all the national

816
00:44:27,560 --> 00:44:30,759
Speaker 1: ap AP Sports Editor Awards. And when you win those

817
00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:33,200
Speaker 1: awards back in the day, you you are going to

818
00:44:33,280 --> 00:44:37,880
Speaker 1: get a good job. So. Uh it not only did

819
00:44:37,960 --> 00:44:41,080
Speaker 1: it create a lot of attention, it also got a

820
00:44:41,160 --> 00:44:46,319
Speaker 1: sued um so and this is important. The principal at

821
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:49,520
Speaker 1: the high school. Uh, tried to bow out before we

822
00:44:49,560 --> 00:44:52,080
Speaker 1: wrote the next story. He got a job in Texas

823
00:44:52,320 --> 00:44:54,400
Speaker 1: and then our story came out, so they would they

824
00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:57,680
Speaker 1: were threw the offer, and he did what anybody would

825
00:44:57,719 --> 00:45:00,799
Speaker 1: do to try to say face. He sued us, Well,

826
00:45:00,920 --> 00:45:03,000
Speaker 1: not a big deal because nobody really thought he had

827
00:45:03,040 --> 00:45:05,680
Speaker 1: a case except I had a lawsuit against me. So

828
00:45:05,719 --> 00:45:07,759
Speaker 1: I win these all. I win these AP awards. I

829
00:45:07,760 --> 00:45:10,160
Speaker 1: get a call from on a Friday night from the

830
00:45:10,280 --> 00:45:15,600
Speaker 1: Philadelphia Inquirer. Uh, there were the Economy is Bad and

831
00:45:15,640 --> 00:45:21,000
Speaker 1: the and the sports editor guy named Jay Cercys from Tennessee. Um.

832
00:45:21,120 --> 00:45:24,000
Speaker 1: He calls me, says, uh, we we we saw you

833
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:25,799
Speaker 1: won all these awards. We've read your stuff. We think

834
00:45:25,840 --> 00:45:28,000
Speaker 1: you're great. What what's what are the odds of you

835
00:45:28,040 --> 00:45:30,799
Speaker 1: getting up here on a Monday and let's you know,

836
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:33,320
Speaker 1: get you in here. Uh, We're about to hit a

837
00:45:33,400 --> 00:45:35,279
Speaker 1: hiring freeze. I'd like to get you under the gun.

838
00:45:35,400 --> 00:45:38,600
Speaker 1: I said, you got it, Clay, Do you have any

839
00:45:38,719 --> 00:45:39,839
Speaker 1: Do you have any I do what it's like at

840
00:45:39,840 --> 00:45:42,680
Speaker 1: this age to pretty much. I mean he offered me

841
00:45:42,719 --> 00:45:44,800
Speaker 1: the job to have an offer from the Philadelphia Inquirer.

842
00:45:45,160 --> 00:45:47,240
Speaker 1: After going through what I've been through in my career.

843
00:45:48,120 --> 00:45:50,319
Speaker 1: I can't I can't imagine how excited you are. I mean,

844
00:45:51,040 --> 00:45:53,040
Speaker 1: you get the call on Friday and they want you

845
00:45:53,080 --> 00:45:55,799
Speaker 1: there by Monday to start. Basically, it was uh, it was.

846
00:45:55,840 --> 00:45:57,840
Speaker 1: I mean, I went out with my buddies. It was

847
00:45:57,880 --> 00:46:01,719
Speaker 1: the greatest night of my career. And I think, you

848
00:46:01,760 --> 00:46:05,360
Speaker 1: know what's about to happen, don't you. Um. On Sunday,

849
00:46:05,440 --> 00:46:08,440
Speaker 1: I'm packed and ready to go, and I've got this

850
00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:12,839
Speaker 1: relationship and this poor girl is all distraught because I'm

851
00:46:12,880 --> 00:46:16,440
Speaker 1: about to head to Philadelphia. Get a call. It's Jay Sarcey.

852
00:46:16,880 --> 00:46:20,279
Speaker 1: He said, hey, Paul, Jay, I said, yeah, yeah, he said,

853
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:24,760
Speaker 1: we've got to change the plans. Um he had discovered

854
00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:26,560
Speaker 1: the lawsuit. Now, by the way, should I have told

855
00:46:26,640 --> 00:46:28,960
Speaker 1: him that the lawsuit? Yeah? Maybe I should have, but

856
00:46:29,080 --> 00:46:31,960
Speaker 1: I didn't, he said, And you know I tried to.

857
00:46:32,040 --> 00:46:34,520
Speaker 1: You don't want to stop somebody from hiring you, right,

858
00:46:34,560 --> 00:46:36,520
Speaker 1: That's what you always say. It's always better to beg

859
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:39,440
Speaker 1: for forgiveness. Then, so yeah, I'm not surprised you didn't say.

860
00:46:39,440 --> 00:46:42,759
Speaker 1: And oh, by the way, I'm getting sued. So I hang,

861
00:46:42,920 --> 00:46:48,560
Speaker 1: I hang up the phone, and my life was over

862
00:46:49,200 --> 00:46:54,520
Speaker 1: that It was literally over. Uh, and I don't know

863
00:46:55,600 --> 00:47:00,000
Speaker 1: at that moment if I ever got another legitimate newspaper off.

864
00:47:00,360 --> 00:47:03,359
Speaker 1: And because it took about an year and a half

865
00:47:03,480 --> 00:47:07,960
Speaker 1: to adjudicate this this lawsuit, we went to trial, we

866
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:11,680
Speaker 1: won the case. It ended up being a significant, uh

867
00:47:11,719 --> 00:47:14,920
Speaker 1: a significant victory for the newspaper business. I mean we

868
00:47:14,960 --> 00:47:17,520
Speaker 1: had we had the money we spent on lawyers was

869
00:47:17,520 --> 00:47:20,600
Speaker 1: was in calculable. We had the top label lawyer in

870
00:47:20,600 --> 00:47:22,719
Speaker 1: New York, the top label lawyer. And when we won

871
00:47:22,800 --> 00:47:25,920
Speaker 1: on enemy and enemy territory. But the day afterwards, my career,

872
00:47:25,960 --> 00:47:28,520
Speaker 1: I mean I was damaged. Good. So I've been through

873
00:47:28,520 --> 00:47:31,360
Speaker 1: a lawsuit. Uh did you get on the way to

874
00:47:31,400 --> 00:47:35,080
Speaker 1: stand at the at the trial? Absolutely yeah, and cross

875
00:47:35,120 --> 00:47:37,640
Speaker 1: examined and everything. Oh yeah, And you know it was

876
00:47:37,880 --> 00:47:39,400
Speaker 1: you know, we won the case, and it was I

877
00:47:39,400 --> 00:47:41,319
Speaker 1: mean it was a big deal to win back then.

878
00:47:41,320 --> 00:47:44,120
Speaker 1: I mean every newspaper in the country back then was

879
00:47:44,120 --> 00:47:45,719
Speaker 1: was was following it. I mean it was in all

880
00:47:45,760 --> 00:47:49,480
Speaker 1: the papers. Uh. And but but I was as good

881
00:47:49,480 --> 00:47:52,680
Speaker 1: as dead. And a couple of months later, the newspaper

882
00:47:53,280 --> 00:47:56,080
Speaker 1: made me a columnist, figuring that they had spent enough

883
00:47:56,080 --> 00:47:59,080
Speaker 1: money on my reporting. Um, but you know what, it's

884
00:47:59,120 --> 00:48:02,440
Speaker 1: it's like the old uh cliche. Uh. You know, the

885
00:48:02,480 --> 00:48:05,399
Speaker 1: allegations are on the front page, and when they when

886
00:48:05,440 --> 00:48:07,520
Speaker 1: they clear your name, it's on the it's on the food,

887
00:48:07,520 --> 00:48:11,240
Speaker 1: it's on the it's it's inside the one edge section.

888
00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:13,400
Speaker 1: I mean, I get realized nobody reached newspapers anymore. But

889
00:48:13,440 --> 00:48:15,560
Speaker 1: this is the way it used to be said. And

890
00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:19,080
Speaker 1: by the time we were cleared, uh, my career had

891
00:48:19,080 --> 00:48:24,719
Speaker 1: cooled off and things were changing too. At the same

892
00:48:24,760 --> 00:48:28,360
Speaker 1: time contemporating as to this Bear Bryant was was the

893
00:48:28,400 --> 00:48:32,120
Speaker 1: result was retiring and and everything else was was wasn't

894
00:48:32,239 --> 00:48:36,520
Speaker 1: was in was in constant motion. But yeah, my newspaper career,

895
00:48:36,520 --> 00:48:39,799
Speaker 1: we've had such great hopes and dreams of being at

896
00:48:39,800 --> 00:48:43,520
Speaker 1: the Times or who knows where else. Was over. I

897
00:48:43,560 --> 00:48:46,239
Speaker 1: want to go back to a couple of things here. One,

898
00:48:46,320 --> 00:48:49,880
Speaker 1: when you write a story about Alabama allegedly paying a

899
00:48:49,920 --> 00:48:52,719
Speaker 1: player and it goes out in the newspaper, you have

900
00:48:52,880 --> 00:48:55,680
Speaker 1: to get a lot of negative blowback because those stories

901
00:48:55,680 --> 00:48:58,000
Speaker 1: still provoke a ton and I think there are a

902
00:48:58,040 --> 00:49:00,800
Speaker 1: lot of listeners out there that probably would and even understand,

903
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:03,160
Speaker 1: particularly if they're not in the South and they're listening

904
00:49:03,200 --> 00:49:06,520
Speaker 1: to this right now. How persona non grata you are

905
00:49:06,640 --> 00:49:11,120
Speaker 1: to write a story like that in the local newspaper. Uh,

906
00:49:11,160 --> 00:49:14,880
Speaker 1: pretty bad. I mean it was dangerous and uh you

907
00:49:14,920 --> 00:49:17,960
Speaker 1: know we I mean as as the story was coming

908
00:49:18,000 --> 00:49:22,600
Speaker 1: off the press, there were a bunch of Alabama attorneys,

909
00:49:22,840 --> 00:49:26,319
Speaker 1: uh literally outside by the by the loading dock, ready

910
00:49:26,360 --> 00:49:28,239
Speaker 1: for the you know, get the newspaper. Again, this is

911
00:49:28,239 --> 00:49:31,240
Speaker 1: in the eighties. There's no internet. I mean you literally

912
00:49:31,280 --> 00:49:34,799
Speaker 1: had to read the newspaper. And it was it was

913
00:49:35,360 --> 00:49:37,719
Speaker 1: by the way. Uh, Paul Bryant was still alive and

914
00:49:37,840 --> 00:49:42,120
Speaker 1: was the athletic director at Alabama, and so it was.

915
00:49:43,680 --> 00:49:47,120
Speaker 1: It was a very The player involved went to Alabama.

916
00:49:47,160 --> 00:49:49,440
Speaker 1: He suited us too, but we were told that Brian

917
00:49:49,520 --> 00:49:51,520
Speaker 1: told him to drop the lawsuit because he didn't want

918
00:49:51,719 --> 00:49:56,279
Speaker 1: the university to post uh and and it but what

919
00:49:56,400 --> 00:49:58,400
Speaker 1: it did the I mean at the time, I started

920
00:49:58,400 --> 00:50:00,600
Speaker 1: looking at other things as well. Uh, I mean know

921
00:50:00,680 --> 00:50:04,120
Speaker 1: it was it was a fairly difficult time for me. Um,

922
00:50:04,320 --> 00:50:06,640
Speaker 1: I could go to a I could go to an

923
00:50:06,680 --> 00:50:11,279
Speaker 1: Alabama and back then they used to the media would

924
00:50:11,320 --> 00:50:13,960
Speaker 1: go to the dorm at Alabama and Auburn and other

925
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:16,800
Speaker 1: schools Clay and you'd have lunch. I would. I would

926
00:50:16,800 --> 00:50:21,399
Speaker 1: walk in there and not forget the administration. There wasn't

927
00:50:21,440 --> 00:50:25,560
Speaker 1: another sportswriter that would speak to me. Uh. It's not

928
00:50:25,680 --> 00:50:28,400
Speaker 1: like the rest of the media back back the newspaper

929
00:50:28,480 --> 00:50:30,759
Speaker 1: up on this. I mean I was. I was as

930
00:50:30,840 --> 00:50:33,279
Speaker 1: much of an outcast in the media as I was

931
00:50:33,320 --> 00:50:36,000
Speaker 1: in the public. Well. I think that's what people a

932
00:50:36,000 --> 00:50:39,720
Speaker 1: lot of don't understand is there is a great deal

933
00:50:39,920 --> 00:50:44,239
Speaker 1: of power in these local universities, right and uh, and

934
00:50:44,360 --> 00:50:48,279
Speaker 1: if you stand up to them at all, they'll ostracize you.

935
00:50:48,480 --> 00:50:52,680
Speaker 1: And it's not just being ostracized by the university. It's

936
00:50:52,719 --> 00:50:55,040
Speaker 1: that other media members will feel like, oh, I don't

937
00:50:55,080 --> 00:50:57,120
Speaker 1: even really want to be in that club, right, Like

938
00:50:57,160 --> 00:50:58,680
Speaker 1: I don't want to be in the Fine Bomb club

939
00:50:58,760 --> 00:50:59,800
Speaker 1: right now, or I don't want to be in the

940
00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:02,560
Speaker 1: Travis club or whatever it is. If you have been

941
00:51:02,560 --> 00:51:05,840
Speaker 1: particularly critical in a negative way, it's like the university

942
00:51:05,920 --> 00:51:08,280
Speaker 1: is a kingdom and you have just spurned the kingdom,

943
00:51:08,400 --> 00:51:13,959
Speaker 1: right Yeah, And so, I mean, I will tell you though,

944
00:51:14,000 --> 00:51:17,759
Speaker 1: it was such a such a great learning experience though,

945
00:51:17,760 --> 00:51:21,279
Speaker 1: because I mean you you you begin to walk in

946
00:51:21,400 --> 00:51:23,680
Speaker 1: rooms like a secret service man. You're you're looking at

947
00:51:23,719 --> 00:51:27,040
Speaker 1: every corner you're you're watching. You learn a lot of

948
00:51:27,120 --> 00:51:33,160
Speaker 1: interpersonal communications, how to deal with various people. And it

949
00:51:33,320 --> 00:51:37,000
Speaker 1: was it was. It was a great experience because I

950
00:51:37,040 --> 00:51:40,160
Speaker 1: also learned how fickle that the media can be. Clay.

951
00:51:40,200 --> 00:51:42,719
Speaker 1: This sounds predictable today after all the things you've said

952
00:51:42,760 --> 00:51:47,960
Speaker 1: about the media, uh in your platforms, But uh, they are.

953
00:51:48,120 --> 00:51:51,600
Speaker 1: They were a pack in a call back then and

954
00:51:51,880 --> 00:51:55,680
Speaker 1: in many ways they still are. But uh, it was

955
00:51:55,800 --> 00:51:57,960
Speaker 1: it was alone in the existence. But I got a

956
00:51:57,960 --> 00:52:02,560
Speaker 1: lot tougher and it helped prepare me for really anything

957
00:52:02,600 --> 00:52:06,000
Speaker 1: that that was to come. What was it like covering

958
00:52:06,040 --> 00:52:11,160
Speaker 1: Bear Bryant. It was fascinating because even at the end

959
00:52:11,160 --> 00:52:15,560
Speaker 1: of his career, he was he was just such a big,

960
00:52:15,760 --> 00:52:18,520
Speaker 1: larger than life figure. We hadn't think at the at

961
00:52:18,520 --> 00:52:22,920
Speaker 1: the newspaper. Uh Bryant read the morning newspaper. It was

962
00:52:22,960 --> 00:52:26,439
Speaker 1: his paper in Tuscaloosa, so he cared what was said

963
00:52:26,480 --> 00:52:29,480
Speaker 1: in there. And we had every Monday during the football season,

964
00:52:29,920 --> 00:52:32,520
Speaker 1: we had a Q and A with him. So I

965
00:52:32,560 --> 00:52:37,160
Speaker 1: would call Bear Bryant every Monday or whatever designated time,

966
00:52:37,239 --> 00:52:39,120
Speaker 1: and you know, talk to him for ten minutes and

967
00:52:39,120 --> 00:52:40,840
Speaker 1: and do you have any idea what's that like to

968
00:52:40,840 --> 00:52:42,520
Speaker 1: go out to go out to lunch with your buddies.

969
00:52:43,000 --> 00:52:45,560
Speaker 1: You're sitting there, uh and you just say, oh, yeah,

970
00:52:45,600 --> 00:52:47,360
Speaker 1: I talked to coach Bryant today. I mean, all of

971
00:52:47,400 --> 00:52:51,040
Speaker 1: a sudden, it was the whole restaurant would stand up.

972
00:52:51,320 --> 00:52:54,000
Speaker 1: I didn't know him very well. I mean he clearly

973
00:52:54,080 --> 00:52:56,200
Speaker 1: knew me by this point because of some of the

974
00:52:56,239 --> 00:53:00,520
Speaker 1: investigative work. Um, but he was cordial, he was he

975
00:53:00,600 --> 00:53:03,439
Speaker 1: was friendly. I mean he was kind of hard to hear,

976
00:53:04,120 --> 00:53:08,760
Speaker 1: uh to understand his words at times. But but covering

977
00:53:08,840 --> 00:53:12,920
Speaker 1: him for two years was was was a remarkable experience,

978
00:53:13,320 --> 00:53:16,800
Speaker 1: especially at the end. Were you a part of the

979
00:53:16,840 --> 00:53:20,080
Speaker 1: skywriters as well? Um, you know the guys who would

980
00:53:20,080 --> 00:53:22,960
Speaker 1: get on airplanes and fly around and go instead of

981
00:53:23,000 --> 00:53:25,960
Speaker 1: like the SEC media days which they have now. In July,

982
00:53:26,520 --> 00:53:28,279
Speaker 1: I just had it in Atlanta, going to have it

983
00:53:28,320 --> 00:53:31,040
Speaker 1: in Birmingham, you know where all the coaches come by

984
00:53:31,080 --> 00:53:33,960
Speaker 1: and talk about their their new teams. I understand you

985
00:53:33,960 --> 00:53:36,360
Speaker 1: guys used to hop on planes and go around to

986
00:53:36,400 --> 00:53:39,239
Speaker 1: all the different campuses and file articles from there. Did

987
00:53:39,239 --> 00:53:42,040
Speaker 1: you ever partake in that? No, A friend of mine

988
00:53:42,600 --> 00:53:44,799
Speaker 1: is working on a documentary on that. I would love

989
00:53:44,880 --> 00:53:48,600
Speaker 1: to see that. The stories that I've heard are phenomenal. Yeah,

990
00:53:48,640 --> 00:53:52,839
Speaker 1: I came my boss was on that was on the skywriters.

991
00:53:53,560 --> 00:53:56,440
Speaker 1: Uh so, Uh, I knew about it. And and and

992
00:53:56,760 --> 00:53:59,399
Speaker 1: even even though this is a podcast where there's there

993
00:53:59,440 --> 00:54:01,920
Speaker 1: there there are, there's still no sense that there's no censering.

994
00:54:02,239 --> 00:54:04,680
Speaker 1: I wouldn't begin to talk publicly about the stories I've

995
00:54:04,719 --> 00:54:11,400
Speaker 1: heard called believable. Yeah, no, there Uh, there's still living

996
00:54:11,440 --> 00:54:14,200
Speaker 1: relatives out there, and I just don't think it's fair

997
00:54:14,239 --> 00:54:18,799
Speaker 1: to anyone to uh. And it involves way too many people. Oh,

998
00:54:18,840 --> 00:54:20,879
Speaker 1: I mean coaches like the coach would just walk out

999
00:54:20,920 --> 00:54:23,640
Speaker 1: with a whiskey bottle and say, all right, what questions

1000
00:54:23,680 --> 00:54:26,359
Speaker 1: you got, let's get drunk, right. I mean basically, it

1001
00:54:27,640 --> 00:54:29,960
Speaker 1: was a crazy party. It would make a great it

1002
00:54:29,960 --> 00:54:33,239
Speaker 1: would make a great thirty thirty. I and I, through

1003
00:54:33,320 --> 00:54:35,480
Speaker 1: my friend, I've tried to get ESPN. I'm interested in it.

1004
00:54:35,560 --> 00:54:38,000
Speaker 1: It's so far I'm not even sure they want they

1005
00:54:38,000 --> 00:54:40,080
Speaker 1: want to touch this one. Oh. I would love to

1006
00:54:40,080 --> 00:54:41,680
Speaker 1: see that, just based on the stories that I've heard

1007
00:54:41,719 --> 00:54:43,520
Speaker 1: from some of the older guys who have covered over

1008
00:54:43,520 --> 00:54:45,480
Speaker 1: the years. And I was wondering if you were part

1009
00:54:45,520 --> 00:54:48,239
Speaker 1: of that. Now you mentioned the Bear Bryant the day

1010
00:54:48,280 --> 00:54:50,840
Speaker 1: that he died. For people who are a lot younger

1011
00:54:50,880 --> 00:54:52,839
Speaker 1: that will be listening to this podcast and have heard

1012
00:54:52,840 --> 00:54:55,839
Speaker 1: a lot of Nick Saban and Bear Bryant comparisons, what

1013
00:54:56,080 --> 00:54:58,319
Speaker 1: was the state of Alabama like the day Bear Bear

1014
00:54:58,440 --> 00:55:01,799
Speaker 1: Bryant died. Well, as I answered this question, I want

1015
00:55:01,800 --> 00:55:06,040
Speaker 1: to remind you that, Uh, I was in Memphis the

1016
00:55:06,120 --> 00:55:09,200
Speaker 1: day Dr King was assassinated. As a young person, I

1017
00:55:09,320 --> 00:55:13,440
Speaker 1: was also in downtown Memphis today Elvis Presley died. So

1018
00:55:13,920 --> 00:55:16,960
Speaker 1: I want to use that as a preamble to this

1019
00:55:17,440 --> 00:55:23,960
Speaker 1: It's it's it was on the same level. Um. I.

1020
00:55:23,960 --> 00:55:28,440
Speaker 1: I was a Legion Field interviewing a group of Alabama

1021
00:55:28,480 --> 00:55:31,760
Speaker 1: players who had just played at Alabama. They were trying

1022
00:55:31,760 --> 00:55:34,120
Speaker 1: out for a USFL team. This is the league that

1023
00:55:34,320 --> 00:55:37,399
Speaker 1: Donald Trump was part of. Um. We were sitting there

1024
00:55:37,880 --> 00:55:45,239
Speaker 1: inside Legion Field and on this great January day, they

1025
00:55:45,920 --> 00:55:50,280
Speaker 1: and somebody came running out and said that that something happened,

1026
00:55:50,520 --> 00:55:55,759
Speaker 1: something happened with coach Bryant. Uh, think about this. I

1027
00:55:55,960 --> 00:55:58,319
Speaker 1: left the interview. I didn't say hey, guys, you know,

1028
00:55:58,960 --> 00:56:05,680
Speaker 1: I ran outside the stadium to a phone booth. Let

1029
00:56:05,719 --> 00:56:09,080
Speaker 1: me think about it. A phone booth, dialed the number

1030
00:56:09,080 --> 00:56:12,239
Speaker 1: of the newspaper. I said, what's the deal. He said,

1031
00:56:13,040 --> 00:56:16,520
Speaker 1: we think, uh, we think he's dead. Get back here immediately.

1032
00:56:16,680 --> 00:56:21,760
Speaker 1: I drove back about three three miles and began writing

1033
00:56:21,760 --> 00:56:23,960
Speaker 1: the story. Uh, and I mean it was it was

1034
00:56:24,000 --> 00:56:27,600
Speaker 1: that shocking, And yeah, that was shocking enough. I went

1035
00:56:27,640 --> 00:56:30,000
Speaker 1: to Tuscaloosen that night for a couple of days and

1036
00:56:30,000 --> 00:56:31,840
Speaker 1: and the listen, you've seen, you've seen and heard a

1037
00:56:31,840 --> 00:56:35,920
Speaker 1: million stories about the funeral procession. Um the show you

1038
00:56:35,920 --> 00:56:38,080
Speaker 1: had different. The newspaper business was. My job was to

1039
00:56:38,160 --> 00:56:43,719
Speaker 1: cover the service in Tuscaloosa at the church and the

1040
00:56:43,920 --> 00:56:49,280
Speaker 1: burial in at Elmwood Cemetery in in in Birmingham. Not easily,

1041
00:56:49,360 --> 00:56:52,040
Speaker 1: not not easy to do, Clay, considering there is a

1042
00:56:52,080 --> 00:56:54,960
Speaker 1: procession and I was not part of the procession. So

1043
00:56:55,000 --> 00:56:58,200
Speaker 1: I did what any enterprising young reporter did. I broke

1044
00:56:58,239 --> 00:57:01,320
Speaker 1: into the procession and rode back with police escort to

1045
00:57:01,480 --> 00:57:04,680
Speaker 1: Birmingham and saw everything you've seen now on all the

1046
00:57:04,719 --> 00:57:09,600
Speaker 1: documentaries and literally spoke to myself and an old cassette

1047
00:57:10,120 --> 00:57:14,279
Speaker 1: tape recorder describing the scene so I would have a

1048
00:57:14,400 --> 00:57:16,960
Speaker 1: history of it for the article that I would write

1049
00:57:17,000 --> 00:57:21,280
Speaker 1: later that that afternoon or evening describing his his his

1050
00:57:21,280 --> 00:57:24,480
Speaker 1: his burial. It was unlike anything I've ever seen. I mean,

1051
00:57:24,520 --> 00:57:29,480
Speaker 1: I I found myself as a cynical young reporter, uh

1052
00:57:29,760 --> 00:57:34,000
Speaker 1: literally washing away tears rolling down my very chubby cheeks

1053
00:57:34,040 --> 00:57:37,040
Speaker 1: at the time, because you know, the scenes were were

1054
00:57:37,080 --> 00:57:40,320
Speaker 1: epic of you know, little kids holding signs will miss

1055
00:57:40,360 --> 00:57:44,080
Speaker 1: you Bear. I mean, I remember writing this line in

1056
00:57:44,120 --> 00:57:46,479
Speaker 1: the article, and because it was true, I said, even

1057
00:57:46,520 --> 00:57:53,600
Speaker 1: the dogs looked sad. Deadline writing is an incredibly difficult

1058
00:57:53,600 --> 00:57:56,320
Speaker 1: thing to do. It's made even more so when it's

1059
00:57:56,360 --> 00:57:59,560
Speaker 1: a legitimately serious story. Right we're not talking about who

1060
00:57:59,560 --> 00:58:02,640
Speaker 1: wanted to Fall game? Is that some of the most

1061
00:58:02,880 --> 00:58:06,120
Speaker 1: proud of your writing you are. If somebody comes to

1062
00:58:06,160 --> 00:58:08,760
Speaker 1: you now and says, show me, Paul findbaumb the writer,

1063
00:58:09,160 --> 00:58:11,600
Speaker 1: what clips would you give them? Would it be included

1064
00:58:11,640 --> 00:58:14,840
Speaker 1: among them? Yeah? They were certainly this this day would

1065
00:58:14,880 --> 00:58:16,760
Speaker 1: be one of them. And and you know then the

1066
00:58:16,880 --> 00:58:20,880
Speaker 1: nighties of his last game in Memphis, Uh was a

1067
00:58:22,880 --> 00:58:24,680
Speaker 1: uh end of the game. It was like a four

1068
00:58:24,680 --> 00:58:28,280
Speaker 1: and a half hour game. Um. And yeah, I mean

1069
00:58:28,600 --> 00:58:30,520
Speaker 1: I always thought that was the toughest thing I've ever

1070
00:58:30,520 --> 00:58:33,640
Speaker 1: done in my career. Was to right on a a

1071
00:58:33,760 --> 00:58:38,000
Speaker 1: late deadline, and because I I didn't realize how difficult

1072
00:58:38,040 --> 00:58:39,720
Speaker 1: it would be if I wrote in today's Erara with

1073
00:58:39,920 --> 00:58:43,040
Speaker 1: having to tweet throughout the entire game as well. But

1074
00:58:43,840 --> 00:58:47,919
Speaker 1: it was, it was. It's a rush that I think

1075
00:58:48,000 --> 00:58:53,520
Speaker 1: is similar to a rock star on stage or an actor.

1076
00:58:54,480 --> 00:58:57,120
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's not a very sexy profession, but

1077
00:58:57,720 --> 00:59:00,360
Speaker 1: you did get quite an adrenaline rush when you've finally

1078
00:59:00,400 --> 00:59:04,400
Speaker 1: hit the send button and it was over. And nowadays

1079
00:59:04,440 --> 00:59:07,320
Speaker 1: it's never over, as you well know, But then it was,

1080
00:59:07,440 --> 00:59:09,160
Speaker 1: I mean, there wasn't much you could do once you

1081
00:59:09,760 --> 00:59:14,320
Speaker 1: I mean, once you sent the article in uh, you

1082
00:59:14,320 --> 00:59:16,040
Speaker 1: could take you can take a breathing. How did you

1083
00:59:16,280 --> 00:59:18,000
Speaker 1: and I don't know the answer to this, how did

1084
00:59:18,000 --> 00:59:21,680
Speaker 1: you even send articles in UM? Well, when I was

1085
00:59:21,680 --> 00:59:25,960
Speaker 1: in college, early on college, it was you literally called

1086
00:59:26,000 --> 00:59:29,440
Speaker 1: them in UM and read the whole read the whole story,

1087
00:59:29,560 --> 00:59:32,200
Speaker 1: or yeah, yeah, you kind of you just kind of

1088
00:59:32,200 --> 00:59:33,640
Speaker 1: made it up as you went alonger I mean, not

1089
00:59:33,720 --> 00:59:36,280
Speaker 1: made it up, but you just verbalized it, which is

1090
00:59:36,280 --> 00:59:37,840
Speaker 1: a good way of doing it. By the way, by

1091
00:59:37,840 --> 00:59:39,760
Speaker 1: the time I got to Shreveport, they had these things

1092
00:59:39,800 --> 00:59:44,120
Speaker 1: called Texas Instrument had. It was. It was a very

1093
00:59:44,240 --> 00:59:47,040
Speaker 1: archaic machine that worked about half the time. Then we

1094
00:59:47,080 --> 00:59:50,320
Speaker 1: went to what was called a tele bubble or tell

1095
00:59:50,360 --> 00:59:53,520
Speaker 1: a ram, which you had a little, very small screen

1096
00:59:54,040 --> 00:59:55,920
Speaker 1: and you would put the phone in a coupler and

1097
00:59:55,920 --> 00:59:57,880
Speaker 1: it took about five minutes to send in like a

1098
00:59:58,000 --> 01:00:02,280
Speaker 1: facts and and then we finally got their computers. But

1099
01:00:02,840 --> 01:00:05,840
Speaker 1: it was it was quite an ordeal, you know, I

1100
01:00:05,840 --> 01:00:08,680
Speaker 1: mean I saw it all. We're talking to Paul fine Bomb.

1101
01:00:08,720 --> 01:00:11,480
Speaker 1: You can follow him on Twitter at fine Bomb. This

1102
01:00:11,560 --> 01:00:14,680
Speaker 1: is the Wins and Losses Podcast. I'm Clay Travis. Was

1103
01:00:14,680 --> 01:00:19,320
Speaker 1: your mom proud of your career? She was. I'll tell

1104
01:00:19,320 --> 01:00:23,000
Speaker 1: you one story about her. I mean she I didn't.

1105
01:00:23,280 --> 01:00:24,920
Speaker 1: I mean she never let on too much to me.

1106
01:00:26,160 --> 01:00:28,760
Speaker 1: I later found out that she showed everybody on the

1107
01:00:28,840 --> 01:00:34,440
Speaker 1: street my articles. But in uh it was nineteen three, Uh,

1108
01:00:34,920 --> 01:00:39,200
Speaker 1: I won the the Herbie Kirby Award. Clay, you know,

1109
01:00:39,280 --> 01:00:42,880
Speaker 1: you probably don't know who Herbie Kirby was, but Herbie

1110
01:00:42,920 --> 01:00:48,880
Speaker 1: Kirby was a Birmingham Post gerald writer who was really

1111
01:00:49,720 --> 01:00:52,560
Speaker 1: kind of way down on the totem pole. And you're

1112
01:00:52,600 --> 01:00:55,520
Speaker 1: probably asking why am I telling the story? But like

1113
01:00:55,560 --> 01:00:57,880
Speaker 1: the sports editor was in the hospital. The next guy

1114
01:00:58,120 --> 01:01:01,400
Speaker 1: was out sick. He ended up having to cover like

1115
01:01:01,440 --> 01:01:04,560
Speaker 1: one of the most amazing important games in Alabama history,

1116
01:01:04,600 --> 01:01:07,680
Speaker 1: Alabama Notre Dame seventy three one verses two in the

1117
01:01:07,720 --> 01:01:12,680
Speaker 1: Sugar Bowl. And he's as he as he was sending

1118
01:01:12,680 --> 01:01:15,200
Speaker 1: in his heart article speaking of pressure, he had a

1119
01:01:15,200 --> 01:01:19,680
Speaker 1: heart attack and died, Oh my god, in the press boxing,

1120
01:01:20,440 --> 01:01:24,600
Speaker 1: in the press box at the at the Tulane Stadium.

1121
01:01:25,040 --> 01:01:27,160
Speaker 1: And so they named this award after him. And I

1122
01:01:27,200 --> 01:01:30,000
Speaker 1: tell you that because I was reminded of it, that

1123
01:01:30,160 --> 01:01:32,560
Speaker 1: there is a lot of pressure and and this this

1124
01:01:32,600 --> 01:01:36,920
Speaker 1: poor guy, um, he was like the bowling editor. He

1125
01:01:37,000 --> 01:01:39,520
Speaker 1: was not the normal guy, but he ended up having

1126
01:01:39,560 --> 01:01:42,080
Speaker 1: to be the guy and it's it can be dangerous.

1127
01:01:42,240 --> 01:01:44,520
Speaker 1: So he filed his article and died in the press

1128
01:01:44,560 --> 01:01:46,600
Speaker 1: box like that was literally the final thing that he

1129
01:01:46,640 --> 01:01:48,920
Speaker 1: ever did. I mean, I think he got it in.

1130
01:01:49,120 --> 01:01:52,280
Speaker 1: And I mean, and I know this, nobody was joking

1131
01:01:52,280 --> 01:01:53,960
Speaker 1: about it, but I knew the guy that was on

1132
01:01:54,000 --> 01:01:56,160
Speaker 1: the desk at the time, and I said, I said,

1133
01:01:55,920 --> 01:01:59,000
Speaker 1: you realize you might have killed this guy? I mean

1134
01:01:59,040 --> 01:02:03,600
Speaker 1: because because I mean, they needed the story. It was

1135
01:02:03,640 --> 01:02:06,680
Speaker 1: an epic game. I mean, just uh, I mean, Tom

1136
01:02:06,680 --> 01:02:09,480
Speaker 1: Clemens from Notre Dame hit a long third down in

1137
01:02:09,520 --> 01:02:11,480
Speaker 1: his own end zone, and it's it's a game that

1138
01:02:11,520 --> 01:02:13,520
Speaker 1: Alabama's hands. By the way, this is a game. In

1139
01:02:13,520 --> 01:02:16,240
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventy three Alabama was still awarded the UPI

1140
01:02:16,360 --> 01:02:19,200
Speaker 1: National Championship even though they lost to Notre Dame, and

1141
01:02:19,240 --> 01:02:23,280
Speaker 1: they still claim it, by the way, along with eight

1142
01:02:23,320 --> 01:02:25,200
Speaker 1: and four season, I think where they got a national

1143
01:02:25,240 --> 01:02:27,680
Speaker 1: title out of it. So ten years later, I'm on

1144
01:02:27,720 --> 01:02:30,120
Speaker 1: the phone with my mom. I had just gotten back

1145
01:02:30,160 --> 01:02:34,000
Speaker 1: from this Sportswriter's convention and I had won the Herbie

1146
01:02:34,040 --> 01:02:37,880
Speaker 1: Kirby Award Top Sports Story of the Year. And I

1147
01:02:37,960 --> 01:02:41,160
Speaker 1: called my mom. Remember she's from Brooklyn, and I said,

1148
01:02:41,360 --> 01:02:43,320
Speaker 1: I mean, I am so excited. I mean, I'm I've

1149
01:02:43,560 --> 01:02:46,640
Speaker 1: you know, this career, the idea that not that many years,

1150
01:02:47,120 --> 01:02:50,000
Speaker 1: you know, for four years after sreport, I'm winning the

1151
01:02:50,040 --> 01:02:54,600
Speaker 1: top award and uh, she said, well that's great. I said, well,

1152
01:02:54,720 --> 01:02:57,240
Speaker 1: she said, what was it for again? This is right

1153
01:02:57,280 --> 01:02:59,760
Speaker 1: before I had won the national awards. I said, I

1154
01:02:59,800 --> 01:03:03,360
Speaker 1: said sports story of the Year in Alabama, and I mean,

1155
01:03:03,360 --> 01:03:06,680
Speaker 1: I'm screaming at her. Uh And she said sports story

1156
01:03:06,680 --> 01:03:08,800
Speaker 1: of the Year in Alabama, So I didn't know people

1157
01:03:08,800 --> 01:03:13,200
Speaker 1: in Alabama could read. I'm like, oh my good, are

1158
01:03:13,240 --> 01:03:16,600
Speaker 1: you talking about being deflated? But that's my mom was

1159
01:03:16,680 --> 01:03:20,720
Speaker 1: Vince Lombardi, uh, Nick Saban, Bill Belichick all wrapped into one.

1160
01:03:20,760 --> 01:03:22,760
Speaker 1: I mean, she she knew how to keep me honest

1161
01:03:22,800 --> 01:03:25,640
Speaker 1: and hey, I said, okay, I'll call you. Uh this

1162
01:03:25,680 --> 01:03:27,320
Speaker 1: was this was the year before I take it back.

1163
01:03:27,400 --> 01:03:29,720
Speaker 1: I said, okay, I hung up the phone, so I'll

1164
01:03:29,720 --> 01:03:31,400
Speaker 1: call you next So next year I called her. I said,

1165
01:03:31,400 --> 01:03:34,360
Speaker 1: by the way, I won, I won first place in

1166
01:03:34,400 --> 01:03:38,120
Speaker 1: the country. She said, Now I'm impressed. And so, I

1167
01:03:38,120 --> 01:03:40,640
Speaker 1: mean she was a motivator. Um, but yeah, she was

1168
01:03:40,680 --> 01:03:43,440
Speaker 1: really proud. I mean she didn't Uh she saw a

1169
01:03:43,480 --> 01:03:47,919
Speaker 1: little bit of the radio uh career, but not much.

1170
01:03:48,840 --> 01:03:51,080
Speaker 1: I don't know what she would I think today, if

1171
01:03:51,120 --> 01:03:53,920
Speaker 1: she was still alive, she would be sitting next to

1172
01:03:53,920 --> 01:03:58,800
Speaker 1: me like Lebertard's father, and the show would be immensely

1173
01:03:59,120 --> 01:04:02,640
Speaker 1: more popular. I mean, because she she she literally could

1174
01:04:02,680 --> 01:04:04,439
Speaker 1: have had her own sitcom. She just came too early.

1175
01:04:04,640 --> 01:04:07,480
Speaker 1: Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in

1176
01:04:07,520 --> 01:04:10,520
Speaker 1: the nation. Catch all of our shows at Fox sports

1177
01:04:10,600 --> 01:04:13,680
Speaker 1: radio dot com and within the I Heart Radio app.

1178
01:04:13,760 --> 01:04:18,480
Speaker 1: Search f s R to listen live. We're talking to

1179
01:04:18,520 --> 01:04:20,560
Speaker 1: Paul fine Bomb at five Bomb on Twitter as the

1180
01:04:20,560 --> 01:04:23,720
Speaker 1: Wins and Losses podcast. I'm Clay Travis. Now. Uh, you

1181
01:04:23,760 --> 01:04:26,520
Speaker 1: mentioned radio. So you have all this success in the

1182
01:04:26,560 --> 01:04:29,880
Speaker 1: writing business, but you feel like you are just stuck

1183
01:04:29,920 --> 01:04:33,360
Speaker 1: in Birmingham. The lawsuit happens, your goal of getting to

1184
01:04:33,400 --> 01:04:36,120
Speaker 1: the New York Times by the age of thirty is disappearing.

1185
01:04:36,760 --> 01:04:39,480
Speaker 1: Uh when do you start going on the radio? Do

1186
01:04:39,520 --> 01:04:42,720
Speaker 1: you remember the first time you went on? Yeah? I started.

1187
01:04:42,960 --> 01:04:45,920
Speaker 1: Uh My first show was in the early eighties. Ey

1188
01:04:46,000 --> 01:04:50,000
Speaker 1: Gold uh, the legendary announcer for Alabama, he used to

1189
01:04:50,040 --> 01:04:53,200
Speaker 1: go He used to go Daytona every Tuesday to do

1190
01:04:53,240 --> 01:04:55,520
Speaker 1: a NASCAR show. So he asked me if I could

1191
01:04:55,560 --> 01:04:58,360
Speaker 1: fill in for him on Tuesday. I did that in

1192
01:04:58,440 --> 01:05:01,360
Speaker 1: the show became popular. Um, and it just so happened

1193
01:05:01,360 --> 01:05:04,160
Speaker 1: that was the year after Bryant. Uh So it led

1194
01:05:04,200 --> 01:05:06,720
Speaker 1: into the Or two years after that, it led into

1195
01:05:06,720 --> 01:05:10,640
Speaker 1: the Coaches Show for Ray Perkins, who was the Alabama successor.

1196
01:05:11,240 --> 01:05:14,240
Speaker 1: And it just so it happened that in perkins second

1197
01:05:14,280 --> 01:05:17,200
Speaker 1: year at Alabama, they had the first losing season in

1198
01:05:17,240 --> 01:05:22,800
Speaker 1: twenty five years. And uh, people wanted him out, and

1199
01:05:22,920 --> 01:05:25,840
Speaker 1: he got pretty sick of all the negativity leading into

1200
01:05:25,960 --> 01:05:28,120
Speaker 1: him on his number one Birmingham affiliate. So he got

1201
01:05:28,120 --> 01:05:31,560
Speaker 1: me fired. So got you fired. So let me ask

1202
01:05:31,600 --> 01:05:34,320
Speaker 1: you this for radio, because I get this question a lot.

1203
01:05:34,680 --> 01:05:38,040
Speaker 1: I got into radio, started with writing, went into radio,

1204
01:05:38,280 --> 01:05:42,840
Speaker 1: then went into TV. How did you find doing radio

1205
01:05:43,720 --> 01:05:46,520
Speaker 1: compared to writing? Because you get that question a lot,

1206
01:05:46,600 --> 01:05:48,680
Speaker 1: and there's not a lot of people who do all three.

1207
01:05:48,680 --> 01:05:51,240
Speaker 1: And I'll get to television later, But how did you

1208
01:05:51,280 --> 01:05:54,760
Speaker 1: find radio? Did you find it easier, more challenging, difficult? What?

1209
01:05:54,920 --> 01:05:57,840
Speaker 1: How did you find their different disciplines and what works

1210
01:05:57,880 --> 01:06:01,120
Speaker 1: in one may not necessarily work in the there. I

1211
01:06:01,160 --> 01:06:03,640
Speaker 1: struggled early on because I would come in, I would

1212
01:06:03,640 --> 01:06:05,560
Speaker 1: try to write things out. I remember you, I saw

1213
01:06:05,560 --> 01:06:07,160
Speaker 1: me one day, so what are you doing? He should

1214
01:06:07,200 --> 01:06:09,400
Speaker 1: just talk and and and it took a long time,

1215
01:06:10,160 --> 01:06:12,040
Speaker 1: but but I liked it. I like to give and

1216
01:06:12,080 --> 01:06:17,080
Speaker 1: take in clay, Uh, I was so confrontational back then

1217
01:06:17,400 --> 01:06:19,440
Speaker 1: with everyone. I mean I would yell at the callers,

1218
01:06:19,520 --> 01:06:22,840
Speaker 1: I would yell at the guests. Um. It took me

1219
01:06:22,920 --> 01:06:25,960
Speaker 1: a long time to to slow down my my radio game.

1220
01:06:26,000 --> 01:06:28,080
Speaker 1: But I did love it though, and and and and

1221
01:06:28,120 --> 01:06:30,800
Speaker 1: so I lost. Yeah, I lost the job, and the

1222
01:06:30,840 --> 01:06:35,520
Speaker 1: next day the Auburn station hired me. You know, but

1223
01:06:35,560 --> 01:06:38,640
Speaker 1: the radio career took I wasn't doing a talk show

1224
01:06:38,680 --> 01:06:39,840
Speaker 1: for a long time. I was doing I was on

1225
01:06:39,960 --> 01:06:44,880
Speaker 1: with some morning guys UH doing doing FM commentary, and ultimately,

1226
01:06:44,920 --> 01:06:49,120
Speaker 1: in the late eighties, UH, I started doing a Saturday

1227
01:06:49,120 --> 01:06:52,880
Speaker 1: show UH with one of the legendary voices in town.

1228
01:06:52,960 --> 01:06:56,520
Speaker 1: And and that moved into a nighttime show, which still

1229
01:06:56,560 --> 01:06:59,280
Speaker 1: took a long time too. I was still on a

1230
01:06:59,320 --> 01:07:02,400
Speaker 1: fairly off off the off brand station, so it took

1231
01:07:02,400 --> 01:07:04,280
Speaker 1: three or four years. But I got what I What

1232
01:07:04,360 --> 01:07:07,560
Speaker 1: I got was a lot of experience, and I began

1233
01:07:07,640 --> 01:07:10,000
Speaker 1: meeting a lot of people and and but but I

1234
01:07:10,000 --> 01:07:14,240
Speaker 1: found myself at a crossroads in the nineties because you know,

1235
01:07:14,240 --> 01:07:17,040
Speaker 1: the newspaper wanted to send me to cover some event

1236
01:07:17,440 --> 01:07:21,040
Speaker 1: and I couldn't leave the radio show. So I I

1237
01:07:21,040 --> 01:07:24,040
Speaker 1: I made the decision. Uh. And by the way it looks,

1238
01:07:24,240 --> 01:07:27,200
Speaker 1: some people say, man, you were smart to get out it.

1239
01:07:27,200 --> 01:07:30,160
Speaker 1: It wasn't tough to figure out the newspaper business was

1240
01:07:30,160 --> 01:07:34,400
Speaker 1: was heading towards the abyss um. I I stayed with

1241
01:07:34,440 --> 01:07:37,960
Speaker 1: it for a while, but radio became my main concentration.

1242
01:07:38,480 --> 01:07:41,120
Speaker 1: So when did you start to think I might be

1243
01:07:41,200 --> 01:07:43,960
Speaker 1: good at radio? Was there a moment where you went

1244
01:07:44,000 --> 01:07:46,200
Speaker 1: back and you had a show, you finished it, you

1245
01:07:46,240 --> 01:07:48,160
Speaker 1: walk out of the studio and you're like, you know what,

1246
01:07:48,240 --> 01:07:50,880
Speaker 1: I think that was pretty good? Or do you think

1247
01:07:50,880 --> 01:07:53,720
Speaker 1: it was just a gradual thing where you, you know,

1248
01:07:53,800 --> 01:07:55,760
Speaker 1: kept getting a little bit better, a little bit better.

1249
01:07:56,040 --> 01:07:57,600
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure if you went back and listened

1250
01:07:57,640 --> 01:07:59,480
Speaker 1: to some of those shows you did in the early eighties,

1251
01:07:59,480 --> 01:08:01,600
Speaker 1: you'd be like, God, those were awful shows. Maybe you

1252
01:08:01,680 --> 01:08:03,640
Speaker 1: listen to him and think, my god, they're incredible. But

1253
01:08:03,720 --> 01:08:05,640
Speaker 1: at what point did you start thinking, hey, I got

1254
01:08:05,680 --> 01:08:09,760
Speaker 1: some talent here. It probably took a long time, um,

1255
01:08:11,000 --> 01:08:14,080
Speaker 1: because I I cannot listen to myself. I know that

1256
01:08:14,160 --> 01:08:18,200
Speaker 1: sounds like a lot of artists, but uh, I mean, slowly,

1257
01:08:18,240 --> 01:08:21,599
Speaker 1: but surely, I just got I became more comfortable with it,

1258
01:08:22,120 --> 01:08:26,439
Speaker 1: um and I started having fun with it, which I which,

1259
01:08:26,439 --> 01:08:28,960
Speaker 1: which took a while. So, I mean, I wasn't sure

1260
01:08:29,000 --> 01:08:33,360
Speaker 1: where I was going, but I was. I spent I

1261
01:08:33,360 --> 01:08:36,840
Speaker 1: spent about ten twelve years on a news talk station

1262
01:08:36,880 --> 01:08:42,000
Speaker 1: in Birmingham. We followed Rush Limbough every day, and I

1263
01:08:42,320 --> 01:08:45,960
Speaker 1: probably had more fun talking about politics than I did

1264
01:08:46,000 --> 01:08:48,360
Speaker 1: about sports. So it was a little bit of everything.

1265
01:08:48,960 --> 01:08:51,439
Speaker 1: So I began. I did get to meet a lot

1266
01:08:51,439 --> 01:08:55,200
Speaker 1: of people outside of the sports world. Um so, I bet.

1267
01:08:55,320 --> 01:08:56,960
Speaker 1: But but yeah, I mean the answer to your question

1268
01:08:57,040 --> 01:08:59,919
Speaker 1: is it took a long time before I felt comfortable.

1269
01:09:00,439 --> 01:09:03,519
Speaker 1: And since we were in a sports show per se,

1270
01:09:04,479 --> 01:09:09,400
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I didn't. Uh I was. I was still

1271
01:09:09,439 --> 01:09:11,760
Speaker 1: somewhat lost because I mean, you know, I mean, you know,

1272
01:09:11,840 --> 01:09:13,920
Speaker 1: the stations back then you would talk about everything. It

1273
01:09:13,920 --> 01:09:17,320
Speaker 1: wouldn't just talk about sports. So you go to jocks.

1274
01:09:17,600 --> 01:09:21,880
Speaker 1: Is that the point for who who aren't who aren't

1275
01:09:21,920 --> 01:09:27,479
Speaker 1: familiar with Alabama Radio Jocks is five in Birmingham. It's got,

1276
01:09:27,560 --> 01:09:29,679
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know, a hundred thousand watt station.

1277
01:09:29,760 --> 01:09:32,880
Speaker 1: It just kind of broadcasted out everywhere. When did you

1278
01:09:32,960 --> 01:09:35,320
Speaker 1: go to Jocks? What was the first year there? Yeah?

1279
01:09:35,360 --> 01:09:37,200
Speaker 1: I I had talked to them every time my contract

1280
01:09:37,240 --> 01:09:40,400
Speaker 1: could come up. We had talked, and it just it

1281
01:09:40,439 --> 01:09:43,479
Speaker 1: was it was hard to make it work. And then finally,

1282
01:09:44,400 --> 01:09:50,160
Speaker 1: um I I began to realize that it was time

1283
01:09:50,200 --> 01:09:53,599
Speaker 1: to make a change. I was at this news talk station,

1284
01:09:53,720 --> 01:09:58,960
Speaker 1: as I said, and ratings were great, then they were terrible.

1285
01:09:59,000 --> 01:10:00,799
Speaker 1: They were all over the map. But we were competing

1286
01:10:00,800 --> 01:10:05,280
Speaker 1: with the sports station. So the sports station came to me. Uh,

1287
01:10:05,880 --> 01:10:09,800
Speaker 1: Ryan Haney, Uh, someone you know well called me and

1288
01:10:09,840 --> 01:10:13,800
Speaker 1: said listen, we want to talk. And I had this

1289
01:10:13,840 --> 01:10:16,599
Speaker 1: weird cause in the contract that I could start talking

1290
01:10:17,280 --> 01:10:19,559
Speaker 1: ninety days out or whatever it was. So they we

1291
01:10:19,600 --> 01:10:24,640
Speaker 1: had lunch at just just absolutely dreadful Chinese restaurants, and

1292
01:10:24,680 --> 01:10:27,639
Speaker 1: they told me that they were about to make make

1293
01:10:27,680 --> 01:10:29,920
Speaker 1: a move to f M. Now think about this, Clay.

1294
01:10:29,960 --> 01:10:33,800
Speaker 1: This was nineteen excuse me, two thousand and six. Yeah,

1295
01:10:34,000 --> 01:10:37,160
Speaker 1: that's not that long ago. That's how long AM radio

1296
01:10:37,280 --> 01:10:41,160
Speaker 1: had been really really popular in in Birmingham. And you know, look,

1297
01:10:41,280 --> 01:10:44,559
Speaker 1: Birmingham is basically the capital of college sports in America.

1298
01:10:44,640 --> 01:10:47,120
Speaker 1: You go look at the ratings. People are obsessed with

1299
01:10:47,200 --> 01:10:49,519
Speaker 1: college sports, all right. So this is two thousand six.

1300
01:10:50,360 --> 01:10:55,320
Speaker 1: This was November December two thousand and six. Uh. They

1301
01:10:55,360 --> 01:10:57,760
Speaker 1: they were they were about to make a change. They

1302
01:10:57,800 --> 01:11:01,000
Speaker 1: had a legendary guy doing the afternoon show. He happened

1303
01:11:01,040 --> 01:11:02,280
Speaker 1: to be a friend of mine. It was it was

1304
01:11:02,320 --> 01:11:05,880
Speaker 1: really awkward. Um, you're always facing that situation. I said

1305
01:11:05,920 --> 01:11:08,040
Speaker 1: to what's gonna happen with him. They said, we're gonna

1306
01:11:08,080 --> 01:11:13,720
Speaker 1: put him on the the second channel. Yeah, I said

1307
01:11:13,840 --> 01:11:15,360
Speaker 1: this was gonna I think, by the way, that's the

1308
01:11:15,400 --> 01:11:18,000
Speaker 1: station that my morning show is on. I think we're

1309
01:11:18,000 --> 01:11:20,599
Speaker 1: on the Jock's Am in the morning. I'll kick the coverage,

1310
01:11:20,680 --> 01:11:26,679
Speaker 1: I think. So anyway, I uh, I still wasn't sure.

1311
01:11:26,840 --> 01:11:30,080
Speaker 1: I mean, all yeah, I had a team together. We

1312
01:11:30,120 --> 01:11:31,880
Speaker 1: had just moved in. We were we were working for

1313
01:11:31,920 --> 01:11:35,799
Speaker 1: Clear Channel. They had put us into just incredible studio

1314
01:11:35,840 --> 01:11:38,920
Speaker 1: that overlooked downtown Birmingham from a mountain. I mean, it

1315
01:11:39,000 --> 01:11:41,960
Speaker 1: was all the people. Uh So I kind of I

1316
01:11:42,000 --> 01:11:43,800
Speaker 1: was really not sure what I wanted to do. And

1317
01:11:43,920 --> 01:11:49,960
Speaker 1: so one day, um, this guy came in and they

1318
01:11:49,960 --> 01:11:52,360
Speaker 1: called him in around right right right before Christmas, and

1319
01:11:52,360 --> 01:11:56,960
Speaker 1: they said, we're gonna move you to the Beach Channel

1320
01:11:57,040 --> 01:12:00,519
Speaker 1: whatever was called. He blew up. He yelled that heiney,

1321
01:12:01,120 --> 01:12:07,840
Speaker 1: you know, I'll spare the language and quip and he

1322
01:12:07,880 --> 01:12:10,360
Speaker 1: went to the newspaper and said, I'm not I'm I'm

1323
01:12:10,400 --> 01:12:13,599
Speaker 1: not a j V guy. I'm a And so then

1324
01:12:14,600 --> 01:12:16,040
Speaker 1: I knew I had to go. I mean that at

1325
01:12:16,040 --> 01:12:19,240
Speaker 1: that point, uh, it was it was going to be

1326
01:12:19,600 --> 01:12:22,120
Speaker 1: uh so I started gravitating towards it. I still couldn't

1327
01:12:22,120 --> 01:12:28,240
Speaker 1: sign a deal yet. Um and Clear Channel, Uh, Clear

1328
01:12:28,360 --> 01:12:31,479
Speaker 1: Channel was trying to too high to sign these guys

1329
01:12:31,520 --> 01:12:35,280
Speaker 1: named Rick and Bubba, and I knew they weren't going

1330
01:12:35,320 --> 01:12:38,120
Speaker 1: there because I was friends with them too. And all

1331
01:12:38,120 --> 01:12:40,760
Speaker 1: of a sudden, about a week later, they lost Rick

1332
01:12:40,800 --> 01:12:43,200
Speaker 1: and Bubba. So suddenly they had money to try to

1333
01:12:43,240 --> 01:12:46,680
Speaker 1: retain me. So they came to me and so I

1334
01:12:46,800 --> 01:12:49,840
Speaker 1: but I I had already decided I was leaving. And

1335
01:12:49,880 --> 01:12:53,639
Speaker 1: by the and the the offer was terrible, uh Clay,

1336
01:12:53,680 --> 01:12:57,920
Speaker 1: I mean the the GM was who was a close

1337
01:12:57,960 --> 01:13:00,559
Speaker 1: friend of mine. Now he was longer there, but uh,

1338
01:13:01,120 --> 01:13:04,400
Speaker 1: it was a terrible offer. And I had I had

1339
01:13:05,280 --> 01:13:06,840
Speaker 1: Pat Smith with me. I don't know if you remember

1340
01:13:06,840 --> 01:13:10,920
Speaker 1: the past. Patt had started the network. And I said, listen, Pat,

1341
01:13:11,920 --> 01:13:13,920
Speaker 1: that's the guy running this network. I mean they gave

1342
01:13:13,920 --> 01:13:16,760
Speaker 1: they gave me a blanket number. And I said, well,

1343
01:13:16,760 --> 01:13:18,960
Speaker 1: what is They said to the guy to look at me,

1344
01:13:19,000 --> 01:13:20,680
Speaker 1: So listen, I don't care if you give him the

1345
01:13:20,840 --> 01:13:24,960
Speaker 1: entire salary. This is what we're offering you. And uh,

1346
01:13:25,160 --> 01:13:28,000
Speaker 1: I asked, we had like four guys, four other guys

1347
01:13:28,040 --> 01:13:29,920
Speaker 1: that I worked with, and I sent each one of

1348
01:13:29,960 --> 01:13:32,400
Speaker 1: them an email. I said, I want to keep this private.

1349
01:13:32,400 --> 01:13:34,360
Speaker 1: I want you all to tell me what you want

1350
01:13:34,360 --> 01:13:38,760
Speaker 1: to do. Go or stay. All four voted to stay

1351
01:13:38,800 --> 01:13:43,719
Speaker 1: at the station we were at. I decided to leave,

1352
01:13:44,800 --> 01:13:47,720
Speaker 1: and they were furious with me. But I knew even

1353
01:13:47,760 --> 01:13:50,200
Speaker 1: though I was making, by the way, not less money,

1354
01:13:50,479 --> 01:13:53,920
Speaker 1: significantly less money, I knew it was the right decision. Now,

1355
01:13:54,160 --> 01:13:57,479
Speaker 1: what I failed to tell you was it two weeks

1356
01:13:57,520 --> 01:14:00,080
Speaker 1: before they went to FM and one other thing, the

1357
01:14:00,920 --> 01:14:05,280
Speaker 1: Nick Saban arrived and I knew, I knew. I knew

1358
01:14:05,360 --> 01:14:08,160
Speaker 1: I had to be on sports station and Clay, I

1359
01:14:08,160 --> 01:14:10,960
Speaker 1: don't need to tell you that. I think within uh,

1360
01:14:11,160 --> 01:14:15,320
Speaker 1: within it. Within a year, the station's men demos headquadrupled.

1361
01:14:17,160 --> 01:14:19,280
Speaker 1: And so I want to go to this this moment

1362
01:14:19,320 --> 01:14:22,160
Speaker 1: here because the podcast is called Wins and Losses, and

1363
01:14:22,280 --> 01:14:26,400
Speaker 1: I feel like so many people chase the money, right,

1364
01:14:26,400 --> 01:14:28,960
Speaker 1: they make the decision wherever the most money is. I'm

1365
01:14:29,000 --> 01:14:31,680
Speaker 1: going to go there here. You are not a young guy, right,

1366
01:14:31,720 --> 01:14:33,640
Speaker 1: You've been in your career for a long time at

1367
01:14:33,680 --> 01:14:37,640
Speaker 1: this point, and you chose because you thought the opportunity

1368
01:14:38,760 --> 01:14:43,599
Speaker 1: was offered better. Jocks down in Birmingham and Nick Saban

1369
01:14:43,760 --> 01:14:46,200
Speaker 1: is arriving. And by the way, before we get to that,

1370
01:14:46,760 --> 01:14:49,840
Speaker 1: do you accept credit for rich Rod not taking the

1371
01:14:49,880 --> 01:14:53,639
Speaker 1: Alabama job? Because people forget that the expectation was rich

1372
01:14:53,720 --> 01:14:55,639
Speaker 1: Rod was going to take the job. But that your

1373
01:14:55,720 --> 01:14:58,719
Speaker 1: callers and what you had said on the air upset.

1374
01:14:58,760 --> 01:15:01,240
Speaker 1: What's the story there for how rich Rod didn't leave

1375
01:15:01,320 --> 01:15:04,960
Speaker 1: West Virginia As our mutual friend Lance Taylor takes some

1376
01:15:05,040 --> 01:15:08,120
Speaker 1: of the credit. Um, what happened was I think we

1377
01:15:08,200 --> 01:15:10,599
Speaker 1: had more to do with it. Um. A bunch of

1378
01:15:10,600 --> 01:15:13,400
Speaker 1: callers car started calling in our show when it when

1379
01:15:13,400 --> 01:15:15,400
Speaker 1: I mean rich Rod was going to Alabama, I mean

1380
01:15:15,439 --> 01:15:17,640
Speaker 1: he had, he had agreed to the deal, and the

1381
01:15:17,640 --> 01:15:20,519
Speaker 1: Birmingham News broke the story, and and and the night

1382
01:15:20,560 --> 01:15:23,479
Speaker 1: before as it was being speculated, a couple of people

1383
01:15:23,520 --> 01:15:26,000
Speaker 1: started calling in. I think, Uh, I mean, I think

1384
01:15:26,000 --> 01:15:27,599
Speaker 1: at the time you couldn't stream our show. I mean,

1385
01:15:27,600 --> 01:15:30,879
Speaker 1: it wasn't that long ago. Uh, and started just trashing

1386
01:15:30,960 --> 01:15:36,640
Speaker 1: Rita Rodriguez. Yeah, I mean, with with everything imaginable, what

1387
01:15:36,840 --> 01:15:39,479
Speaker 1: she looks like, trailer park, you got you know, you

1388
01:15:39,600 --> 01:15:42,840
Speaker 1: name it. And there's no question I heard from pretty

1389
01:15:42,880 --> 01:15:45,280
Speaker 1: pretty reliable and I've got to know Rich and I've

1390
01:15:45,320 --> 01:15:48,200
Speaker 1: never asked him what I will. The word was his

1391
01:15:48,240 --> 01:15:52,960
Speaker 1: wife heard about it and said, we're not going there. Um.

1392
01:15:53,000 --> 01:15:55,360
Speaker 1: When the story broke that he had turned the job down,

1393
01:15:56,080 --> 01:15:58,160
Speaker 1: he broke about two two thirty in the afternoon on

1394
01:15:58,200 --> 01:16:01,080
Speaker 1: our show, I had a stream of callers called up

1395
01:16:01,120 --> 01:16:05,640
Speaker 1: and blamed me for costing him, uh costing Alabama. Rich Rodriguez,

1396
01:16:05,920 --> 01:16:08,840
Speaker 1: a talk show host in Mobile, literally came out and said,

1397
01:16:09,160 --> 01:16:12,480
Speaker 1: it is Paul Finebaum's fault. He has destroyed this program.

1398
01:16:12,640 --> 01:16:15,160
Speaker 1: Now that's what That's where all that came from. And

1399
01:16:15,320 --> 01:16:17,160
Speaker 1: at the time I was a little bit upset about it.

1400
01:16:17,240 --> 01:16:18,920
Speaker 1: And now I mean, I listen, I think for the

1401
01:16:19,000 --> 01:16:24,040
Speaker 1: university owes me a statute. So that's the story on

1402
01:16:24,120 --> 01:16:28,080
Speaker 1: rich Ron. So. Uh So this is kind of fascinating

1403
01:16:28,080 --> 01:16:30,200
Speaker 1: in and of itself. Um So you go to ninety

1404
01:16:30,240 --> 01:16:33,120
Speaker 1: four five jocks in Birmingham right as Nick Saban is

1405
01:16:33,240 --> 01:16:37,160
Speaker 1: arriving at Alabama two weeks later, Did you know Nick

1406
01:16:37,200 --> 01:16:41,439
Speaker 1: Saban at all? Yes, that's what's so interesting. A good

1407
01:16:41,479 --> 01:16:44,680
Speaker 1: friend of mine, uh had been who has met as

1408
01:16:44,680 --> 01:16:49,120
Speaker 1: a graduate assistant at Alabama, later became Saban's administrator of

1409
01:16:49,160 --> 01:16:51,720
Speaker 1: assistant at L s U and he kept telling me

1410
01:16:51,720 --> 01:16:56,480
Speaker 1: about Saban and there was a controversy of no consequence that, Uh,

1411
01:16:56,520 --> 01:16:59,160
Speaker 1: everyone in Alabama hated Saban because he got into a

1412
01:16:59,160 --> 01:17:01,439
Speaker 1: t to tay with Alabama coach at the time, Dennis

1413
01:17:01,439 --> 01:17:04,639
Speaker 1: Friend showny. My friend told me about it. I think

1414
01:17:04,680 --> 01:17:07,000
Speaker 1: Saban even talked to me off the air and then

1415
01:17:07,120 --> 01:17:10,320
Speaker 1: came on our show on the year I took up

1416
01:17:10,520 --> 01:17:12,360
Speaker 1: and Clay, you've done this before. You know what, you

1417
01:17:12,360 --> 01:17:14,639
Speaker 1: know how important it is you take up for someone

1418
01:17:14,720 --> 01:17:18,080
Speaker 1: when everyone else is after him. And I took up

1419
01:17:18,080 --> 01:17:21,680
Speaker 1: for Saban. He never forgot it. And the day that

1420
01:17:21,760 --> 01:17:25,200
Speaker 1: he was introduced to Alabama, he agreed to do one

1421
01:17:26,320 --> 01:17:30,680
Speaker 1: exclusive interview and it was with us on on My

1422
01:17:30,920 --> 01:17:33,760
Speaker 1: on My show that afternoon, and that that bonded us

1423
01:17:33,840 --> 01:17:36,840
Speaker 1: and we we became fairly close after that was Saban.

1424
01:17:37,200 --> 01:17:40,080
Speaker 1: Saban is one of these people. Uh. And we could

1425
01:17:40,080 --> 01:17:43,240
Speaker 1: do a whole another podcast on him another date where

1426
01:17:43,600 --> 01:17:46,639
Speaker 1: if he if he trust you, you're good. He doesn't.

1427
01:17:46,680 --> 01:17:48,760
Speaker 1: He doesn't really care, he doesn't want it. He doesn't

1428
01:17:48,800 --> 01:17:51,479
Speaker 1: trust more than a handful of people at one time. Uh.

1429
01:17:51,479 --> 01:17:54,360
Speaker 1: He's like Noah's ark In. In the first year that

1430
01:17:54,400 --> 01:17:57,840
Speaker 1: he was in Birmingham. In Tuscaloosa, he chose two newspapers,

1431
01:17:58,040 --> 01:18:00,679
Speaker 1: two newspaper radio guys that were going to be his friends.

1432
01:18:00,680 --> 01:18:02,960
Speaker 1: Who was myself and Cecil heard the rest of them

1433
01:18:03,040 --> 01:18:06,720
Speaker 1: he had no use for. Is it still the same way? No,

1434
01:18:07,120 --> 01:18:10,320
Speaker 1: because I mean, listen, Saban, Uh, you know, by by

1435
01:18:10,400 --> 01:18:14,479
Speaker 1: leaving there, I don't see him as much. Um and

1436
01:18:15,120 --> 01:18:18,040
Speaker 1: I have certainly had critical comments about him over the years,

1437
01:18:18,080 --> 01:18:20,640
Speaker 1: and I know he hasn't liked them. But yeah, I

1438
01:18:20,640 --> 01:18:23,680
Speaker 1: think I think there's mutual respect. But the fact that um,

1439
01:18:25,080 --> 01:18:27,280
Speaker 1: I've left town and and don't see him very much,

1440
01:18:27,280 --> 01:18:29,519
Speaker 1: I think probably has you know, it puts a little

1441
01:18:29,520 --> 01:18:32,599
Speaker 1: more distance between people. So for people who out there,

1442
01:18:32,640 --> 01:18:36,280
Speaker 1: because it's it's amazing how quickly you can go from

1443
01:18:36,320 --> 01:18:39,759
Speaker 1: a program that is in the absolute depths of despair.

1444
01:18:39,800 --> 01:18:42,360
Speaker 1: Because I think people forget about Alabama now because they're

1445
01:18:42,400 --> 01:18:45,840
Speaker 1: so good. But Mike Schula had lost six straight years

1446
01:18:45,880 --> 01:18:49,080
Speaker 1: to Auburn. Right when Nick Saban took over, there was

1447
01:18:49,120 --> 01:18:53,080
Speaker 1: the question of will Alabama ever be anywhere near what

1448
01:18:53,120 --> 01:18:56,960
Speaker 1: they were with Bear Bryant. Right, there was that desperate hope.

1449
01:18:56,960 --> 01:18:59,360
Speaker 1: I mean, you can contextualize the program status better than

1450
01:18:59,400 --> 01:19:01,879
Speaker 1: I can, but I feel like people have short memories.

1451
01:19:01,880 --> 01:19:04,800
Speaker 1: I mean, they were worse than Tennessee has been at

1452
01:19:04,800 --> 01:19:07,200
Speaker 1: the dregs of Tennessee's ability, right, Like, that's kind of

1453
01:19:07,200 --> 01:19:11,920
Speaker 1: where the Alabama program listen when, uh, when Saban originally

1454
01:19:11,960 --> 01:19:14,839
Speaker 1: came out in late December in Miami in this famous

1455
01:19:15,080 --> 01:19:18,040
Speaker 1: moment when someone said, are are you going to be

1456
01:19:18,080 --> 01:19:20,960
Speaker 1: the Alabama coach? And and Saban said, if you're asking

1457
01:19:20,960 --> 01:19:22,720
Speaker 1: me to say I'm not going to be the Alabama coach,

1458
01:19:22,760 --> 01:19:25,120
Speaker 1: I'm saying i Am not going to be the Alabama coach.

1459
01:19:26,000 --> 01:19:29,000
Speaker 1: That moment was one of the darkest days in Alabama

1460
01:19:29,080 --> 01:19:32,160
Speaker 1: history because at that at that point, remember Rich Rodriguez

1461
01:19:32,200 --> 01:19:35,240
Speaker 1: had already said no, Spurrier had been offered the job

1462
01:19:35,320 --> 01:19:39,320
Speaker 1: and said no, and now Saban has said I'm not

1463
01:19:39,360 --> 01:19:41,880
Speaker 1: going there. I mean, there was no one left. I

1464
01:19:41,880 --> 01:19:44,200
Speaker 1: think Bobby Petrino was the next coach on the list,

1465
01:19:45,080 --> 01:19:49,080
Speaker 1: and it just seemed like always lost. And then three

1466
01:19:49,080 --> 01:19:52,439
Speaker 1: weeks later, uh, Saban was there and and and it

1467
01:19:52,520 --> 01:19:54,280
Speaker 1: all seemed right with the world. But yeah, no, I mean,

1468
01:19:54,320 --> 01:19:57,040
Speaker 1: the Alabama program was a was a total dumpster fire.

1469
01:19:57,520 --> 01:20:00,200
Speaker 1: If Nick Saban never comes to Alabama, your career year

1470
01:20:00,320 --> 01:20:05,040
Speaker 1: is where right now? I'm in Birmingham right now, maybe employed,

1471
01:20:05,160 --> 01:20:10,840
Speaker 1: maybe not, because uh, he did you know? It was

1472
01:20:10,880 --> 01:20:14,120
Speaker 1: the confluence of going to that station at that moment

1473
01:20:14,160 --> 01:20:18,640
Speaker 1: in time, and without him there, I'm not sure I

1474
01:20:18,680 --> 01:20:21,479
Speaker 1: would Without saving I listen, I think I probably would

1475
01:20:21,479 --> 01:20:24,160
Speaker 1: have still gone to Jocks, And I'd say it's likely

1476
01:20:24,200 --> 01:20:26,559
Speaker 1: I would still be at Jocks, but it would be

1477
01:20:26,560 --> 01:20:28,680
Speaker 1: a different story than it is today for people out

1478
01:20:28,720 --> 01:20:32,680
Speaker 1: there listening on on this podcast who maybe aren't familiar

1479
01:20:32,720 --> 01:20:36,240
Speaker 1: with radio. You're being humble, but how big were the

1480
01:20:36,439 --> 01:20:39,760
Speaker 1: ratings for you guys at Jocks? Me, Joses, And let

1481
01:20:39,800 --> 01:20:42,439
Speaker 1: me give pre credit to Ryan Haney too, one of

1482
01:20:42,479 --> 01:20:46,320
Speaker 1: the best program directors for a radio station that I've

1483
01:20:46,320 --> 01:20:47,680
Speaker 1: ever heard of. And I'll give you a story. I

1484
01:20:47,680 --> 01:20:49,599
Speaker 1: don't know if you know this story. The first time

1485
01:20:49,600 --> 01:20:52,080
Speaker 1: that Lance Taylor had had me on who was doing

1486
01:20:52,080 --> 01:20:56,599
Speaker 1: the mid days before your show was when Mike Shulo

1487
01:20:56,720 --> 01:20:59,639
Speaker 1: stepped down and I wrote a column at CBS Sports

1488
01:20:59,680 --> 01:21:03,760
Speaker 1: at the time with the best potential replacements for uh

1489
01:21:03,920 --> 01:21:06,439
Speaker 1: for Mike Sula, and one of it was like ten

1490
01:21:06,560 --> 01:21:09,599
Speaker 1: kind of a joking suggestions, right. One of my ten

1491
01:21:10,040 --> 01:21:14,479
Speaker 1: was the reanimated corpse of Bear Brown. Remember that, Yeah,

1492
01:21:14,600 --> 01:21:17,680
Speaker 1: all right? And he like the phone lines just I

1493
01:21:17,680 --> 01:21:20,439
Speaker 1: mean exploded. If you ask a Lance about this right now,

1494
01:21:20,800 --> 01:21:24,080
Speaker 1: Me coming on in Birmingham and suggesting the reanimating corps

1495
01:21:24,160 --> 01:21:27,240
Speaker 1: of Bear Bryant as the replacement for Mike Sula just

1496
01:21:27,320 --> 01:21:30,679
Speaker 1: set tongues wagging like crazy. And I remember I met

1497
01:21:30,760 --> 01:21:33,160
Speaker 1: Ryan Haney shortly and Lance was like, Lance loved it.

1498
01:21:33,160 --> 01:21:35,439
Speaker 1: So I've been going on jocks for you know, weekly

1499
01:21:35,439 --> 01:21:38,439
Speaker 1: with Lance for over a decade now, um, but Lance

1500
01:21:38,520 --> 01:21:40,400
Speaker 1: loved it. But he was like, man, you should have

1501
01:21:40,479 --> 01:21:42,960
Speaker 1: heard the calls. And I feel like, and you'll know this,

1502
01:21:43,360 --> 01:21:46,560
Speaker 1: in our business, there are two different kinds of managers.

1503
01:21:46,880 --> 01:21:50,200
Speaker 1: There is the manager who the minute they get a complaint,

1504
01:21:50,479 --> 01:21:53,080
Speaker 1: he curls up in the fetal position and it's like,

1505
01:21:53,200 --> 01:21:55,599
Speaker 1: calls you in and just read you the Riot Act

1506
01:21:55,600 --> 01:21:58,559
Speaker 1: and he's like, nobody's gonna listen if you say X,

1507
01:21:58,720 --> 01:22:02,280
Speaker 1: Y or Z. Right. Ryan Haney is the exact opposite,

1508
01:22:02,280 --> 01:22:04,760
Speaker 1: and he's as aggressive as anybody I've ever heard. He said, man,

1509
01:22:04,800 --> 01:22:06,680
Speaker 1: if we're not getting a ton of compliments, I mean

1510
01:22:06,720 --> 01:22:09,200
Speaker 1: a ton of complaints every day, it means we're doing

1511
01:22:09,439 --> 01:22:12,120
Speaker 1: radio the wrong way right. And you can speak to

1512
01:22:12,160 --> 01:22:14,080
Speaker 1: this better than I can. But he gave you a

1513
01:22:14,160 --> 01:22:18,440
Speaker 1: runway and let you run wild with that show. No, absolutely,

1514
01:22:18,520 --> 01:22:22,400
Speaker 1: And and you know what's interesting. Uh, when I went

1515
01:22:22,439 --> 01:22:27,560
Speaker 1: to Jocks Clay, even though I just turned fifty, I think, um,

1516
01:22:27,680 --> 01:22:31,320
Speaker 1: I've been in Birmingham forty almost thirty years. A lot

1517
01:22:31,360 --> 01:22:34,240
Speaker 1: of people didn't know me because, uh, you know, the

1518
01:22:34,240 --> 01:22:38,960
Speaker 1: newspaper business had already collapsed. Uh, young young people were

1519
01:22:38,960 --> 01:22:42,639
Speaker 1: not listening to me following Rush Limbaugh on a news

1520
01:22:42,640 --> 01:22:45,480
Speaker 1: talk So I was introduced to well and and he

1521
01:22:45,479 --> 01:22:48,320
Speaker 1: he uh you know, he took a gamble because he

1522
01:22:48,360 --> 01:22:50,639
Speaker 1: didn't have that he didn't have to have me. Um.

1523
01:22:51,080 --> 01:22:53,799
Speaker 1: And I took a gamble by taking significantly less money

1524
01:22:53,840 --> 01:22:57,360
Speaker 1: that it would work out. And and I mean the

1525
01:22:57,640 --> 01:22:59,640
Speaker 1: place was a dump. Okay. I walked in there with

1526
01:22:59,680 --> 01:23:01,880
Speaker 1: my team, and I mean they were like, how did

1527
01:23:01,920 --> 01:23:05,360
Speaker 1: you and how did you? Uh? A guy came I

1528
01:23:05,439 --> 01:23:07,000
Speaker 1: think it was trying to remember it was a New

1529
01:23:07,040 --> 01:23:11,680
Speaker 1: Yorker writer. Uh. He described the building we were in

1530
01:23:11,800 --> 01:23:16,200
Speaker 1: as a as a as a Russian prison camp or something.

1531
01:23:16,200 --> 01:23:17,680
Speaker 1: I mean it was by the way, that's where a

1532
01:23:17,680 --> 01:23:20,200
Speaker 1: lot of radio stations are, right. I mean, there's not

1533
01:23:20,320 --> 01:23:22,240
Speaker 1: you said you had a great view in the in

1534
01:23:22,320 --> 01:23:24,720
Speaker 1: the you know, the studio that you left. There's a

1535
01:23:24,720 --> 01:23:28,519
Speaker 1: lot of people who do radio out of basically Russian bunkers,

1536
01:23:28,680 --> 01:23:33,280
Speaker 1: but it was it was you were one of the

1537
01:23:33,320 --> 01:23:36,280
Speaker 1: few people that that understand my next statement, it was

1538
01:23:36,720 --> 01:23:40,400
Speaker 1: the single best decision in my entire career to go

1539
01:23:40,520 --> 01:23:44,960
Speaker 1: to jocks for less money, uh, for less, for inferior

1540
01:23:45,000 --> 01:23:48,519
Speaker 1: working conditions, uh, the wrath of my my closest friends

1541
01:23:48,520 --> 01:23:52,080
Speaker 1: and team, But it was the right call because without

1542
01:23:52,120 --> 01:23:56,519
Speaker 1: that I could have never uh gotten to where I

1543
01:23:56,600 --> 01:23:59,920
Speaker 1: am now. And and sometimes you just have to you know,

1544
01:24:00,080 --> 01:24:02,559
Speaker 1: you have to take a chance and potentially be willing

1545
01:24:02,560 --> 01:24:04,680
Speaker 1: to go backwards in order to go forwards, right, I mean,

1546
01:24:04,680 --> 01:24:08,439
Speaker 1: it's like anything else. So the show takes off, becomes

1547
01:24:08,479 --> 01:24:11,880
Speaker 1: wildly popular. Uh, Nick saban Is is driving you know,

1548
01:24:11,920 --> 01:24:16,000
Speaker 1: the Alabama Dynasty to different levels. Um. And a guy

1549
01:24:16,080 --> 01:24:19,600
Speaker 1: named Harvey Updke calls your show and talks about the

1550
01:24:19,640 --> 01:24:22,040
Speaker 1: fact that he had toys in the yoaks at Tumors,

1551
01:24:22,120 --> 01:24:24,719
Speaker 1: which is I think, I mean, more than anything else,

1552
01:24:25,160 --> 01:24:29,680
Speaker 1: put your local radio show into the stratosphere. Well, you

1553
01:24:30,000 --> 01:24:32,280
Speaker 1: mentioned the ratings and and and for for a guy

1554
01:24:32,280 --> 01:24:33,720
Speaker 1: that used to be at the news talk, I mean

1555
01:24:33,720 --> 01:24:36,040
Speaker 1: you kind of dreaded the four days a year when

1556
01:24:36,080 --> 01:24:38,400
Speaker 1: you got the ratings. I mean, now it was just

1557
01:24:38,600 --> 01:24:40,519
Speaker 1: it was it was It was ridiculous. It was like

1558
01:24:40,560 --> 01:24:44,599
Speaker 1: going to Vegas and just saying and having the pit

1559
01:24:44,720 --> 01:24:47,639
Speaker 1: boss nod saying that you're letting you know you're about

1560
01:24:47,680 --> 01:24:51,120
Speaker 1: to win a million dollars UM. So the ratings started

1561
01:24:51,840 --> 01:24:55,599
Speaker 1: going crazy, the show started getting attention. And one thing

1562
01:24:55,640 --> 01:24:58,280
Speaker 1: before that, I want to say, after Alabama won the

1563
01:24:58,360 --> 01:25:01,480
Speaker 1: national championship, while on the way back from from Pasadena

1564
01:25:01,520 --> 01:25:04,479
Speaker 1: and in early two thousand and ten, Pat Smith called

1565
01:25:04,520 --> 01:25:07,160
Speaker 1: me and said, I just got a crazy call from

1566
01:25:07,200 --> 01:25:11,280
Speaker 1: Sirius XM and they want to put our show in

1567
01:25:11,320 --> 01:25:15,799
Speaker 1: the afternoons on their college sports channel, which we went on. UH,

1568
01:25:15,840 --> 01:25:18,920
Speaker 1: and I thought they were insane. So a couple of

1569
01:25:18,920 --> 01:25:22,080
Speaker 1: months later, it's now January of two thousand and eleven,

1570
01:25:22,840 --> 01:25:28,160
Speaker 1: and Cam Newton had just led Auburn to a national championship. UH,

1571
01:25:28,560 --> 01:25:31,280
Speaker 1: in part because of the most creative lawyer ing in

1572
01:25:31,320 --> 01:25:34,519
Speaker 1: the history of the medium, our very close and dear

1573
01:25:34,880 --> 01:25:39,880
Speaker 1: and late friend Mike's live UH and UH. The last

1574
01:25:39,880 --> 01:25:42,680
Speaker 1: thirty minutes of the show, I'm like all hosts at

1575
01:25:42,680 --> 01:25:44,640
Speaker 1: the last year, just kind of get me out of here.

1576
01:25:44,680 --> 01:25:48,959
Speaker 1: It's it's it's January, and a guy named Alfam Daville

1577
01:25:49,040 --> 01:25:52,920
Speaker 1: calls up and starts rambling about something of no consequence

1578
01:25:52,920 --> 01:25:54,880
Speaker 1: that happened thirty years later. Then finally at the end

1579
01:25:54,920 --> 01:25:58,639
Speaker 1: he admits to poisoning the tumors trees and we hang

1580
01:25:58,760 --> 01:26:02,639
Speaker 1: up play and I didn't give it much thought. Two

1581
01:26:02,680 --> 01:26:05,000
Speaker 1: weeks later, I got a call from a friend who

1582
01:26:05,080 --> 01:26:08,240
Speaker 1: was uh uh the staff person for Richard Shelby, the

1583
01:26:08,280 --> 01:26:12,240
Speaker 1: Alabama senior senator on the Homeland Security UH Subcommittee, and

1584
01:26:12,240 --> 01:26:15,439
Speaker 1: he said, uh, this, this deal is being investigated for

1585
01:26:15,560 --> 01:26:18,160
Speaker 1: a as a terrorist threat. And the next day they

1586
01:26:18,200 --> 01:26:23,120
Speaker 1: arrested Harvey ub Duck and and from there it's just

1587
01:26:23,160 --> 01:26:26,840
Speaker 1: an absolute craziness. Now, I want to go into here

1588
01:26:26,960 --> 01:26:30,479
Speaker 1: from a perspective of a show. What I admired listening

1589
01:26:30,520 --> 01:26:32,120
Speaker 1: to your show, and I'd go back and forth from

1590
01:26:32,120 --> 01:26:35,680
Speaker 1: Birmingham quite a bit, is the high low dichotomy. And

1591
01:26:35,720 --> 01:26:38,280
Speaker 1: I'm curious how much of this was conscious on your part.

1592
01:26:38,600 --> 01:26:41,240
Speaker 1: People who are listening to this podcast are probably going

1593
01:26:41,280 --> 01:26:44,200
Speaker 1: to think Paul fis Paul five Bomb is a pretty

1594
01:26:44,240 --> 01:26:48,639
Speaker 1: smart guy. And certainly if you conduct interviews on your show,

1595
01:26:48,840 --> 01:26:52,479
Speaker 1: they are very high level interviews, and you've conducted interviews

1596
01:26:52,520 --> 01:26:55,639
Speaker 1: with like you said, you're interested in politics like culture.

1597
01:26:55,680 --> 01:26:58,040
Speaker 1: I mean, you can talk to pretty much anybody right

1598
01:26:58,200 --> 01:27:01,599
Speaker 1: on your on your radio program. But you would mix

1599
01:27:01,680 --> 01:27:05,400
Speaker 1: that with some of the most outrageous and outlandish callers

1600
01:27:05,479 --> 01:27:08,760
Speaker 1: that you have ever heard, and so it was a

1601
01:27:08,880 --> 01:27:12,640
Speaker 1: carnival of excess, both high end and low end. Was

1602
01:27:12,680 --> 01:27:16,120
Speaker 1: that a natural decision or did it happen organically? How

1603
01:27:16,120 --> 01:27:19,680
Speaker 1: did you go about creating the dynamic that exists and

1604
01:27:19,720 --> 01:27:23,120
Speaker 1: still exists in your show. I think it just happened. Listen.

1605
01:27:23,160 --> 01:27:27,000
Speaker 1: I love the highbrower interview. Um, and I've had I've

1606
01:27:27,000 --> 01:27:31,120
Speaker 1: had Mike Slive's wife once tried to talk me. She said,

1607
01:27:31,120 --> 01:27:33,080
Speaker 1: you probably you're wasting your time doing what you're doing.

1608
01:27:33,120 --> 01:27:35,479
Speaker 1: You need to know go to work for NPR. Yes,

1609
01:27:35,640 --> 01:27:37,920
Speaker 1: And I said to her, I said, listen, Liz uh,

1610
01:27:38,040 --> 01:27:43,200
Speaker 1: I really would rather not starve. I enjoy you and

1611
01:27:42,800 --> 01:27:45,639
Speaker 1: and and I think there's I think it's I think

1612
01:27:45,680 --> 01:27:47,559
Speaker 1: this could be said about you as well, not to

1613
01:27:47,840 --> 01:27:51,640
Speaker 1: psychoanalyze you for a podcast that on the subject, But

1614
01:27:52,240 --> 01:27:55,679
Speaker 1: I love those highbrower interviews, but when when it when

1615
01:27:55,680 --> 01:27:58,760
Speaker 1: it comes down to pure entertainment, my curiosity level goes

1616
01:27:58,840 --> 01:28:03,639
Speaker 1: to the lowest common denominators and I want the drama.

1617
01:28:03,760 --> 01:28:06,920
Speaker 1: And and I don't think I did it consciously, It's

1618
01:28:06,960 --> 01:28:10,840
Speaker 1: just started to happen. Um, and the when I'm talking

1619
01:28:10,880 --> 01:28:13,559
Speaker 1: to one of these type of callers, uh, that you

1620
01:28:13,600 --> 01:28:17,320
Speaker 1: have talked to and uh you you and and uh

1621
01:28:17,560 --> 01:28:20,200
Speaker 1: and Chris Vernon used to just destroy on our show.

1622
01:28:20,479 --> 01:28:22,080
Speaker 1: We would have a lot of fun. Just I would

1623
01:28:22,080 --> 01:28:24,679
Speaker 1: take calls, you know from Alabama fans who are furious

1624
01:28:24,720 --> 01:28:27,920
Speaker 1: with me. I just there's not another thing in the

1625
01:28:27,960 --> 01:28:30,799
Speaker 1: world that matters to me other than pushing that person

1626
01:28:30,960 --> 01:28:35,479
Speaker 1: lower um and getting the most insane call out of it.

1627
01:28:35,520 --> 01:28:38,559
Speaker 1: Because it's entertainment and it's listen, Howard Stern. What makes

1628
01:28:38,560 --> 01:28:42,920
Speaker 1: thirty two million dollars a year appealing to that level?

1629
01:28:43,000 --> 01:28:44,640
Speaker 1: And I don't I don't think I could do it

1630
01:28:44,680 --> 01:28:47,719
Speaker 1: every day, But I think the mix of it. Someone

1631
01:28:47,760 --> 01:28:49,840
Speaker 1: once wrote or described the show as a three ring

1632
01:28:49,920 --> 01:28:52,320
Speaker 1: circus that you have the middle ring and then you

1633
01:28:52,360 --> 01:28:56,320
Speaker 1: have the two extremes. And they're really smart people know

1634
01:28:56,400 --> 01:28:58,759
Speaker 1: what's going on at all times on all three rings,

1635
01:28:58,960 --> 01:29:01,759
Speaker 1: but a lot of people only lock into that singular

1636
01:29:01,840 --> 01:29:04,880
Speaker 1: ring that that appeals to their level. No, I think

1637
01:29:04,880 --> 01:29:06,559
Speaker 1: that's all said. And that's what I always say about

1638
01:29:06,600 --> 01:29:09,280
Speaker 1: high low drama. The people who like and this is

1639
01:29:09,280 --> 01:29:11,920
Speaker 1: where I think Stern was brilliant. The people who like

1640
01:29:12,120 --> 01:29:16,559
Speaker 1: high end intellectual discourse on radio interviews are often the

1641
01:29:16,600 --> 01:29:19,840
Speaker 1: same people who like, uh the Jared Springer elements too.

1642
01:29:20,240 --> 01:29:23,000
Speaker 1: And the Internet certainly has has brought this home to

1643
01:29:23,040 --> 01:29:26,920
Speaker 1: bear very much so where really high caliber, high end

1644
01:29:27,200 --> 01:29:31,160
Speaker 1: intellectual entertainment does well, but so does the exact opposite.

1645
01:29:31,240 --> 01:29:33,160
Speaker 1: And uh, and you mentioned I want to get to

1646
01:29:33,160 --> 01:29:36,000
Speaker 1: to this certainly, you mentioned Mike Slide just threw a

1647
01:29:36,560 --> 01:29:40,160
Speaker 1: quote from his wife there. When did Slive start listening

1648
01:29:40,200 --> 01:29:43,479
Speaker 1: to the show? When did you start interacting with Mike Slive?

1649
01:29:43,720 --> 01:29:46,479
Speaker 1: What was your relationship? And for people out there who

1650
01:29:46,479 --> 01:29:51,599
Speaker 1: don't know, Mike's live was the SEC commissioner who basically

1651
01:29:51,640 --> 01:29:55,879
Speaker 1: took the SEC into a national brand. Um and obviously

1652
01:29:55,920 --> 01:29:58,639
Speaker 1: the SEC is based out of Birmingham. Uh So you

1653
01:29:58,640 --> 01:30:01,680
Speaker 1: guys were not very far apart from a geographic perspective

1654
01:30:01,720 --> 01:30:04,640
Speaker 1: as this show is going. I met him for the

1655
01:30:04,640 --> 01:30:06,200
Speaker 1: first time. I chased him down in the U A

1656
01:30:06,280 --> 01:30:09,960
Speaker 1: B basketball game, uh, yelling at him why why the

1657
01:30:10,040 --> 01:30:12,800
Speaker 1: league had not taken U A B into Conference USA?

1658
01:30:12,960 --> 01:30:16,120
Speaker 1: And he the next time I think I saw him

1659
01:30:17,439 --> 01:30:19,720
Speaker 1: a correction, That's not true, because he was he was

1660
01:30:20,320 --> 01:30:21,640
Speaker 1: he was at he was at a U A B

1661
01:30:21,720 --> 01:30:23,720
Speaker 1: game as a Conference us A commissioner. I was. I

1662
01:30:23,760 --> 01:30:26,599
Speaker 1: was chasing him down, asking him why uh, something about

1663
01:30:26,600 --> 01:30:30,160
Speaker 1: Alabama's probation Clay I stand corrected. He was the chairman

1664
01:30:30,160 --> 01:30:33,839
Speaker 1: of the Appeals Committee. And he brushed me off, like

1665
01:30:33,840 --> 01:30:36,599
Speaker 1: like I was a bum on the street. Um, and

1666
01:30:36,600 --> 01:30:41,240
Speaker 1: this would have been at something uh and and then

1667
01:30:41,240 --> 01:30:43,160
Speaker 1: I think I was critical of him about something else

1668
01:30:43,240 --> 01:30:47,880
Speaker 1: involving a Conference USA, and and uh and and you

1669
01:30:48,000 --> 01:30:50,479
Speaker 1: a B but when you know? And then then there

1670
01:30:50,520 --> 01:30:53,719
Speaker 1: was a break, and then he came back his first

1671
01:30:54,400 --> 01:30:57,040
Speaker 1: press conferences commissioner. He said every every school would be

1672
01:30:57,080 --> 01:30:59,920
Speaker 1: off probation in five years. And I spent the entire

1673
01:31:00,120 --> 01:31:03,200
Speaker 1: afternoon cascadading him, saying that this guy is so clueless,

1674
01:31:03,520 --> 01:31:05,800
Speaker 1: doesn't know what he's talking about. He heard about it,

1675
01:31:06,080 --> 01:31:08,120
Speaker 1: and instead of saying, you know what, I'll never talk

1676
01:31:08,200 --> 01:31:10,840
Speaker 1: to that guy again, he decided to come down and

1677
01:31:10,880 --> 01:31:14,080
Speaker 1: do the show. Um. About a month or two later,

1678
01:31:14,120 --> 01:31:17,280
Speaker 1: we found ourselves in a press box and Sayettville, Arkansas,

1679
01:31:17,680 --> 01:31:19,680
Speaker 1: and he asked me. I'd gone with one of the

1680
01:31:19,720 --> 01:31:22,640
Speaker 1: team doctors and he said, uh, are you are you

1681
01:31:22,680 --> 01:31:26,479
Speaker 1: going right back? Or what? I said? Well, there was

1682
01:31:26,479 --> 01:31:29,439
Speaker 1: something long we we had to go somewhere, he said

1683
01:31:29,479 --> 01:31:31,200
Speaker 1: to me, Um, he said, well, why don't you fly

1684
01:31:31,280 --> 01:31:33,960
Speaker 1: back with Liz and I. So I flew back with

1685
01:31:34,120 --> 01:31:39,320
Speaker 1: Liz and we spent the entire she was learning Hebrew

1686
01:31:39,360 --> 01:31:41,960
Speaker 1: at the time, or it is, or I can't remember

1687
01:31:41,960 --> 01:31:43,680
Speaker 1: what she was, and we spent the entire time talking

1688
01:31:43,720 --> 01:31:46,800
Speaker 1: about Judaism. We had lunch about a week or two later.

1689
01:31:46,880 --> 01:31:48,960
Speaker 1: I brought him a book and you know the rest. Uh.

1690
01:31:49,200 --> 01:31:51,479
Speaker 1: We we started this book club, which he was. He

1691
01:31:51,560 --> 01:31:53,760
Speaker 1: loved talking about that and we would just have these

1692
01:31:53,800 --> 01:32:00,400
Speaker 1: intellectual lunches every four the six weeks. And I was

1693
01:32:00,479 --> 01:32:02,680
Speaker 1: with him the day I had lunch with him the

1694
01:32:02,760 --> 01:32:04,760
Speaker 1: day he was going over to Atlanta to meet with

1695
01:32:04,960 --> 01:32:09,479
Speaker 1: John Skipper to UH agree on launching the SEC network.

1696
01:32:10,280 --> 01:32:13,400
Speaker 1: I was with him many other momentous moments uh and

1697
01:32:13,400 --> 01:32:16,320
Speaker 1: we had and these lunches were fantastic until we started

1698
01:32:16,320 --> 01:32:18,400
Speaker 1: talking about my own career at one of these at

1699
01:32:18,400 --> 01:32:20,479
Speaker 1: the lunches, and then most of the fun was over

1700
01:32:20,520 --> 01:32:22,280
Speaker 1: because it was much more fun talking about books and

1701
01:32:22,760 --> 01:32:24,679
Speaker 1: than whether or not I would go to work for ESPN.

1702
01:32:24,720 --> 01:32:27,760
Speaker 1: I know, I just jumped about eight eight blocks ahead there.

1703
01:32:27,880 --> 01:32:32,080
Speaker 1: But he's he was sixteen years older than me. He

1704
01:32:32,120 --> 01:32:35,760
Speaker 1: was the older brother I never had UM. And by

1705
01:32:35,760 --> 01:32:38,439
Speaker 1: the time he died a little over a year ago,

1706
01:32:39,160 --> 01:32:41,679
Speaker 1: I mean, he was clearly one of the closest friends

1707
01:32:42,200 --> 01:32:46,919
Speaker 1: UH in my life, and the being asked and delivering

1708
01:32:46,920 --> 01:32:51,400
Speaker 1: the eulogy at his general remains the singular UH honor

1709
01:32:51,479 --> 01:32:53,320
Speaker 1: of my career and the thing I'm most proud of.

1710
01:32:54,479 --> 01:32:57,080
Speaker 1: He is he was an incredible guy and UH, I

1711
01:32:57,120 --> 01:33:00,400
Speaker 1: will say this, the high low humor was not lost

1712
01:33:00,479 --> 01:33:03,680
Speaker 1: on him because I remember I did a big profile

1713
01:33:03,760 --> 01:33:07,400
Speaker 1: piece on him and UH, and before we started the

1714
01:33:07,439 --> 01:33:11,479
Speaker 1: profile piece, he wanted to talk about me taking calls

1715
01:33:11,720 --> 01:33:14,800
Speaker 1: from your callers and say how much he loved it, right,

1716
01:33:14,840 --> 01:33:17,559
Speaker 1: I mean, how much he absolutely loved me going after

1717
01:33:17,600 --> 01:33:20,720
Speaker 1: the callers and UH and arguing with them and you know,

1718
01:33:20,800 --> 01:33:22,519
Speaker 1: kind of getting in the mud, so to speak. And

1719
01:33:22,560 --> 01:33:25,920
Speaker 1: he was like, oh, it's you know, fantastic stuff. And um,

1720
01:33:26,120 --> 01:33:28,360
Speaker 1: and I think and I don't think I'm doing any

1721
01:33:28,400 --> 01:33:32,559
Speaker 1: exaggeration here. He was so instrumental in the way that

1722
01:33:32,600 --> 01:33:37,320
Speaker 1: the SEC network exists in sounds now because the conservative

1723
01:33:37,360 --> 01:33:39,360
Speaker 1: and we're talking about Ryan Haney and the risks that

1724
01:33:39,439 --> 01:33:44,439
Speaker 1: programmers can take. The conservative gesture would have been to

1725
01:33:44,560 --> 01:33:46,599
Speaker 1: do a little bit like what the Big ten network

1726
01:33:46,640 --> 01:33:51,280
Speaker 1: has done, right, anything remotely controversial, let's run away from it.

1727
01:33:51,640 --> 01:33:55,200
Speaker 1: You're on that network for four hours every day, and

1728
01:33:55,360 --> 01:33:57,400
Speaker 1: I don't know what you know, what the numbers would be,

1729
01:33:57,680 --> 01:34:01,160
Speaker 1: but every single day a lot of coaches and administrations

1730
01:34:01,320 --> 01:34:06,000
Speaker 1: and schools come in for for for getting censured by callers, right,

1731
01:34:06,400 --> 01:34:09,800
Speaker 1: and sometimes negative things that are being said, maybe even

1732
01:34:09,840 --> 01:34:12,840
Speaker 1: frequently negative things that are being said. Yet it's also

1733
01:34:13,280 --> 01:34:16,920
Speaker 1: a as a result, a somewhat accurate reflection of a

1734
01:34:16,960 --> 01:34:19,599
Speaker 1: fan base or fan basis on a day to day basis,

1735
01:34:19,880 --> 01:34:22,479
Speaker 1: which we had not seen and frankly still haven't seen

1736
01:34:22,520 --> 01:34:24,479
Speaker 1: from the Big ten network. So this was a pretty

1737
01:34:24,560 --> 01:34:26,640
Speaker 1: radical jump for him to want to put you on

1738
01:34:26,720 --> 01:34:31,600
Speaker 1: the SEC network. No, and and and listen, Uh, I

1739
01:34:31,600 --> 01:34:34,160
Speaker 1: don't want to go too many steps back, but but

1740
01:34:34,240 --> 01:34:39,479
Speaker 1: the road here was pretty fascinating. Uh, Clay because um

1741
01:34:39,680 --> 01:34:44,280
Speaker 1: I you've probably heard the story before. But towards the

1742
01:34:44,400 --> 01:34:48,160
Speaker 1: end of the towards the middle of two thousand and twelve,

1743
01:34:48,640 --> 01:34:54,599
Speaker 1: I was I was not unhappy with with Jocks per se.

1744
01:34:54,640 --> 01:34:56,439
Speaker 1: I love jocks. It was the it was the it

1745
01:34:56,520 --> 01:34:58,960
Speaker 1: was a parent company that I was distraught with him.

1746
01:34:58,960 --> 01:35:02,760
Speaker 1: I had joined the club. Yeah, well, uh, Clay and

1747
01:35:02,760 --> 01:35:06,439
Speaker 1: I were pretty much introduced, having many conversations about so anyway,

1748
01:35:06,439 --> 01:35:08,479
Speaker 1: I had had legal issues with them. You had you

1749
01:35:08,479 --> 01:35:11,639
Speaker 1: had legal issues with them, and so I began looking

1750
01:35:11,720 --> 01:35:14,600
Speaker 1: around for a someplace to go. I mean, I just

1751
01:35:14,640 --> 01:35:17,719
Speaker 1: did not want to stay there any longer. The company

1752
01:35:17,800 --> 01:35:20,320
Speaker 1: was the parent company was in bankruptcy, was just too

1753
01:35:20,600 --> 01:35:25,360
Speaker 1: So one of these lunches with Mike Slive, Uh, we

1754
01:35:25,400 --> 01:35:27,240
Speaker 1: had now been on serious X them for two years.

1755
01:35:27,280 --> 01:35:29,719
Speaker 1: They wanted to hire me, I said, Mike, I said, listen,

1756
01:35:30,200 --> 01:35:34,200
Speaker 1: I'm talking to various people. Had I had a really

1757
01:35:34,200 --> 01:35:37,120
Speaker 1: good lawyer in town that represented me, that represents a

1758
01:35:37,160 --> 01:35:40,559
Speaker 1: lot of our mutual friends. But I felt like I

1759
01:35:40,600 --> 01:35:44,559
Speaker 1: needed an entertainment agent. So he recommended somebody and he said,

1760
01:35:44,640 --> 01:35:48,440
Speaker 1: let me let me set it up. I said, I'm sure. Um,

1761
01:35:48,520 --> 01:35:52,160
Speaker 1: So he set up this meeting with I would say

1762
01:35:52,160 --> 01:35:54,479
Speaker 1: at the time Clay, he was the number one guy

1763
01:35:54,520 --> 01:35:58,240
Speaker 1: in the business. Uh in New York. Took six weeks

1764
01:35:58,240 --> 01:35:59,960
Speaker 1: to set the meeting up. Not only was he there,

1765
01:36:00,080 --> 01:36:04,960
Speaker 1: but the head of the company was there. I thought

1766
01:36:05,040 --> 01:36:09,840
Speaker 1: my career was had been made um that this was it.

1767
01:36:10,040 --> 01:36:11,519
Speaker 1: I mean, you get a meeting with a guy like that.

1768
01:36:11,560 --> 01:36:13,920
Speaker 1: The guys like this don't take meetings with with SMOs

1769
01:36:14,000 --> 01:36:19,640
Speaker 1: like me. I walk in, Uh, he said, in a

1770
01:36:19,960 --> 01:36:23,280
Speaker 1: very brusque New York fashion. I'm over. We're over on

1771
01:36:23,360 --> 01:36:26,640
Speaker 1: the floor, We're looking Central Park. He goes, what can

1772
01:36:26,680 --> 01:36:29,840
Speaker 1: I do for you? I'm like, going, whoa this is?

1773
01:36:30,040 --> 01:36:37,120
Speaker 1: This isn't going very well. I said, Uh, don't worry this.

1774
01:36:37,240 --> 01:36:40,080
Speaker 1: This is not a long conversations, so you don't worry

1775
01:36:40,080 --> 01:36:42,160
Speaker 1: about wearing at a tape on this one. I said,

1776
01:36:43,400 --> 01:36:48,200
Speaker 1: I've been in contact with Sirius XM. And before I

1777
01:36:48,200 --> 01:36:49,880
Speaker 1: could even finish, he said, they're not going to hire you.

1778
01:36:51,120 --> 01:36:54,599
Speaker 1: I go, okay, I said, well, I'm um. By the way,

1779
01:36:54,640 --> 01:36:56,479
Speaker 1: I've been on serious X time out for two years.

1780
01:36:58,000 --> 01:37:00,080
Speaker 1: He said, I said, well, he said, listen, I'm oh,

1781
01:37:00,160 --> 01:37:02,519
Speaker 1: all those guys. Uh, you know, someone shows one of

1782
01:37:02,560 --> 01:37:04,559
Speaker 1: my closest friends. They're not gonna hire you. You're a

1783
01:37:04,560 --> 01:37:09,679
Speaker 1: regional guy. I go, well, I mean, Clay, I didn't

1784
01:37:09,760 --> 01:37:11,120
Speaker 1: for a guy who talks for a living. I didn't

1785
01:37:11,120 --> 01:37:13,639
Speaker 1: know what to say. We're now at maybe the two

1786
01:37:13,640 --> 01:37:19,840
Speaker 1: and a half minute market this meeting, so I'm I said, well, listen,

1787
01:37:19,960 --> 01:37:25,600
Speaker 1: uh anything else. I'm like what I said, Well, I

1788
01:37:25,680 --> 01:37:29,639
Speaker 1: had given some thought to maybe working for ESPN at something.

1789
01:37:29,640 --> 01:37:33,519
Speaker 1: He said, ESPN is not gonna hire you. I go, well, um,

1790
01:37:33,840 --> 01:37:35,880
Speaker 1: he said you. He said, do you know who something

1791
01:37:35,920 --> 01:37:39,040
Speaker 1: my clients are, and then he listed a bunch of

1792
01:37:39,040 --> 01:37:42,040
Speaker 1: a list people that we're all at the very upper

1793
01:37:42,080 --> 01:37:45,360
Speaker 1: echelon of the business. I go, well, I'm struggling to

1794
01:37:45,400 --> 01:37:48,080
Speaker 1: even say anything at this point. So the president of

1795
01:37:48,080 --> 01:37:51,080
Speaker 1: the company is no longer the president. He he looks

1796
01:37:51,120 --> 01:37:53,320
Speaker 1: at me, he looks at the other guy, says, well,

1797
01:37:53,320 --> 01:37:56,439
Speaker 1: maybe we could uh, I mean, feeling sorry for me,

1798
01:37:56,439 --> 01:37:58,920
Speaker 1: he said, we get Paul some uh you know we

1799
01:37:59,000 --> 01:38:03,560
Speaker 1: own uh and say it we own. I am g college, Um,

1800
01:38:03,600 --> 01:38:07,600
Speaker 1: maybe we could get Paul some sideline work. I'm like,

1801
01:38:08,200 --> 01:38:10,840
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm like, I mean, I'm you know about

1802
01:38:10,880 --> 01:38:15,240
Speaker 1: being I mean, humiliation doesn't describe it. Okay. I said,

1803
01:38:15,240 --> 01:38:20,000
Speaker 1: well that's okay, um, so he said anything else. We're

1804
01:38:20,040 --> 01:38:23,280
Speaker 1: now maybe eight minutes in okay, okay. I have another

1805
01:38:23,360 --> 01:38:26,400
Speaker 1: meeting in about two hours before I go to La Guardia.

1806
01:38:26,880 --> 01:38:29,599
Speaker 1: I said, well, listen, um, if you get a chance,

1807
01:38:29,680 --> 01:38:33,960
Speaker 1: maybe you could call the guy's serious xm uh. He said, yeah,

1808
01:38:34,000 --> 01:38:35,080
Speaker 1: I'll give him a call. And he said, you know,

1809
01:38:35,080 --> 01:38:37,720
Speaker 1: as a as a favor to the family. That was

1810
01:38:37,800 --> 01:38:40,519
Speaker 1: a take that for whatever you want. But I was like,

1811
01:38:40,920 --> 01:38:43,840
Speaker 1: I'm doing this as a favorite of Slive. I walk

1812
01:38:43,920 --> 01:38:47,920
Speaker 1: out of there. I head over to Central Park because

1813
01:38:47,960 --> 01:38:51,680
Speaker 1: my next meeting was at the Ritz Carlton On I

1814
01:38:51,680 --> 01:38:55,120
Speaker 1: think Central Park South. I mean, I'm talking to myself.

1815
01:38:55,479 --> 01:38:58,080
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm like a bum in Central Park. I

1816
01:38:58,160 --> 01:39:01,280
Speaker 1: call my wife. She said, howd to go? I said,

1817
01:39:01,360 --> 01:39:04,759
Speaker 1: it was a disaster, and she she said, well maybe

1818
01:39:04,760 --> 01:39:07,880
Speaker 1: I guess, um, I guess, I said. I said to her,

1819
01:39:07,880 --> 01:39:09,000
Speaker 1: I said, I guess we'll just spend the rest of

1820
01:39:09,040 --> 01:39:10,800
Speaker 1: our lives in Birmingham. And she said, well, there's nothing

1821
01:39:10,800 --> 01:39:13,280
Speaker 1: wrong with that, you know. She's I called Pat Smith

1822
01:39:13,320 --> 01:39:16,400
Speaker 1: and he's in shock. And I mean I literally walked

1823
01:39:16,439 --> 01:39:20,080
Speaker 1: around for an hour and finally meet this guy at

1824
01:39:20,160 --> 01:39:22,280
Speaker 1: the Rich Carlton and you're gonna You're gonna figure out

1825
01:39:22,280 --> 01:39:25,320
Speaker 1: the story here in a minute. He was a blogger

1826
01:39:26,000 --> 01:39:27,800
Speaker 1: and he had asked if he could do talk to

1827
01:39:27,840 --> 01:39:29,720
Speaker 1: me if I was ever up there, and I told

1828
01:39:29,760 --> 01:39:31,160
Speaker 1: him I'd be in New York. So I meet this

1829
01:39:31,200 --> 01:39:34,599
Speaker 1: guy named Reid's Wideman for some coffee. I'm not listening

1830
01:39:34,600 --> 01:39:37,679
Speaker 1: to a word he says. He's a he's a sports

1831
01:39:37,720 --> 01:39:44,040
Speaker 1: blogger for the New Yorker magazine and he I heard

1832
01:39:44,120 --> 01:39:47,680
Speaker 1: him say David Remnick, who's the editor of the magazine,

1833
01:39:48,120 --> 01:39:50,920
Speaker 1: that had wanted to do a college football profile they

1834
01:39:50,920 --> 01:39:53,360
Speaker 1: had not done one in many years, and that they

1835
01:39:53,360 --> 01:39:57,559
Speaker 1: talked about something between five and six thousand words on me.

1836
01:39:58,360 --> 01:40:02,600
Speaker 1: Am I going, what uh So? Anyway, I leave, I go,

1837
01:40:02,800 --> 01:40:07,080
Speaker 1: I go, I catch a Capital Guardia. A week later,

1838
01:40:08,800 --> 01:40:11,479
Speaker 1: the same guy just sat with in the office who

1839
01:40:11,479 --> 01:40:13,680
Speaker 1: blew me off, called me and said serious wanted to

1840
01:40:13,760 --> 01:40:16,120
Speaker 1: hire me and he'd be more than happy to send

1841
01:40:16,120 --> 01:40:21,200
Speaker 1: me an engagement agreement. I went back to Slide, I said, Mike,

1842
01:40:21,240 --> 01:40:23,400
Speaker 1: I'm done with this guy. I ended up talking to

1843
01:40:23,479 --> 01:40:27,000
Speaker 1: Joe Tessa Tour, who I had gotten to know through

1844
01:40:27,120 --> 01:40:29,320
Speaker 1: roll Tide War Eagle He and Bruce Felman had been

1845
01:40:29,320 --> 01:40:32,600
Speaker 1: the producers of them, and he said, I got a

1846
01:40:32,600 --> 01:40:34,360
Speaker 1: guy for you need to meet Nick Con. I said,

1847
01:40:34,640 --> 01:40:38,280
Speaker 1: I didn't know who Nick was. UM, so Nick offered

1848
01:40:38,280 --> 01:40:42,160
Speaker 1: to fly to see me. UM, think about this. One

1849
01:40:42,200 --> 01:40:44,760
Speaker 1: of my closest friends I got named Gene Hallman. Do

1850
01:40:44,800 --> 01:40:48,519
Speaker 1: you know Gene. Gene used to be an agent. I

1851
01:40:48,560 --> 01:40:50,920
Speaker 1: told you, Jean said, I really know who this guy is.

1852
01:40:51,280 --> 01:40:55,080
Speaker 1: Let so Jene calls Nick con who, for those who

1853
01:40:55,120 --> 01:40:57,040
Speaker 1: don't know, is now the biggest agent in the business,

1854
01:40:57,600 --> 01:41:01,080
Speaker 1: and in full disclosure, also refer that's me in addition

1855
01:41:01,160 --> 01:41:02,840
Speaker 1: to a lot of a lot of other people in

1856
01:41:02,880 --> 01:41:05,080
Speaker 1: the universe of sports. Me. But Nick is an awesome guy.

1857
01:41:05,160 --> 01:41:08,000
Speaker 1: But yes, I can tell you Gene calls and interviews

1858
01:41:08,080 --> 01:41:10,559
Speaker 1: Nick con form and make sure he's okay. That's how,

1859
01:41:10,720 --> 01:41:13,120
Speaker 1: that's how, that's how down on agents. I was so

1860
01:41:13,200 --> 01:41:16,200
Speaker 1: anyway to speed this story up because I realized we're

1861
01:41:16,200 --> 01:41:19,240
Speaker 1: gonna go into like the tenth hour here in a minute. UM.

1862
01:41:19,960 --> 01:41:23,639
Speaker 1: I go through the college football season the first week

1863
01:41:23,640 --> 01:41:26,840
Speaker 1: of December, the Monday after the championship game, the epic

1864
01:41:26,880 --> 01:41:32,200
Speaker 1: game between Alabama and Georgia. Hello, Aaron Murray. UM, the

1865
01:41:32,360 --> 01:41:39,719
Speaker 1: article comes out in the New Yorker. Uh the I'm

1866
01:41:39,720 --> 01:41:41,840
Speaker 1: in New York the next day. I'm happened to be

1867
01:41:41,880 --> 01:41:44,880
Speaker 1: there for the Sports Business Journal conference. I get a

1868
01:41:44,880 --> 01:41:48,280
Speaker 1: call from a literary agent who comes up with this

1869
01:41:48,320 --> 01:41:52,519
Speaker 1: idea to do a book. Nick con sends the article

1870
01:41:52,800 --> 01:41:55,560
Speaker 1: to John Skipper, the former president of the ESPN. I

1871
01:41:55,600 --> 01:41:58,479
Speaker 1: don't know one of your closest friends. He had called

1872
01:41:58,479 --> 01:42:00,599
Speaker 1: Skipper in September and said, listen, I got a guy

1873
01:42:00,680 --> 01:42:02,639
Speaker 1: named Paul fin Boum. I think you ought to look

1874
01:42:02,680 --> 01:42:07,040
Speaker 1: at He goes, never heard of him. The article that

1875
01:42:07,280 --> 01:42:09,400
Speaker 1: that's wild in and of itself to me that Skipper

1876
01:42:09,600 --> 01:42:11,479
Speaker 1: hadn't heard of you at that point. But that's what

1877
01:42:11,520 --> 01:42:15,400
Speaker 1: the New Yorker can do. Write profile piece, he tells.

1878
01:42:15,479 --> 01:42:17,320
Speaker 1: The Skipper reads the article, so we gotta hire this

1879
01:42:17,360 --> 01:42:20,200
Speaker 1: guy for the SEC network. A couple of weeks later,

1880
01:42:20,560 --> 01:42:24,800
Speaker 1: I'm running I run into uh, Mike's Mike's Live. I

1881
01:42:24,880 --> 01:42:27,479
Speaker 1: run into Mike's Live on the field of the National

1882
01:42:27,560 --> 01:42:30,320
Speaker 1: Championship game between Alabama and Notre Dame. He said, you're

1883
01:42:30,320 --> 01:42:32,800
Speaker 1: not gonna believe this story. I go, what's that? He said?

1884
01:42:32,840 --> 01:42:36,719
Speaker 1: I had breakfast with Skipper today and he goes Mike,

1885
01:42:38,000 --> 01:42:39,680
Speaker 1: I've got a guy I want to make I want

1886
01:42:39,680 --> 01:42:41,679
Speaker 1: to hire to be the first guy at the SEC network.

1887
01:42:41,720 --> 01:42:43,720
Speaker 1: Make him to face. But I'm not sure you're going

1888
01:42:43,760 --> 01:42:46,360
Speaker 1: to go along with it. But we have we have

1889
01:42:46,520 --> 01:42:48,920
Speaker 1: to have this guy. And Michaels well, who is it?

1890
01:42:49,240 --> 01:42:51,479
Speaker 1: Of course my card, he knows the story, he says,

1891
01:42:51,520 --> 01:42:54,080
Speaker 1: it's Paul fin Boum. He said, what's your relationship? He said,

1892
01:42:54,080 --> 01:42:55,280
Speaker 1: other than the fact he's one of my two or

1893
01:42:55,280 --> 01:42:57,559
Speaker 1: three closest friends, he said, we don't know each other

1894
01:42:57,640 --> 01:43:00,280
Speaker 1: very well. Skipper breaks out laughing. They make the stason

1895
01:43:00,280 --> 01:43:02,960
Speaker 1: to hire me, obviously, I just I sped through a

1896
01:43:02,960 --> 01:43:04,519
Speaker 1: lot of a lot a lot of ground there on

1897
01:43:04,600 --> 01:43:06,439
Speaker 1: that long, drawing out story. But I think you know,

1898
01:43:06,720 --> 01:43:10,320
Speaker 1: you realize now how I got to ESPN. So you're

1899
01:43:10,360 --> 01:43:13,240
Speaker 1: at ESPN. You've got the show two to six, the

1900
01:43:13,400 --> 01:43:18,080
Speaker 1: SEC Network of launches. It has been wildly successful, blown

1901
01:43:18,160 --> 01:43:22,320
Speaker 1: through all of the pre revenue expectations. The show has

1902
01:43:22,360 --> 01:43:25,120
Speaker 1: gone really, really well. You are now in many ways.

1903
01:43:25,120 --> 01:43:27,280
Speaker 1: We started off this conversation talking about the fact that

1904
01:43:27,320 --> 01:43:29,320
Speaker 1: they now have a drink named after you. At the

1905
01:43:29,360 --> 01:43:34,639
Speaker 1: five year anniversary party for ESPN and the SEC How

1906
01:43:34,680 --> 01:43:37,479
Speaker 1: has the show changed as a result of being on

1907
01:43:37,600 --> 01:43:43,760
Speaker 1: the SEC network. It's different in certain ways. Uh. It's

1908
01:43:43,800 --> 01:43:47,440
Speaker 1: it's a television show versus a radio show, which, um,

1909
01:43:47,520 --> 01:43:49,840
Speaker 1: a lot of the old line people don't like it.

1910
01:43:49,880 --> 01:43:52,920
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's it's you know, television, television, Clay

1911
01:43:52,960 --> 01:43:55,160
Speaker 1: you do it. Uh, it's not quite the same as

1912
01:43:55,240 --> 01:43:58,559
Speaker 1: as a freewheeling radio show. You end up doing certain

1913
01:43:58,600 --> 01:44:02,720
Speaker 1: things to to check check boxes because it is a

1914
01:44:02,760 --> 01:44:08,800
Speaker 1: conference affiliation. Uh, it's not quite as cutthroat as it

1915
01:44:08,920 --> 01:44:12,920
Speaker 1: was back in Birmingham. I mean, you are cognizant of

1916
01:44:12,920 --> 01:44:16,040
Speaker 1: of the relationships, although I don't you. I don't. I

1917
01:44:16,040 --> 01:44:17,840
Speaker 1: don't walk in every day going or are you gonna

1918
01:44:17,840 --> 01:44:20,599
Speaker 1: make somebody mad? Because you you you know, Uh, it's

1919
01:44:20,600 --> 01:44:22,680
Speaker 1: impossible not to make somebody mad if you give an

1920
01:44:22,720 --> 01:44:25,280
Speaker 1: opinion on anything, and you and you wrote a lot

1921
01:44:25,320 --> 01:44:27,519
Speaker 1: about things that happened a year ago which are no

1922
01:44:27,520 --> 01:44:32,400
Speaker 1: longer terribly important that m I uh, you know, I've

1923
01:44:32,400 --> 01:44:36,439
Speaker 1: made a few people mad here, um, and but you

1924
01:44:36,800 --> 01:44:39,680
Speaker 1: just you work through it. And unfortunately now we're in

1925
01:44:39,720 --> 01:44:42,799
Speaker 1: a really good place. The company is in a good place,

1926
01:44:42,880 --> 01:44:46,080
Speaker 1: and and all of that seems like another lifetime ago.

1927
01:44:46,200 --> 01:44:49,240
Speaker 1: But uh, it's been Uh, I've been at the company

1928
01:44:49,280 --> 01:44:53,480
Speaker 1: six years, about starting my seventh. The network is celebrating

1929
01:44:53,520 --> 01:44:55,519
Speaker 1: its fifth and I mean, you go through a lot

1930
01:44:55,560 --> 01:44:59,080
Speaker 1: of a lot of trials and tribulations in any kind

1931
01:44:59,080 --> 01:45:01,720
Speaker 1: of relationship like us, but it's still, at the end

1932
01:45:01,760 --> 01:45:04,320
Speaker 1: of the conversation, a really great place to work. Be

1933
01:45:04,400 --> 01:45:06,960
Speaker 1: sure to catch live editions about Kick the Coverage with

1934
01:45:07,000 --> 01:45:10,600
Speaker 1: Clay Travis week days at six am Eastern, three am Pacific.

1935
01:45:12,040 --> 01:45:15,000
Speaker 1: We're talking Paul Fine Bomb, Wins and Losses is the podcast.

1936
01:45:15,080 --> 01:45:19,160
Speaker 1: I'm Clay Travis. Last question for you, how would you

1937
01:45:19,200 --> 01:45:21,640
Speaker 1: distinguish for people out there who are listening to us

1938
01:45:21,760 --> 01:45:25,200
Speaker 1: right now and they're interested in writing, they're interested in radio,

1939
01:45:25,439 --> 01:45:28,400
Speaker 1: they're interested in TV. I tell them all that the

1940
01:45:28,479 --> 01:45:31,880
Speaker 1: disciplines are completely different. What works in one may not

1941
01:45:32,000 --> 01:45:34,559
Speaker 1: work in the other may not work at all across

1942
01:45:34,600 --> 01:45:37,760
Speaker 1: the board. What have you learned about writing, radio, and

1943
01:45:37,800 --> 01:45:40,960
Speaker 1: TV having done them all well, that you think is

1944
01:45:41,080 --> 01:45:43,400
Speaker 1: useful for people out there listening right now who may

1945
01:45:43,479 --> 01:45:46,680
Speaker 1: want to one day following your footsteps and potentially be

1946
01:45:46,760 --> 01:45:51,320
Speaker 1: doing all three well as a radio reporter, excuse me,

1947
01:45:51,360 --> 01:45:53,880
Speaker 1: as a newsaper reporter. I think you have to have

1948
01:45:53,960 --> 01:45:58,120
Speaker 1: a level of of relentlessness because nowadays there's there's so

1949
01:45:58,120 --> 01:46:01,920
Speaker 1: many doors being slammed in your face. In radio, I

1950
01:46:01,960 --> 01:46:04,519
Speaker 1: think you have to find a way to nuance that

1951
01:46:04,640 --> 01:46:07,519
Speaker 1: a little bit. Uh. You don't want to come off

1952
01:46:07,520 --> 01:46:09,639
Speaker 1: to crass. You want to you want to give people

1953
01:46:09,640 --> 01:46:12,719
Speaker 1: a chance to talk. But but you always in radio

1954
01:46:12,960 --> 01:46:16,439
Speaker 1: have to be aware that there's there's somebody sitting in

1955
01:46:16,479 --> 01:46:21,000
Speaker 1: their home, they're driving in their car, they're they're listening

1956
01:46:21,040 --> 01:46:24,200
Speaker 1: to it on their phone on a train. You have

1957
01:46:25,080 --> 01:46:27,320
Speaker 1: it's say, it's an audience of one, and you have

1958
01:46:27,360 --> 01:46:29,599
Speaker 1: to keep them entertained. You cannot put people to sleep.

1959
01:46:29,960 --> 01:46:32,639
Speaker 1: And television is a little bit different television. The hardest

1960
01:46:32,640 --> 01:46:36,759
Speaker 1: thing I've had to learn about television is the visual

1961
01:46:36,920 --> 01:46:39,000
Speaker 1: is the most important thing. A lot of times I'll

1962
01:46:39,080 --> 01:46:41,920
Speaker 1: rush to a breaking story and if the if the

1963
01:46:41,960 --> 01:46:46,320
Speaker 1: network isn't ready with the graphics, you're talking to yourself. Uh,

1964
01:46:46,360 --> 01:46:50,439
Speaker 1: there's a there's a great story Clay about Ronald Reagan. Uh,

1965
01:46:50,680 --> 01:46:53,320
Speaker 1: CBS had done like a fourteen minute hit job on

1966
01:46:53,400 --> 01:46:58,680
Speaker 1: him during Iran Contra, and his PR guy called the

1967
01:46:59,800 --> 01:47:04,040
Speaker 1: the correspondent Leslie Stall afterwards and said, well, by the way,

1968
01:47:04,040 --> 01:47:06,000
Speaker 1: thanks so much. That was great. She said, what are

1969
01:47:06,000 --> 01:47:08,120
Speaker 1: you talking about? We just like killed your boss, she said.

1970
01:47:08,720 --> 01:47:11,320
Speaker 1: She said, nobody listened. He said, nobody listened to a word.

1971
01:47:11,360 --> 01:47:13,280
Speaker 1: You guys said. The graphics were great. You have great

1972
01:47:13,600 --> 01:47:16,879
Speaker 1: Mount Rushmore at Normandy. I mean, it was just beautiful.

1973
01:47:16,880 --> 01:47:19,240
Speaker 1: And that's the hardest thing I've had to learn is

1974
01:47:19,240 --> 01:47:22,400
Speaker 1: that if you're watching on television, um, you have to

1975
01:47:22,680 --> 01:47:26,880
Speaker 1: you the words are not quite as important. In fact,

1976
01:47:26,960 --> 01:47:30,840
Speaker 1: most people probably watch our show, or watch ESPN or

1977
01:47:30,920 --> 01:47:34,840
Speaker 1: most shows with the sound low. Uh. And and that

1978
01:47:34,960 --> 01:47:37,639
Speaker 1: that that's something that I may never quite grasp but

1979
01:47:37,640 --> 01:47:40,639
Speaker 1: but it is. And by the way, I've thought about

1980
01:47:40,680 --> 01:47:42,920
Speaker 1: this at some point later in my life to uh,

1981
01:47:43,240 --> 01:47:45,960
Speaker 1: to teach. I talked to various schools, and it's something

1982
01:47:46,000 --> 01:47:48,479
Speaker 1: that I am really interested in. But the thing that

1983
01:47:48,479 --> 01:47:51,320
Speaker 1: that baffles me the most with young people, and I say,

1984
01:47:51,840 --> 01:47:55,200
Speaker 1: is a lack of curiosity. I know you have it.

1985
01:47:55,200 --> 01:47:58,400
Speaker 1: It's driven your career through law, into journalism and the

1986
01:47:58,560 --> 01:48:02,720
Speaker 1: radio and now obvious very successfully into television. And I've

1987
01:48:02,720 --> 01:48:04,679
Speaker 1: tried to apply it as well. But too many people

1988
01:48:04,760 --> 01:48:09,559
Speaker 1: just are are satisfied with whatever they're told. Uh. They

1989
01:48:09,600 --> 01:48:12,640
Speaker 1: don't follow up, And I know I'm sounding like my

1990
01:48:12,760 --> 01:48:18,000
Speaker 1: grandfather or yours, but it continues to to literally baffle

1991
01:48:18,080 --> 01:48:21,639
Speaker 1: me about younger people. Uh. And maybe it's the times,

1992
01:48:21,680 --> 01:48:25,479
Speaker 1: maybe it's all the toys that we have, but you

1993
01:48:25,520 --> 01:48:27,639
Speaker 1: can never be satisfied with an answer. I don't think

1994
01:48:28,360 --> 01:48:30,920
Speaker 1: even in a two hour podcast. Has I know I

1995
01:48:30,920 --> 01:48:33,200
Speaker 1: said last question, but has there ever been a time

1996
01:48:33,240 --> 01:48:36,840
Speaker 1: where you have finished a program and thought to yourself,

1997
01:48:36,880 --> 01:48:41,160
Speaker 1: either one, I'm gonna get fired or two I need

1998
01:48:41,160 --> 01:48:46,560
Speaker 1: to apologize for something that I said on radio. Yeah.

1999
01:48:46,200 --> 01:48:49,320
Speaker 1: I have apologized before, because I think what what always

2000
01:48:49,400 --> 01:48:51,680
Speaker 1: upsets me the most is when I when I key

2001
01:48:51,760 --> 01:48:54,920
Speaker 1: off on a call or without really thinking it through

2002
01:48:55,479 --> 01:48:57,040
Speaker 1: and I've done an interview. I mean, rarely am I

2003
01:48:57,080 --> 01:49:01,719
Speaker 1: going to want to apologize to some uh suit I interview? Um.

2004
01:49:01,760 --> 01:49:05,800
Speaker 1: I have occasionally uh with a gun at my head,

2005
01:49:06,640 --> 01:49:12,080
Speaker 1: but uh most of the time, Uh, I have not. Uh.

2006
01:49:12,120 --> 01:49:13,840
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean there are a lot of days

2007
01:49:13,840 --> 01:49:16,000
Speaker 1: you walk out. I mean, and I take it very personally.

2008
01:49:16,000 --> 01:49:18,679
Speaker 1: I mean, I I don't go go back go home

2009
01:49:18,720 --> 01:49:20,920
Speaker 1: and listen to the show or watch it. But I

2010
01:49:21,240 --> 01:49:23,160
Speaker 1: know when I've I've done a poor job. And I

2011
01:49:23,200 --> 01:49:26,479
Speaker 1: know when I've been ill prepared for something, and that

2012
01:49:26,560 --> 01:49:30,280
Speaker 1: probably upsets me more than anything else, Clay, to interview

2013
01:49:30,360 --> 01:49:34,080
Speaker 1: someone and to miss something. Uh. To me, the job

2014
01:49:34,160 --> 01:49:37,080
Speaker 1: of the host is, as you know better than anyone,

2015
01:49:37,160 --> 01:49:39,320
Speaker 1: is to try to make the person you're talking to

2016
01:49:39,800 --> 01:49:43,840
Speaker 1: as interesting as possible and to use whatever resources you have.

2017
01:49:44,000 --> 01:49:46,800
Speaker 1: And I think too often, uh we don't do that.

2018
01:49:46,840 --> 01:49:50,040
Speaker 1: But that that that that really drives me crazy. Uh

2019
01:49:50,080 --> 01:49:53,960
Speaker 1: to have a to have somebody that's really interesting or talented, uh,

2020
01:49:54,160 --> 01:49:57,200
Speaker 1: and not get that across, because too often people just

2021
01:49:57,200 --> 01:50:00,000
Speaker 1: don't want to say anything. I mean, how many interviews

2022
01:50:00,000 --> 01:50:01,800
Speaker 1: if you had with a d S or coaches or

2023
01:50:02,000 --> 01:50:05,640
Speaker 1: and they give you and that's why and and and

2024
01:50:05,680 --> 01:50:07,280
Speaker 1: I know they're not telling the truth. And and and that

2025
01:50:07,400 --> 01:50:10,200
Speaker 1: probably of all the things that that that drive me

2026
01:50:10,439 --> 01:50:13,639
Speaker 1: uh over the edge more than anything. It's it's being

2027
01:50:13,680 --> 01:50:17,639
Speaker 1: lied to, it's being deceived, Uh, it's being misled, it's

2028
01:50:17,640 --> 01:50:19,960
Speaker 1: being it's being told what I can say and what

2029
01:50:20,080 --> 01:50:23,679
Speaker 1: I can't say, what guests I can have on the show,

2030
01:50:23,800 --> 01:50:26,559
Speaker 1: and what guests I can I think you're I know

2031
01:50:26,640 --> 01:50:31,000
Speaker 1: we're leading into a sequel, but but but that that

2032
01:50:31,800 --> 01:50:33,639
Speaker 1: I think it's just it goes back to the very

2033
01:50:33,680 --> 01:50:37,439
Speaker 1: beginning of of how I was brought up with New

2034
01:50:37,520 --> 01:50:41,599
Speaker 1: Yorkers and how I pursued my career. That I just,

2035
01:50:42,320 --> 01:50:44,640
Speaker 1: I just I'm not sure. I don't I don't have

2036
01:50:44,680 --> 01:50:47,360
Speaker 1: to have the last word, but but I don't like

2037
01:50:47,439 --> 01:50:49,360
Speaker 1: being I don't like people dictating what we can do

2038
01:50:49,400 --> 01:50:51,160
Speaker 1: and can't do here. I think I think you are.

2039
01:50:51,320 --> 01:50:54,519
Speaker 1: My obligation every day is to the audience. You said

2040
01:50:54,880 --> 01:50:56,720
Speaker 1: when we started that your goal was to be at

2041
01:50:56,760 --> 01:50:59,720
Speaker 1: the New York Times by thirty. Do you feel like

2042
01:50:59,760 --> 01:51:02,040
Speaker 1: it's some way you met that goal with that New

2043
01:51:02,120 --> 01:51:05,880
Speaker 1: Yorker five thousand word profile that they did, because I mean,

2044
01:51:06,120 --> 01:51:07,800
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people who have written at

2045
01:51:07,800 --> 01:51:11,040
Speaker 1: the New York Times over the years, I don't think

2046
01:51:11,040 --> 01:51:13,040
Speaker 1: there are very many of them that have had a

2047
01:51:13,080 --> 01:51:16,439
Speaker 1: five thousand a word profile in The New Yorker. For

2048
01:51:16,680 --> 01:51:20,200
Speaker 1: that was you almost like a capstone on your career,

2049
01:51:20,280 --> 01:51:22,160
Speaker 1: even though you've got a lot of years left still

2050
01:51:22,240 --> 01:51:25,080
Speaker 1: to work. But that also feels like a fulfillment of

2051
01:51:25,120 --> 01:51:29,960
Speaker 1: that initial desire you had when you entered newspapers. It Uh,

2052
01:51:30,160 --> 01:51:33,560
Speaker 1: it was as much a game changer as anything that

2053
01:51:33,600 --> 01:51:37,479
Speaker 1: could possibly happen, because it led to ESPN. It led

2054
01:51:37,520 --> 01:51:42,160
Speaker 1: to a book. Uh, it led to a level of

2055
01:51:42,160 --> 01:51:45,240
Speaker 1: of awareness. When when when? When? When I got I

2056
01:51:45,240 --> 01:51:47,160
Speaker 1: got back that night and told my wife. She said, well,

2057
01:51:47,200 --> 01:51:49,120
Speaker 1: who's going to read that? I said, oh, I've really

2058
01:51:49,520 --> 01:51:51,680
Speaker 1: really about ten people in America. If they read it,

2059
01:51:51,680 --> 01:51:53,720
Speaker 1: I'm going to be very happy. Yes, And I think

2060
01:51:53,760 --> 01:51:56,559
Speaker 1: most of them did. I remember you tweeted the day

2061
01:51:56,560 --> 01:51:58,479
Speaker 1: it came out. You were one of the few people

2062
01:51:58,520 --> 01:52:02,120
Speaker 1: of my friends and colleagues who understood it. I mean,

2063
01:52:02,120 --> 01:52:04,520
Speaker 1: you knew exactly well. I was a New Yorker subscriber

2064
01:52:04,560 --> 01:52:07,280
Speaker 1: for a long time. I still am. I read those articles.

2065
01:52:07,280 --> 01:52:09,360
Speaker 1: I mean when they did a review of my newest book,

2066
01:52:09,520 --> 01:52:11,559
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, this is I mean, they did

2067
01:52:11,560 --> 01:52:13,479
Speaker 1: a couple of thousand words, mixing it in with a

2068
01:52:13,479 --> 01:52:16,639
Speaker 1: couple of other books. But I remember thinking, it's hard

2069
01:52:16,680 --> 01:52:18,840
Speaker 1: for me to feel like I've made it anymore. But

2070
01:52:18,880 --> 01:52:21,679
Speaker 1: when I read that piece for you, it's you said it, well,

2071
01:52:22,160 --> 01:52:25,040
Speaker 1: it's not only about how many people read it, it's

2072
01:52:25,080 --> 01:52:27,680
Speaker 1: about whether the right people read it right. And I

2073
01:52:27,680 --> 01:52:30,400
Speaker 1: think similarly on this podcast, a lot of people were

2074
01:52:30,439 --> 01:52:32,880
Speaker 1: starting off early. The amount of people I'm hearing who

2075
01:52:32,880 --> 01:52:35,800
Speaker 1: are listening that are quote unquote the right people. Um,

2076
01:52:35,960 --> 01:52:38,439
Speaker 1: you start with the right people, and then eventually everybody

2077
01:52:38,439 --> 01:52:40,679
Speaker 1: else knows about something too. And that's what I thought

2078
01:52:40,680 --> 01:52:45,000
Speaker 1: when I read the piece. No, it Uh, it was,

2079
01:52:45,120 --> 01:52:48,000
Speaker 1: it was. It was a stunning revelation to me to

2080
01:52:48,120 --> 01:52:52,320
Speaker 1: to to see and hear the reaction of certain people. Um,

2081
01:52:52,720 --> 01:52:55,320
Speaker 1: and you know, I don't know, Uh, you never know

2082
01:52:55,360 --> 01:52:58,559
Speaker 1: what's next. And I'm listening. I thought, my career has

2083
01:52:58,560 --> 01:53:04,120
Speaker 1: been over a couple of times, so I don't everyone says, well,

2084
01:53:04,200 --> 01:53:05,639
Speaker 1: what are you gonna do? How long are you gonna

2085
01:53:05,680 --> 01:53:07,320
Speaker 1: do it? I mean, these are these are questions I

2086
01:53:07,360 --> 01:53:09,320
Speaker 1: don't know the answer to. Uh. There are a couple

2087
01:53:09,320 --> 01:53:13,479
Speaker 1: of things I'm interested in doing, and I rarely say

2088
01:53:13,560 --> 01:53:17,120
Speaker 1: something that I'm about to say. Uh, I am working

2089
01:53:17,120 --> 01:53:19,960
Speaker 1: on something that's really interesting that it may become, it

2090
01:53:20,000 --> 01:53:22,559
Speaker 1: may be a big deal, it may disappear, it may

2091
01:53:22,640 --> 01:53:27,120
Speaker 1: vaporize in the night. Um. But I'm like you and

2092
01:53:27,120 --> 01:53:30,200
Speaker 1: and and and other people that we know. Well, I mean,

2093
01:53:30,200 --> 01:53:32,960
Speaker 1: there's always something that I'm I'm I'm working on next.

2094
01:53:34,120 --> 01:53:38,320
Speaker 1: I'm not overly satisfied with the status quo. UM, I

2095
01:53:38,320 --> 01:53:41,320
Speaker 1: probably should uh enjoy what I'm doing. But I read

2096
01:53:41,360 --> 01:53:45,680
Speaker 1: an interview with Stern and Jerry seinfeld once who, by

2097
01:53:45,720 --> 01:53:48,240
Speaker 1: the way, Jerry Seinfeldt turned down a hundred and ten

2098
01:53:48,280 --> 01:53:52,720
Speaker 1: billion dollars to do another year of Seinfeld and I

2099
01:53:53,680 --> 01:53:55,719
Speaker 1: and Stern said, I mean, of all people, Howard Stern

2100
01:53:55,800 --> 01:53:58,400
Speaker 1: said this to him, you don't seem like you're you're

2101
01:53:58,520 --> 01:54:00,519
Speaker 1: enjoying this for him, But you don't. You never seemed

2102
01:54:00,520 --> 01:54:03,360
Speaker 1: like you were enjoying doing Seinfeld and and and And

2103
01:54:03,560 --> 01:54:08,080
Speaker 1: Jerry said something that I will forever remember. He said,

2104
01:54:08,120 --> 01:54:12,200
Speaker 1: my job isn't too, isn't It's not for me to

2105
01:54:12,439 --> 01:54:16,000
Speaker 1: enjoy the acting. It's not for me to enjoy presenting.

2106
01:54:16,479 --> 01:54:20,280
Speaker 1: My job is to present something to an audience that

2107
01:54:20,439 --> 01:54:23,200
Speaker 1: enjoys it. And I feel the same way. Um, It's

2108
01:54:23,240 --> 01:54:27,400
Speaker 1: it's not about me, It's about entertaining. However, many people

2109
01:54:27,439 --> 01:54:30,479
Speaker 1: are watching or listening on a given moment, and I

2110
01:54:30,520 --> 01:54:33,200
Speaker 1: think that's what what too many people lose sight of.

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01:54:33,320 --> 01:54:37,280
Speaker 1: I mean, I'll have fun doing something else one day. Um.

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01:54:37,800 --> 01:54:40,520
Speaker 1: And and Clay, I enjoy this. I mean you you

2113
01:54:40,680 --> 01:54:44,800
Speaker 1: enjoy it, But it's it's not a picnic. Um. I

2114
01:54:44,800 --> 01:54:47,400
Speaker 1: wouldn't trade it for anything. But but the job and

2115
01:54:47,480 --> 01:54:49,440
Speaker 1: the goal is for other people and to enjoy it.

2116
01:54:49,480 --> 01:54:52,960
Speaker 1: I mean when someone calls up and says, you know

2117
01:54:53,000 --> 01:54:56,200
Speaker 1: what I'm I'm disabled and and this is what I

2118
01:54:56,320 --> 01:55:00,200
Speaker 1: look forward to every day, that is satisfying to me. Uh,

2119
01:55:00,360 --> 01:55:03,160
Speaker 1: not to have a you know, somebody you know slap

2120
01:55:03,240 --> 01:55:06,120
Speaker 1: me on the back and and say, you know whatever

2121
01:55:06,480 --> 01:55:09,680
Speaker 1: I mean I want to me. It's it's about it's

2122
01:55:09,680 --> 01:55:13,520
Speaker 1: about affecting people in in various ways. My wife told

2123
01:55:13,560 --> 01:55:15,400
Speaker 1: me this story. I once she had a patient, she's

2124
01:55:15,400 --> 01:55:19,080
Speaker 1: a physician. A lady came into her office and said,

2125
01:55:19,800 --> 01:55:22,040
Speaker 1: you're not gonna leave this, but your your your husband

2126
01:55:22,080 --> 01:55:26,440
Speaker 1: has really changed my life, she said. And my wife's

2127
01:55:26,440 --> 01:55:30,120
Speaker 1: fairly cynical. How in the world did my husband change

2128
01:55:30,120 --> 01:55:33,600
Speaker 1: your life? Well, she said, my mom died. Uh. And

2129
01:55:33,680 --> 01:55:37,120
Speaker 1: I'm the youngest of like, I have three older brothers,

2130
01:55:37,120 --> 01:55:40,160
Speaker 1: and I had nothing in common with my dad nothing uh.

2131
01:55:40,200 --> 01:55:42,000
Speaker 1: And I would go over to see him and we

2132
01:55:42,360 --> 01:55:45,680
Speaker 1: literally could not carry on a conversation. After my my

2133
01:55:45,680 --> 01:55:48,480
Speaker 1: my mom died. And one day he was in there,

2134
01:55:48,640 --> 01:55:50,000
Speaker 1: he was in the d he was in the kitchen

2135
01:55:50,080 --> 01:55:53,440
Speaker 1: listening to your husband's show. So I started listening to

2136
01:55:53,520 --> 01:55:56,960
Speaker 1: your husband's show. And she admitted as difficult as it was, Um,

2137
01:55:57,680 --> 01:56:00,320
Speaker 1: And when I would go back to see him every Sunday,

2138
01:56:00,600 --> 01:56:02,640
Speaker 1: we would talk about the callers, we would talk about

2139
01:56:02,680 --> 01:56:04,480
Speaker 1: the guests, and we would talk about the show, and

2140
01:56:04,560 --> 01:56:07,880
Speaker 1: suddenly we had a relationship. And that was That's more

2141
01:56:07,920 --> 01:56:11,520
Speaker 1: important to me, Clay, than than you know, winning the

2142
01:56:11,560 --> 01:56:14,879
Speaker 1: Herbie Kirby Award or or or you know, being a

2143
01:56:14,920 --> 01:56:17,360
Speaker 1: greeter at the SPS. I mean to me, that's really,

2144
01:56:17,880 --> 01:56:20,360
Speaker 1: in some ways what this is all about. It's a

2145
01:56:20,440 --> 01:56:23,200
Speaker 1: great final question. I've asked final questions a bunch of

2146
01:56:23,240 --> 01:56:25,120
Speaker 1: different ones, but I do want to mention your wife

2147
01:56:25,160 --> 01:56:27,920
Speaker 1: does she listen to the show, because I'll tell you this,

2148
01:56:28,080 --> 01:56:30,360
Speaker 1: my wife is terrified to listen to my show because

2149
01:56:30,400 --> 01:56:32,640
Speaker 1: she just is afraid every time I opened my mouth

2150
01:56:32,640 --> 01:56:34,800
Speaker 1: that I'm going to say something. Uh. You know that

2151
01:56:34,920 --> 01:56:37,320
Speaker 1: ends up costing him my job because I talked the

2152
01:56:37,360 --> 01:56:39,520
Speaker 1: same way on the show, which could be good as

2153
01:56:39,560 --> 01:56:41,400
Speaker 1: I do with her, I mean, there's not much of

2154
01:56:41,440 --> 01:56:45,000
Speaker 1: a filter. I'm curious what your wife would say if

2155
01:56:45,040 --> 01:56:47,920
Speaker 1: I asked her about her opinion of you. You know,

2156
01:56:48,120 --> 01:56:52,840
Speaker 1: I would prefer her not to listen UM, because I

2157
01:56:52,880 --> 01:56:54,840
Speaker 1: mean she will pick out Like your wife, the one

2158
01:56:54,880 --> 01:56:57,280
Speaker 1: thing you don't want to hear about one you know,

2159
01:56:57,520 --> 01:57:01,040
Speaker 1: the one phone or feud between Jim from Tuscaloosa and

2160
01:57:01,080 --> 01:57:05,160
Speaker 1: I man and so I mean, I I have finally

2161
01:57:05,240 --> 01:57:08,920
Speaker 1: learned though. When she does say something, I just thank

2162
01:57:08,920 --> 01:57:13,840
Speaker 1: her and keep my mouth shut because there's no upside

2163
01:57:13,880 --> 01:57:17,640
Speaker 1: and telling someone this is gonna sound familiar with a

2164
01:57:17,720 --> 01:57:22,440
Speaker 1: Vanderbilt medical degree, Um what what what's life all about?

2165
01:57:22,560 --> 01:57:28,000
Speaker 1: She's far smarter and far better well rounded than I am.

2166
01:57:28,120 --> 01:57:30,120
Speaker 1: So I just I just don't. I just don't discuss

2167
01:57:30,160 --> 01:57:32,320
Speaker 1: the show with her. If if I don't have to. Um,

2168
01:57:32,560 --> 01:57:34,680
Speaker 1: she said, she pays me a compliment, which is rare.

2169
01:57:35,000 --> 01:57:38,080
Speaker 1: I say thank you. If she says that's this dumbest

2170
01:57:38,120 --> 01:57:40,520
Speaker 1: interview or dumbest guest I've ever had, you've ever had,

2171
01:57:40,560 --> 01:57:44,240
Speaker 1: I say thank you. Let's move on. Well, that's good

2172
01:57:44,240 --> 01:57:47,720
Speaker 1: advice for life in general, certainly, marital Uh. Paul fine

2173
01:57:47,760 --> 01:57:50,480
Speaker 1: Bomb go follow him on Twitter at fine Bomb. His

2174
01:57:50,520 --> 01:57:54,160
Speaker 1: show airs two to six pm Eastern every single day

2175
01:57:54,240 --> 01:57:56,960
Speaker 1: on the SEC Network. You can hear it certainly on

2176
01:57:57,040 --> 01:58:00,240
Speaker 1: many of the stations as well across the Count three.

2177
01:58:00,400 --> 01:58:03,720
Speaker 1: Has been outstanding. I appreciate the time, Clay. It has

2178
01:58:03,760 --> 01:58:06,360
Speaker 1: been my pleasure thank you, and Uh, I don't remember

2179
01:58:06,360 --> 01:58:10,879
Speaker 1: when when two hours have flown by faster than this. Hopefully,

2180
01:58:10,920 --> 01:58:13,080
Speaker 1: hopefully our listeners agree, but I agree with you, it's

2181
01:58:13,080 --> 01:58:16,000
Speaker 1: been a really fun conversation. I hope people enjoyed it, uh,

2182
01:58:16,000 --> 01:58:17,520
Speaker 1: and I hope they learned a lot. But to me,

2183
01:58:17,600 --> 01:58:19,760
Speaker 1: it's gone by really fast. I hope they agree as well.

2184
01:58:20,520 --> 01:58:22,600
Speaker 1: You bet, Clay can't can't wait to see you soon.

2185
01:58:22,680 --> 01:58:24,960
Speaker 1: Thanks you, thank you so much. That's Paul find Balm.

2186
01:58:25,040 --> 01:58:27,440
Speaker 1: This has been the Wins and Losses podcast. I am

2187
01:58:27,480 --> 01:58:29,880
Speaker 1: Clay Travis. Go subscribe. If you enjoyed this one, you'll

2188
01:58:29,880 --> 01:58:33,040
Speaker 1: probably enjoy the other conversations as well. Thanks for listening, guys.

2189
01:58:33,320 --> 01:58:35,920
Speaker 1: Be sure to catch live editions about Kicked the Coverage

2190
01:58:35,920 --> 01:58:39,680
Speaker 1: with Clay Travis weekdays at six am Eastern three am Pacific.