Clay Travis chats at length with Paul Finebaum

you've ever heard to. You're about to listen to Paul Findbaum of the SEC Network of ESPN, Jock's Radio Network, all different sorts of different places he has been over the years as a friend of mine. I think you guys are gonna enjoy this conversation and if you enjoy this one, you'll probably like Jason Whitlock, Shannon Terry, SEC Commissioner Greg Sanky, as well as Washington State head football

coach Mike Leach. The goal with the podcast is to examine some of the wins and losses that we all have in our career as we moved throughout the process of our lives. And without further ado, let me go ahead and bring in Paul find Bomb. You can find him on Twitter at find bomb. You can listen to him every single day from two to six Eastern on the radio. You can watch the simulcast of that radio

show on the SEC network. And recently, down at the beaches of Destined, there was a Cosmopolitan, which was a drink named after Paul find Bomb at the five year anniversary party of the launch of the SEC network. And I want to start there, and we'll probably cycle back around to a lot of different questions, but I wanted to jump off right there. First of all, Paul, thanks

for coming on. Secondly, if I had told you five or ten years ago that there would be a cocktail named after you at an SEC and ESPN event, your response would have been what, I can't well, I probably could say it, but I try not to curse too loudly, but I would say you you were out of your effing mind. Yes, um, you know, when I saw your tweet, I had not gone down to the cock party yet. I was up in my room, and by the way, I didn't have it. Although I would have liked to,

I didn't have it. By the way, I found it to be pretty good. I felt that I obligated to try it. You know me pretty well, Clay. So you're you're You're not going to raise your eyebrows A sum might, but I'm I'm still kind of amazed what's going on today? So yeah, I would not have believed it because you had to understand the times, and you had to understand the toxic nature between me and many people in college

athletics for from top down to the bottom. Uh. So let's kind of circle back around because one of the good things we get to do on wins and losses is I'm sure you get asked this question all the time because you're on college campuses on a regular basis, and kids, undoubtedly boys and girls have come up to you, kids in school and they'll say, I love your job. How did you get that job? I get it a lot. Anybody in the world of sports, I think gets it a lot. So I want to go back all the

way to Paul find Bomb. You are growing up in Memphis, ten see right, Uh, you are a young kid. What is your upbringing like in Memphis? And as we circle through, the goal is to give people an indication of not that you necessarily can follow the same path, but how to be tough, how to stick to your guns, so to speak, and how you end up doing a job like yours or mine or any other of the number of people that we're going to talk to on this podcast.

But you're growing up in Memphis. What was your youth like in Memphis? It was pretty normal, Uh, at least for a while. I was the youngest of two two New Yorkers, including my sister was from New York. I was born in Memphis by about three or four months, so you can figure out where I was conceived. And it, Uh, yeah, it was just a listen looking back, you know, literally baseball, basketball, Uh when we we just were we were not we

were kind of lower the middle class. Uh maybe slowly moving up in the world with the times, and you know, I there's just there was just nothing really extraordinary about it. I mean I was a happy kid. I was interested in a lot of things, sports being number one, and then I gravitated a little bit toward politics. My parents

were fairly uh involved in that as well. And and and that was really the pretty much the base you know, from you know, five to ten, the thirteen up until fifteen when it all changed, all right, And I'll get to what happened when you were fifteen years old. But as a kid growing up, you are Jewish. I mean, I don't think that's a great surprise. Did you have did you have a sense of feeling a little bit like an outsider in Memphis? Or and I don't. I

don't really genuinely have an answer for this. I'm curious what you what you'll tell us. Sometimes, you know, the Jewish community and even a city where Memphis doesn't have a huge Jewish population, but it can feel so welcoming that, you know, you you don't even realize how different you might be than everybody else who's going to Christian church and whatnot Memphis, which is a very religious and UH and and Christianity based city. Did you feel different? Did

you feel a little bit like an outsider? Or were you even cognizant of the distance between you and maybe other people? Not at first, because our our neighborhood, we lived about three or four blocks from a synagogue. In our neighborhood was primarily UH refugees from from Brooklyn and UH the majority were Jewish. So I mean I grew up in that world. Um as I got a little

bit older, I began to sense the difference. Uh. I was very proud of what I was, but you know, I had friends who uh were always taking an insult the wrong way. I didn't. That was a little more open minded. So it was I can't say, Clay that it held me back at all. Um. I was always fairly open minded to other people, and and that changed a little bit later when I went to a Catholic high school. Yeah, so how did your family? How did your mom and dad end up in Memphis? Because you

said they're from New York. I mean that's a pretty big departure. What was it that brought them to Memphis? Yeah, it was it was really related to my my my mother's brother. Uh. He was in the service and was relocated or based somewhere in jack I think it was near Jackson, Tennessee. Don't remember exactly why. Uh So my my my grandmother, who was widowed at an early age, and my mom, who was still in high school, moved

to Jackson. And then my my my uncle married a lady from Memphis, so they moved to Memphis, and my father followed my uh my uncle uh in uh in business, so he moved there as well. All right, so, uh, you grow up and uh in Memphis at the time you're a young kid, do you remember Uh. For instance, Martin Luther King being assassinated in nineteen sixty eight. Do you have any any what do you remember about then? Yeah, I mean I was twelve years old and uh eleven

or twelve, I'm trying to remember. Uh may have been eleven. And it was a big deal. I mean I was very much into the news at the time, Clay, unlike maybe your normal kid at the at that age who was watching more sports. Uh, this is a big story I'm about to break. But this is pre ESPN and uh, so I remember the night very well, um, and I was very emotional and moved by it. I had my

parents had bought me a record. Now I'm I'm talking about a vinyl record a year or two earlier of famous speeches, one being John F. Jfk Uh, the second being Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech and I memorized that speech. This is before he died, and uh, he was an important person to me. Um, and I'll never forget. Three days after he was assassinated, there was going to be a march in Memphis, and my best friend and I wanted to go, uh and and show

our respects. I mean we were eleven years old, and my parents of course forbid us from going. But I mean, I was that was an eleven year old activists at the time. It was. It was a seminal moment in my youth, his assassination. How did that impact overall in

Memphis in your mind, because I mean it's hard. I mean, I guess people who maybe live in Dallas and were around when JFK was shot, there is a certain level of I want to say, almost malaise that almost descends over a city when it's connected to something like that.

And I think about the school book depository in Dallas, and it's obviously been fifty years since that happened in Memphis, But as a kid, did you kind of have that feeling at eleven, twelve, fourteen years old that's something bad had happened in the city and it kind of hangs over the city, no doubt. No, the city was Memphis was unlike a lot of cities. Uh. It was a big metropolitan area, a little bit like Nashville maybe, where

you didn't have all this. I lived in Birmingham later, which had I think thirty seven different municipalities in one county for obvious reasons, Memphis wasn't like that. So I mean, you you, you were you. You engaged UH people of different races all the time, but the city was torn apart, and it was really not to jump too far ahead, but it was really a sporting event that happened five

years later that saved the city. And that was when Memphis State UH went to the n C Double A Championship game to play a u C l A. It was a night Bill Walton went out of twenty two from the field, and that one event brought the city together. And I think without that singular event, that that run to the final four, Memphis would have been destroyed by the way. It didn't come out of it that well anyway, because Memphis for a long time was the dominant city.

And UH, about thirty years later they blinked and the next thing you know, Nashville had blown them away. All right, So let's let's go into you said you went to a to a Catholic high school. I think you said, how good of a student were you? Were you committed to school work? I mean, how would you characterize yourself from an academic perspective? I was interested it in what I cared about, Uh, so when it when it came to history or you know, literature, things like that, I

was all over it. I was not much on math and science. So I mean I was a good student, I wasn't a great student. Um I I've had it kind of in my mind. Maybe by the time I got to high school. Uh my, my interests were changing. This is now in the early seventies, Watergate had happened. I began gravitating towards in my mind newspapers and journalism and politics. These were things that fascinated me. So I

was still somewhat unclear what I wanted to do. I probably at the time, if you said what what would you like to be involved with, it would have been politics of some sort. I read your most recent book, which I believe my conference is better than your conference. You can tell me if I'm I'm messing up the title there. It's a fantastic book. I would tell people to go check it out. Um. And you mentioned about what happened at the age of fifth teen and how

much it impacted your life. What happened to you when you were fifteen, Well, I had uh my my dad had had a heart attack about three or four years earlier and had not been well. I mean, he had recovered, but you could tell he was still fragile. And Uh, on a you know, at the age of forty nine, on on the early morning hours of March five, v one, Uh, he suffered a massive heart attack and and died, you know, with my with my mom and myself and my older

sister around him. We weren't a hundred percent sure, but yeah, I mean you knew even a fifteen you knew what was going on. And it was that moment, Clay that you know, this idyllic life where you know, two my two parents and car pools and camp and and singing songs going off to a family vacation in the car all came to a a shattering halt. Uh, life turned

upside down. And what was interesting is that it didn't It may not have hit me until a little bit later, because uh, you're fifteen, you're on your way to being sixteen. Your your life is changing as well. So uh from that, I mean there's a line of demarcation in that line in the in the Jewish world, when you when you are bar mitzvahed at thirteen, you're supposed to become a

man Uh. It took me two years later. But but you know, in trying to deal with that, I mean, I didn't understand why my mother was uh, you know, completely turned upside down. I didn't know a lot of other things. But what I what I found out pretty quickly was people, uh, without really being intentional, it could be fairly cruel by by by really their inaction all of a sudden, you know, a week for a week,

everyone comes to your house, uh, and everyone's sorry. And then the next Monday comes around and nobody, nobody cares, nobody remembers uh. And and you're part of a family who you know, we we were doing okay, and suddenly

we really didn't have very much at all. And you know, I was, you know, it was even now, and I struggled to completely put it into perspective because, uh, it was one of those shattering moments, those lines in your life that you'll you know, maybe I'm still not over it, because I still have a hard time talking about it. So that happens when you're fifteen years old. You then go on to high school and you said you had a sister. How old was she at the time? She

was nearly five years older. Than me. So she was a little more Uh. I mean she was already in school, in college, so she she may may have been a slightly better prepared. Now, now I will say Clay, that you know, you turned sixteen, you started driving. I I got my mother quickly pulled me out of the Catholic

high school and I went to public school. And but for a while, it's not you know, you get through it because you start meeting people, you start having friends, you start going out, you start and and I all of a sudden, your life becomes a bit of a blur. Uh. And it hit me a little bit later, uh, really a lot later, what really happened? What? What? How my life had changed, not not in so much my life, but my mother's life. I guess it is maybe the

more accurate way of putting it well. And also what it does is at an age like that, you go from maybe not being that cognizant of finances, right, I mean, if you're fortunate enough to have two parents and things are going fairly well, to suddenly you snap your fingers and your dad, who I'm assuming was the primary breadwinner in your family, is not there. And that probably breeds a little bit of financial insecurity, not only at that point in your life, but to a certain extent, has

to impact you for years ahead. Now every everything. I mean, I yeah, from that moment on, I never owned a stitch of clothes that wasn't bought at a at a going out a business sale. I mean I just uh, you just got used to it. Uh. And by the way, you didn't really care because you didn't know any better. But the day it really uh, I think hit me the hardest, Clay, Uh was the day I went to school at Tennessee. Uh I. Uh. Memphis is still a pretty good distance from Tennessee, but I went up there.

Uh I did not have a car, um, So how did you get there? So for people who don't know who are listening to us, who may be in different parts of the country, Memphis and Knoxville are in the same state. But you can drive quicker from Nashville to Canada. This is not an exaggeration. You can Nashville to Canada faster than you can go Memphis to Knoxville. So the way the state of Tennessee is set up, there's a

huge geographical expanse between Memphis and Knoxville. Or I should say, Memphis all the way to the end of the state, not just to to Knoxville, because somebody will get on Twitter and correct me. But it's a huge, long, expansive state. So it's a different culture. So how do you get there? I mean I went there on a greyhound bus. So you're going to way to college and you waved to mom and get on a greyhound bus and the next

stop you're off in Knoxville. Yeah, and uh, you know, I get there and I had a trunk and that's about it. And yeah, so I moved into my dorm. But what was so what was so shattering to me? I walked around. You get there on a Saturday or whatever, two or three days before class starts, and everywhere I went there were families and moms and dads and kids and grandparents, and I was alone. And that's that's when the reality hit me that, uh, things were really different

in my life. I mean I knew from financially they were, and I knew emotionally my mother was a wreck um. But I was, you know, sixteen then seventeen, and I'm busy, and I'm I'm you know, just doing all the things at sixteen year olds do that are crazy? Um, But that day, I mean, those were like two of the longest day of my life when when when the boomerang, the aftershock started to enter into my consciousness and there

was nobody to call, nobody to talk to. Um, and it was it was really a very lonely depressed I mean, it should be the greatest day of your your life, you're going off to college, and instead it may have

been the most impressing of mine. Do you remember it being physically painful watching all the dads and the moms kind of hugging their kids goodbye, and you're there with a you know, just I guess sitting in your dorm room watching all this happen, right, or walking around I mean, finally, I think I just went to the library and hung out with you know, everyone else who didn't have a

family from all over the world. And yeah, but yeah, but yeah, listen, you're you're in Knoxville, Tennessee, clay and and suddenly things do start to change. But it but it was that was the reality that was the reality check though that Uh and again, you're right, what you said is maybe the most accurate finances. You couldn't have a conversation without finances because uh, you know, my dad

left a little bit of money, but not much. My mother went back to work, she became she was a clerical receptionist at I R. S. She had worked there during the war. So, um, you know I didn't. Yeah. I think not having a car was probably the most startling difference between me and almost everyone else, because you

didn't need one that badly at Knoxville. But you also, I mean all of a sudden, people Yeah, I mean you knew people were looking at this guy and going, he's wearing like old clothes that are out of style. I didn't have the the eyot on my polo shirt. I didn't have the button downs and the khaki's, uh the deck shoes. Um, and and I didn't have a car. So you feel a little bit out of sorts in Knoxville. Um, how did you do start? First of all, how did you pay? How did you pay for school? At at

UT Well, I was able to go on mostly scholarship money. Um, there was and uh, you know, people can knock the government, but it helped. I mean there was a little bit academic, a little bit um you know, financial aid. There was, there were there we was there was it was a combination of things and and uh, you know we had

we had a little bit of money. Uh so my mother, you know, would maybe give me a hundred dollar bill when I left or something, and uh but no, there wasn't a lot of money though, So I mean I got by um Uh, I think the first thing I did, uh was gained thirty pounds because I had one of those meal cards. Uh So I mean, you know I had breakfast, uh that I had lunch and uh then you know if I was you know, a lazy move with my buddies and maybe go back for a second lunch.

And I mean, I mean it was like, I mean, the expanding man was me because I never stopped eating my first uh my first quarter at Uto. So you said you got interested in journalism a little bit during Watergate. You obviously we're talking about the impact of cultural affairs. When you were growing up in Memphis, when did you start to think maybe I'll major in that. Were you a journalism major at the get from the get go

at Tennessee? What did you major in and how did you move into the air to the new newspaper I was my major. I think I had a double major political science or maybe a minor in history. I did not think about journalism. I was more thinking governmental work. If you had said at the time, what were you gonna end up being? Uh, you know, was law? Possibility? Was teaching a possibility? Was governmental work? I mean, these were all things that were rolling around. I mean, again

the time frame, this is around the time Nixon resigned. Uh, I mean politics was was. I mean, I'm not sure it's comparable to today, but I mean it was front and center. No matter where you went, there was something going on. So I U I was thinking along those terms, and you know, probably around my third year at Tennessee, UM, I began drifting like what in the world in my

going to do? Uh? And I saw an ad one day in the ut Daily Beacon that's the student newspaper for a reporter, and I said, you know what, I'll just go down there. Didn't tell any of my friends or what I was doing. And they asked one of the pre requisite questions was can you type? And I really couldn't type very well. So they sent me to cover that. They gave me an assignment. Um, I'll try to make this quick because I can tell you the story for three hours, but it was it was fairly simple.

There was there was like a shuttle service between campus and the airport and they had discontinued it. And Clay, I will tell you, after about six hours of phone calls, I had I had uncovered some major scandal payoffs, black mail, um And when I went to the editor, I mean, they were like, are you out of your I mean, this is unbelievable. So I wrote it up. Of course

I wrote it in longhand because I couldn't type. And then finally I started taking at a at a typewriter and and they hired me as a reporter and based on my my reporting skills. And then after about a two or three months of that, I realized, you know what, covering covering the student government is not going to really be the ticket. So I gravitated towards sports. Be sure to catch live editions about kicked the coverage with Clay Travis week days at six am Eastern, three am Pacific.

We're talking to Paul fine Bam. You can follow him on Twitter at fine Bam. This is the Winds and Losses Podcast. I am Clay Travis. Thanks for hanging with us. So when did you pivot then? Would you remember the first article you wrote about sports for the University of Tennessee student newspaper. Yeah, I believe that it was a it was a basketball article. Uh. I think Uh, Ernie Grunfeld and Bernard King had had Uh We're doing an interview that day to try they were trying out for

the Olympic team or something. So I interviewed them and I caught the bog and as you know, Clay, Uh, it's funny. I ran interviewed Grant Williams the other day and we were talking about, you know, what's the greatest period of basketball Tennessee history, and and there's always a debate this year. This year was really good. But but the Bernie and Arnie show is still being talked about forty three years later. So that that's what I had.

I had another year of that. Uh, football was I think Bill Battle was still there, so he was in his last season, so that these were the introductory moments to sports. I knew something was up when one of the first big stories I covered was somebody had sent a moving van to to build Battle's house in West Knoxville. And I think Bill Battle may have been the first coach to ever be on the hot seat. So at this point in time, are these opinion pieces? Are they

pretty much straight news? Uh? And they started as straight news, and Uh, I gravitated to opinion pieces, and I think after I think after a couple of months, I ended up being the sports editor, which was a great job. I mean, Clay, you're you're in college. You you have your own little desk. Uh. I mean it's it's it's journalism's version of animal House where you go down there every day. You have a group of friends, you go out and drink beer together. You get to go that.

You get to go as a student two football games for free, sitting in the press box. And you also get to fly on a plane. I chartered plane two road games and do the same thing in basketball. I mean, I was, you know, I'd finally overcome the beginning of my career at UT and had certainly uh touched on Nirvana. Had you flown on an airplane before you said he took Greyhound up to uh. Had you gone back to

the East Coast where your family was from at that time? Yeah, I mean I've probably been by the time I went to college, I've been on maybe three or four planes, I mean not many, not many though, and never so getting on an airplane to go cover a sporting event was I was like, uh, an incredible achievement, right, oh man, I mean I'm there forget one of one of the years I was up there. We we flew think the first road game was intended. Tennessee didn't play a lot

of road games in um so. I think we went to uh Birmingham for the Alabama game. And I mean you talk about an experience having my own hotel room and uh, you know, sitting in the press box at Legion Field and then going wherever else we went that year. Uh, it was it was. I mean I I started to think, you know what, this is pretty cool. I ran into somebody once and I asked him about being a sportswriter.

He said, you may not make a million dollars. This is before Rick Riley and all that, but but you'll you'll live like a you'll feel like a millionaire. Uh and live like a millionaire and be around me and and it really was intoxicating. Uh And I was, I was all in and and suddenly I had to figure out, well, what am I gonna do with my career because I didn't. I started taking a couple of journalism classes, but there was no way I was ever going to be around

long enough to get a degree in journalism. So do you remember the first time that you wrote something and it provoked a reaction either positive or negative? Somebody came up to you who you didn't know, or you heard people talking about your opinion. When you were at the University of Tennessee. Writing in that experience sometimes people do. It's kind of like the lightbulb moment of Oh, I've

impacted the conversation in some way. Oh yeah, I mean I had been critical of the ten the Tennessee football team my last year there was terrible. Um uh, you know, Johnny Majors was his first year, and I remember being at a practice on them. They they used to practice on Monday night. Idiom and I'm struggling to remember the guy's name. And he was a quarterback. It was a backup named Joe somebody like Joe. I can't remember Joe

Huff maybe was his name. Um, and he saw me and literally came, I mean he started charging toward me. And Johnny Majors was was about five ft away and kind of caught it and and through a and threw a block on this guy to to stop him from literally he would have killed me. I mean, there's no question. Uh. And he later threatened to kill me. Uh and he said if you ever and I really uh, I thought I was gonna die. But so you know what it really uh it had the reverse effect, did emboldened me.

Um and I but but there were plenty of There were plenty of moments when I walked around that campus and then probably some of the more controversial stuff I did involved basketball. Um. It was also the year after Bernie and Ernie and uh I Ray Meares was the coach. But but he had uh, he had he had gone on leave. He had had some psychological problems and they had an interim coach. And I wrote the Tennessee lost a Georgia on a Saturday at home when Georgia at

the time was the worst team in the league. By the way, not much as really yeah, and I was gonna say uh and uh, and I wrote, I wrote a column in the form of an obituary. It was like just like you know, it said like balls nineteen o nine and it was we put black borders around it. The Tennessee balls Uh died Saturday night. It was seventy

eight years old. Everything right out of an O bit and my last line I'll never forget, I said, you know, and and and the and the school has requested uh and in Louis Flowers all contributions to go to the Lewton's cough Drop Company for future research on choking. And I uh got a call that afternoon the basketball coach wanted to see me, and I went over there and he slammed the door and he grabbed me by the collar and threw me up against the wall and started

just he went crazy. I mean, these are the kind of things Clay that today, I mean, you you're your your site would be on fire for a week, for two weeks on um. But it was just, you know, so it was just it was it was not that unusual for me to have a running like that. And the school they decided to ban me from future travel as the sports editor of the school paper, which probably hadn't happened before, right, I mean that had to be kind of uh So did you take a perverse form

of pride in that? Well? Fortunately, Uh, an enterprising reporter to Marvin West, who was a legendary reporter to the Knoxville News Sentinel. Uh, he picked up on it and did a big story on it, and it created a lot of national news. So the school rescinded the ban. Um. But I mean I knew then, Hey, this is what I want to do. I mean, I'll never forget Woody Page. Uh.

The legendary columnists and now TV pundit told uh. I was told by I think it was Bud Ford, who was a sports information was that sports information director at Tennessee for like two generations. I mean he was there forty or fifty years. He told me that he said what we always thought what he Page was the worst person we've ever dealt with, he said, But you have put him to shame. And the relationship between the the school paper, in the in the s I d. S Office,

I think had been set back fifteen years. Um. But so, needless to say, by the time I graduated, the the athletic department was not throwing me going going uh a congratulatory graduation dinner. I mean there were some But well, what it did, though, Clay, was it toughened me up. It taught me a lot. And you talked about a

laboratory education in dealing with conflict. I had it. And you know, I learned how to show up at a place when you could certainly write the book on this times over, but when no one would talk to you, when you were looked down on, and it it gave me a pretty good, uh primer on on what was to come. You know what. It's a great lesson because, um, I wrote Dixie Land Delight without access to any press boxes. And Bud bud Ford is a good guy. I mean,

he's got a lot of boss positive traits. But I remember I wrote a column making fun you'll appreciate this probably as well. Mississippi State, I think it was Alabama. Alabama's season tickets they misspelled Mississippi on them. Right. Remember this was probably like a decade. I've been twelve or thirteen years ago. I don't remember the exact year, but they misspelled Mississippi on the on the tickets, and I

wrote a column making fun of it. And uh, and I you know, because I mean, let's be honest, I mean, the state of Alabama misspelling Mississippi on their season tickets and nobody noticing in the whole athletic department everything else. I mean, one, it's a big swing and a miss, but it's also funny, right, Like it's it was a humor column. It wasn't like I was, you know, writing a really serious piece. And uh, Bud emailed me and he said, if you want to make a living in sports,

you can't make fun of people like this. Uh and uh and he was like, and it makes you know, everybody question whether we should have any relationship with you at all. And you know, I mean, the truth the matter was. I mean, I've had a lot of those kind of comments that have been made to me over the years. But I think the reason why people listen, or the reason why they read, is because you really try not to pull punches. And I'm gonna get to that in a little bit. You certainly have had your

fair share of incidents over the years too. But I want to go, so you graduate from Tennessee. You've set back the relationship between the student newspaper and the athletics program by fifteen years. How do you go about getting your first job and how do you decide what you're going to do? Well, Listen, I can tell you I didn't have a lot of offers. Um I ended up with UH. Some people tried to help me. There was an old sports writer in Nashville that I've got to know,

a guy named Edgar Allen. He was at the Nashville Banner, and he introduced me to a few people. UH. And another guy named Tom Siler, who was legendary and Knoxville, tried to help me a little bit, even though I mean there were people that liked what I was I was doing, even though it was not necessarily uh acceptable. So I ended up getting uh an offer from the Bristol, Tennessee, Virginia whatever it is, Harold Courier and the Shreveport Times and or Journal whatever the name of the newspaper was

at the time. So I had two offers. Um I really did I was. I debated it. I was. I was. I was very seriously involved with a young lady from Kingsport, Tennessee at the time. And while that seemed like the logical decision, Clay, I don't know what prompted me not to take it. UM. I knew by take by going west to Shreveport, I was probably going to but but

I think it was just time. I couldn't see going through the college experience, um, and then living in East Tennessee and very likely, I mean almost positively marrying someone from East Tennessee. UM. So I took the job in Shreport, didn't know us al and uh I saw Knoxville, Tennessee in my rearview mirror. Do you remember what they paid you to start in Shreport? Yes? I do. They paid me one and thirty five dollars a week, one thirty five a week. And so you get down to Streeport.

If you bought a car by this point, uh, for for graduation, wonderful late mom bought me a powder blue Ford Maverick and and I I listened. I was emotionally thrilled that she had done it. But as soon as I got in the car, I'm like going, oh my goodness, this car may not get me to Sport. How many years old? How many years old was the college? It was? Was? I don't it was definitely it was used. And knowing my mother, I let her rest in peace. I mean she got a bargain. Um, and it's it's it's bit

fire out of the back. Somebody wants not jumping. Someone once ran into me in Birmingham when I had the car. I didn't get a scratch, and I think they totaled the car. I mean it was a literal take. Oh it was. But you know what, I didn't care. I got to I got to Shreveport, uh and uh graduated college. I was. I mean it was I was just glad to get out of there. Um, I really was. It was time to start something new. So what do you cover in everything? Uh? That was the great part about

the job. It was one of these places that you go and you do everything. It was. It was an afternoon paper when I started, and you get there at four in the morning. You know, you do the deskwork, you do whatever there is to do. I covered uh in my am I pretty much my first and only year there, I covered. I started covering some Cowboys games and exhibition games. I covered. Uh. They sent me to New Orleans for the uh Muhammad Ali's last championship win,

which was unbelievable. Uh. While you're there grabbing grab an l A shoe game, grab a Saints game. I mean it was it was like right out of some old newspaper movie. So, I mean, I I primarily covered l A shoe but I but I covered some pro football as well, and uh yeah, I had a blast. I mean I didn't know what I was doing, but I was learning on the job and it was a great experience for me. So how many articles are you writing? How many articles a week would you be doing at that?

I mean, I'm literally churning stuff out. I mean there was this. I mean, by the I didn't know anyone. Uh this will become as a big surprise. But not long after my move there the the girl in in Kingsport dumped me. Um, she dumped me for like the the the guy who the adviser to the the annual. I hope she's happy. So she called you. She called you on the phone. Let me tell you this story. This is one of my favorite stories that I never tell. Um.

She came to see me once. Um, maybe maybe twice, I can't remember, but I mean the first time was great. She spent a week or two and uh but I think she took a look. She took a look at this apartment of mine and my lifestyle, and so there's no way. Uh so she came back again. I could tell things. We're you just kind of knew. So I get I get a letter. I mean this. This is just think about this. You get a letter, I mean

you hear about the Dear John letter. I got a letter from her saying, you know, she really hated to write this, you know, put it in writing. Um, but she was moving on. She had teun someone new and that we were done. Well you're laughing now, but I bet when you got it you were like, oh, my life is over because I remember it. I remember to this day. It was in October morning, during football season. I'm still making a hundred and may I may be up to one forty a week now, I'm not sure. Um.

I was distraught. Uh, we put the newspaper out. She sent it to the newspaper for whatever reason. I don't know why. I mean just I mean, let's let's make this as informal as possible. And UM I went I went home to call her because I was so I mean, I didn't I mean yeah, I wasn't smart enough to see this one coming, even though I did so I got I got home to my duplex apartment and by the way, I kid you not, I uh, the upstairs was.

This was right as the fall of the Ayatola had fallen in Iran, and my My next door neighbor was an Iranian exchange student and he uh. So I got home. I Uh. The first thing I did was get a glass of water from the from the from the sink. This was before model water. My water spiga didn't work. Um. I grabbed the phone to call my girlfriend in East Tennessee and my phone was didn't work. It had been disconnected. My water had been disconnected, and you know, and finally

I turned on the TV. Uh, and it had been my power had been turned off. You had power, the water or the phone bill. Everything in my life ended that day. It was all shut off. And I finally, Uh, I went back to work and called my mother and told her I needed some money pretty desperately. Um. And so I got everything turned back on fairly quickly. UM. But that was it. The lady uh at the time she married the guy, and I sent her note wishing

her and I not seen her or heard from her since. UM. But yeah, it was It was quite a It was quite a start to my my professional life in Shreveport. That was a really Uh. It's kind of hard to hit more rock bottom than that. So you're in Streport, You're there for a year, Uh, you've let your your power, your your electricity, your phone, your water, everything's dying. You're making a hundred and thirty five or forty dollars a week.

What happens? How do you get Because for people out there who may not be familiar, the idea was from a writing perspective. You want to continue to climb sort of the newspaper food chain. Right, you're a young guy, You're on the up and up, like you don't have any real connection to Shreveport. How do you move from Shreeport to the next level, so to speak of your career? Well, the great thing is, uh, there were so many opportunities, and I broke a couple of big, big investigative stories.

I I ran into Howard co cell Clay at a at a Monday night game in Dallas and ended up doing uh this was pre Quay Travis, but you were have I hung around him for about a half hour forty minutes and then did a did an opus off based on that. Uh that won me some award, So

you know, it's it's a classic case. I started getting noticed and I started looking for a job because I knew that I could not spend too much more time in Shreveport, and I finally UH had some A lot of my friends from college had had gravitated Birmingham and there was an opening. And finally, after about a year, I got I got a job in Birmingham, which UH was pretty I'm telling you what it was pretty. I felt like I was back home when I when I

pulled the Ford Maverick into Birmingham, Alabama. So you get to Birmingham, and at that point in time, you're twenty three four years old, I'm assuming and your thought is I'm only going to be in Birmingham for how long? If I had told you're gonna be in a Birmingham for three years, would you have been disappointed? Or would you have already wanted to move on to another place? Clay, I would have been mortified. Who have been there three years?

I had a goal that if I wasn't at the New York Times by thirty, my life was a complete failure. And I at this point UH started. I had met a lot of people. UH was making contacts UM and not long after I got to Birmingham. I mean, I had sent out so many resumes that I mean it had to hit eventually, and it wasn't long after I was in Birmingham. I got an offer from a tabloid in Philadelphia, and uh, I thought, my my, but I'll shorten the story. I got up there, and uh, I

asked the I asked the cab driver. I said, the name of the newspaper was the Philadelphia Journal. I mean, back then every town had three or four newspapers, especially the big cities. And he's, oh, that's a great newspaper. I said, really, what do you like about that? You know, they showed the show Women's Boobs on the front stage, and like, you know, I'm going anyway. I at this. I mean, they offered to triple my salary and I

turned it down. I mean, I think that was the moment when I started thinking, Uh, I began being pragmatic about my career. People thought I was insane, but I knew in the bottom of deep down the paper folded in six months. So I made a good decision there. But I still did not want to stay stay too long in Birmingham, and and uh I didn't waste a lot of time. I got off to a pretty fast start there and got involved about about a year and

a half. About a year in on an investigative story about a high school player in Huntsville that was bought by Alabama. Did I say that that was allegedly bought by Yeah, yeah, that would be unbelievable. With Alabama, it became a massive story. Uh that Uh that turned around to win me every award. I mean, but I had a partner on the story. I don't want to like it was all mine. But that was more than more than anything just to keep me out of trouble. It

was the more the elder statesman of the newspaper. And uh, I mean I Clay, I mean at this age, Uh, I mean, I was, I was, I was. I was a hurricane walking into any any any office building, any any d a's office, any anybody's office. And uh the story won all the Alabama Awards, won all the regional awards, Sigama, Sigma Delta Kai Awards, and it won all the national ap AP Sports Editor Awards. And when you win those awards back in the day, you you are going to

get a good job. So. Uh it not only did it create a lot of attention, it also got a sued um so and this is important. The principal at the high school. Uh, tried to bow out before we wrote the next story. He got a job in Texas and then our story came out, so they would they were threw the offer, and he did what anybody would do to try to say face. He sued us, Well, not a big deal because nobody really thought he had a case except I had a lawsuit against me. So

I win these all. I win these AP awards. I get a call from on a Friday night from the Philadelphia Inquirer. Uh, there were the Economy is Bad and the and the sports editor guy named Jay Cercys from Tennessee. Um. He calls me, says, uh, we we we saw you won all these awards. We've read your stuff. We think you're great. What what's what are the odds of you getting up here on a Monday and let's you know, get you in here. Uh, We're about to hit a hiring freeze. I'd like to get you under the gun.

I said, you got it, Clay, Do you have any Do you have any I do what it's like at this age to pretty much. I mean he offered me the job to have an offer from the Philadelphia Inquirer. After going through what I've been through in my career. I can't I can't imagine how excited you are. I mean, you get the call on Friday and they want you there by Monday to start. Basically, it was uh, it was. I mean, I went out with my buddies. It was the greatest night of my career. And I think, you

know what's about to happen, don't you. Um. On Sunday, I'm packed and ready to go, and I've got this relationship and this poor girl is all distraught because I'm about to head to Philadelphia. Get a call. It's Jay Sarcey. He said, hey, Paul, Jay, I said, yeah, yeah, he said, we've got to change the plans. Um he had discovered the lawsuit. Now, by the way, should I have told him that the lawsuit? Yeah? Maybe I should have, but I didn't, he said, And you know I tried to.

You don't want to stop somebody from hiring you, right, That's what you always say. It's always better to beg for forgiveness. Then, so yeah, I'm not surprised you didn't say. And oh, by the way, I'm getting sued. So I hang, I hang up the phone, and my life was over that It was literally over. Uh, and I don't know at that moment if I ever got another legitimate newspaper off. And because it took about an year and a half to adjudicate this this lawsuit, we went to trial, we

won the case. It ended up being a significant, uh a significant victory for the newspaper business. I mean we had we had the money we spent on lawyers was was in calculable. We had the top label lawyer in New York, the top label lawyer. And when we won on enemy and enemy territory. But the day afterwards, my career, I mean I was damaged. Good. So I've been through a lawsuit. Uh did you get on the way to stand at the at the trial? Absolutely yeah, and cross

examined and everything. Oh yeah, And you know it was you know, we won the case, and it was I mean it was a big deal to win back then. I mean every newspaper in the country back then was was was following it. I mean it was in all the papers. Uh. And but but I was as good as dead. And a couple of months later, the newspaper made me a columnist, figuring that they had spent enough money on my reporting. Um, but you know what, it's

it's like the old uh cliche. Uh. You know, the allegations are on the front page, and when they when they clear your name, it's on the it's on the food, it's on the it's it's inside the one edge section. I mean, I get realized nobody reached newspapers anymore. But this is the way it used to be said. And by the time we were cleared, uh, my career had

cooled off and things were changing too. At the same time contemporating as to this Bear Bryant was was the result was retiring and and everything else was was wasn't was in was in constant motion. But yeah, my newspaper career, we've had such great hopes and dreams of being at the Times or who knows where else. Was over. I

want to go back to a couple of things here. One, when you write a story about Alabama allegedly paying a player and it goes out in the newspaper, you have to get a lot of negative blowback because those stories still provoke a ton and I think there are a lot of listeners out there that probably would and even understand, particularly if they're not in the South and they're listening to this right now. How persona non grata you are to write a story like that in the local newspaper. Uh,

pretty bad. I mean it was dangerous and uh you know we I mean as as the story was coming off the press, there were a bunch of Alabama attorneys, uh literally outside by the by the loading dock, ready for the you know, get the newspaper. Again, this is in the eighties. There's no internet. I mean you literally had to read the newspaper. And it was it was by the way. Uh, Paul Bryant was still alive and was the athletic director at Alabama, and so it was.

It was a very The player involved went to Alabama. He suited us too, but we were told that Brian told him to drop the lawsuit because he didn't want the university to post uh and and it but what it did the I mean at the time, I started looking at other things as well. Uh, I mean know it was it was a fairly difficult time for me. Um, I could go to a I could go to an Alabama and back then they used to the media would go to the dorm at Alabama and Auburn and other

schools Clay and you'd have lunch. I would. I would walk in there and not forget the administration. There wasn't another sportswriter that would speak to me. Uh. It's not like the rest of the media back back the newspaper up on this. I mean I was. I was as much of an outcast in the media as I was

in the public. Well. I think that's what people a lot of don't understand is there is a great deal of power in these local universities, right and uh, and if you stand up to them at all, they'll ostracize you. And it's not just being ostracized by the university. It's that other media members will feel like, oh, I don't even really want to be in that club, right, Like I don't want to be in the Fine Bomb club right now, or I don't want to be in the

Travis club or whatever it is. If you have been particularly critical in a negative way, it's like the university is a kingdom and you have just spurned the kingdom, right Yeah, And so, I mean, I will tell you though, it was such a such a great learning experience though, because I mean you you you begin to walk in rooms like a secret service man. You're you're looking at every corner you're you're watching. You learn a lot of interpersonal communications, how to deal with various people. And it

was it was. It was a great experience because I also learned how fickle that the media can be. Clay. This sounds predictable today after all the things you've said about the media, uh in your platforms, But uh, they are. They were a pack in a call back then and in many ways they still are. But uh, it was it was alone in the existence. But I got a lot tougher and it helped prepare me for really anything that that was to come. What was it like covering

Bear Bryant. It was fascinating because even at the end of his career, he was he was just such a big, larger than life figure. We hadn't think at the at the newspaper. Uh Bryant read the morning newspaper. It was his paper in Tuscaloosa, so he cared what was said in there. And we had every Monday during the football season,

we had a Q and A with him. So I would call Bear Bryant every Monday or whatever designated time, and you know, talk to him for ten minutes and and do you have any idea what's that like to go out to go out to lunch with your buddies. You're sitting there, uh and you just say, oh, yeah, I talked to coach Bryant today. I mean, all of a sudden, it was the whole restaurant would stand up. I didn't know him very well. I mean he clearly knew me by this point because of some of the

investigative work. Um, but he was cordial, he was he was friendly. I mean he was kind of hard to hear, uh to understand his words at times. But but covering him for two years was was was a remarkable experience, especially at the end. Were you a part of the skywriters as well? Um, you know the guys who would get on airplanes and fly around and go instead of

like the SEC media days which they have now. In July, I just had it in Atlanta, going to have it in Birmingham, you know where all the coaches come by and talk about their their new teams. I understand you guys used to hop on planes and go around to all the different campuses and file articles from there. Did you ever partake in that? No, A friend of mine is working on a documentary on that. I would love

to see that. The stories that I've heard are phenomenal. Yeah, I came my boss was on that was on the skywriters. Uh so, Uh, I knew about it. And and and even even though this is a podcast where there's there there there are, there's still no sense that there's no censering. I wouldn't begin to talk publicly about the stories I've heard called believable. Yeah, no, there Uh, there's still living relatives out there, and I just don't think it's fair

to anyone to uh. And it involves way too many people. Oh, I mean coaches like the coach would just walk out with a whiskey bottle and say, all right, what questions you got, let's get drunk, right. I mean basically, it was a crazy party. It would make a great it would make a great thirty thirty. I and I, through my friend, I've tried to get ESPN. I'm interested in it. It's so far I'm not even sure they want they

want to touch this one. Oh. I would love to see that, just based on the stories that I've heard from some of the older guys who have covered over the years. And I was wondering if you were part of that. Now you mentioned the Bear Bryant the day that he died. For people who are a lot younger that will be listening to this podcast and have heard a lot of Nick Saban and Bear Bryant comparisons, what was the state of Alabama like the day Bear Bear

Bryant died. Well, as I answered this question, I want to remind you that, Uh, I was in Memphis the day Dr King was assassinated. As a young person, I was also in downtown Memphis today Elvis Presley died. So I want to use that as a preamble to this It's it's it was on the same level. Um. I. I was a Legion Field interviewing a group of Alabama players who had just played at Alabama. They were trying out for a USFL team. This is the league that

Donald Trump was part of. Um. We were sitting there inside Legion Field and on this great January day, they and somebody came running out and said that that something happened, something happened with coach Bryant. Uh, think about this. I left the interview. I didn't say hey, guys, you know, I ran outside the stadium to a phone booth. Let me think about it. A phone booth, dialed the number of the newspaper. I said, what's the deal. He said,

we think, uh, we think he's dead. Get back here immediately. I drove back about three three miles and began writing the story. Uh, and I mean it was it was that shocking, And yeah, that was shocking enough. I went to Tuscaloosen that night for a couple of days and and the listen, you've seen, you've seen and heard a million stories about the funeral procession. Um the show you had different. The newspaper business was. My job was to cover the service in Tuscaloosa at the church and the

burial in at Elmwood Cemetery in in in Birmingham. Not easily, not not easy to do, Clay, considering there is a procession and I was not part of the procession. So

I did what any enterprising young reporter did. I broke into the procession and rode back with police escort to Birmingham and saw everything you've seen now on all the documentaries and literally spoke to myself and an old cassette tape recorder describing the scene so I would have a history of it for the article that I would write later that that afternoon or evening describing his his his

his burial. It was unlike anything I've ever seen. I mean, I I found myself as a cynical young reporter, uh literally washing away tears rolling down my very chubby cheeks at the time, because you know, the scenes were were epic of you know, little kids holding signs will miss you Bear. I mean, I remember writing this line in the article, and because it was true, I said, even the dogs looked sad. Deadline writing is an incredibly difficult thing to do. It's made even more so when it's

a legitimately serious story. Right we're not talking about who wanted to Fall game? Is that some of the most proud of your writing you are. If somebody comes to you now and says, show me, Paul findbaumb the writer, what clips would you give them? Would it be included among them? Yeah? They were certainly this this day would be one of them. And and you know then the nighties of his last game in Memphis, Uh was a uh end of the game. It was like a four

and a half hour game. Um. And yeah, I mean I always thought that was the toughest thing I've ever done in my career. Was to right on a a late deadline, and because I I didn't realize how difficult it would be if I wrote in today's Erara with having to tweet throughout the entire game as well. But it was, it was. It's a rush that I think is similar to a rock star on stage or an actor. I mean, it's it's not a very sexy profession, but you did get quite an adrenaline rush when you've finally

hit the send button and it was over. And nowadays it's never over, as you well know, But then it was, I mean, there wasn't much you could do once you I mean, once you sent the article in uh, you could take you can take a breathing. How did you and I don't know the answer to this, how did

you even send articles in UM? Well, when I was in college, early on college, it was you literally called them in UM and read the whole read the whole story, or yeah, yeah, you kind of you just kind of made it up as you went alonger I mean, not made it up, but you just verbalized it, which is a good way of doing it. By the way, by the time I got to Shreveport, they had these things called Texas Instrument had. It was. It was a very

archaic machine that worked about half the time. Then we went to what was called a tele bubble or tell a ram, which you had a little, very small screen and you would put the phone in a coupler and it took about five minutes to send in like a facts and and then we finally got their computers. But it was it was quite an ordeal, you know, I mean I saw it all. We're talking to Paul fine Bomb. You can follow him on Twitter at fine Bomb. This is the Wins and Losses Podcast. I'm Clay Travis. Was

your mom proud of your career? She was. I'll tell you one story about her. I mean she I didn't. I mean she never let on too much to me. I later found out that she showed everybody on the street my articles. But in uh it was nineteen three, Uh, I won the the Herbie Kirby Award. Clay, you know, you probably don't know who Herbie Kirby was, but Herbie Kirby was a Birmingham Post gerald writer who was really kind of way down on the totem pole. And you're

probably asking why am I telling the story? But like the sports editor was in the hospital. The next guy was out sick. He ended up having to cover like one of the most amazing important games in Alabama history, Alabama Notre Dame seventy three one verses two in the Sugar Bowl. And he's as he as he was sending in his heart article speaking of pressure, he had a heart attack and died, Oh my god, in the press boxing, in the press box at the at the Tulane Stadium.

And so they named this award after him. And I tell you that because I was reminded of it, that there is a lot of pressure and and this this poor guy, um, he was like the bowling editor. He was not the normal guy, but he ended up having to be the guy and it's it can be dangerous. So he filed his article and died in the press box like that was literally the final thing that he ever did. I mean, I think he got it in.

And I mean, and I know this, nobody was joking about it, but I knew the guy that was on the desk at the time, and I said, I said, you realize you might have killed this guy? I mean because because I mean, they needed the story. It was an epic game. I mean, just uh, I mean, Tom Clemens from Notre Dame hit a long third down in his own end zone, and it's it's a game that

Alabama's hands. By the way, this is a game. In the nineteen seventy three Alabama was still awarded the UPI National Championship even though they lost to Notre Dame, and they still claim it, by the way, along with eight and four season, I think where they got a national title out of it. So ten years later, I'm on the phone with my mom. I had just gotten back from this Sportswriter's convention and I had won the Herbie Kirby Award Top Sports Story of the Year. And I

called my mom. Remember she's from Brooklyn, and I said, I mean, I am so excited. I mean, I'm I've you know, this career, the idea that not that many years, you know, for four years after sreport, I'm winning the top award and uh, she said, well that's great. I said, well, she said, what was it for again? This is right before I had won the national awards. I said, I said sports story of the Year in Alabama, and I mean,

I'm screaming at her. Uh And she said sports story of the Year in Alabama, So I didn't know people in Alabama could read. I'm like, oh my good, are you talking about being deflated? But that's my mom was Vince Lombardi, uh, Nick Saban, Bill Belichick all wrapped into one. I mean, she she knew how to keep me honest and hey, I said, okay, I'll call you. Uh this was this was the year before I take it back. I said, okay, I hung up the phone, so I'll

call you next So next year I called her. I said, by the way, I won, I won first place in the country. She said, Now I'm impressed. And so, I mean she was a motivator. Um, but yeah, she was really proud. I mean she didn't Uh she saw a little bit of the radio uh career, but not much. I don't know what she would I think today, if she was still alive, she would be sitting next to me like Lebertard's father, and the show would be immensely more popular. I mean, because she she she literally could

have had her own sitcom. She just came too early. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at Fox sports radio dot com and within the I Heart Radio app. Search f s R to listen live. We're talking to Paul fine Bomb at five Bomb on Twitter as the Wins and Losses podcast. I'm Clay Travis. Now. Uh, you mentioned radio. So you have all this success in the writing business, but you feel like you are just stuck

in Birmingham. The lawsuit happens, your goal of getting to the New York Times by the age of thirty is disappearing. Uh when do you start going on the radio? Do you remember the first time you went on? Yeah? I started. Uh My first show was in the early eighties. Ey Gold uh, the legendary announcer for Alabama, he used to go He used to go Daytona every Tuesday to do a NASCAR show. So he asked me if I could fill in for him on Tuesday. I did that in

the show became popular. Um, and it just so happened that was the year after Bryant. Uh So it led into the Or two years after that, it led into the Coaches Show for Ray Perkins, who was the Alabama successor. And it just so it happened that in perkins second year at Alabama, they had the first losing season in twenty five years. And uh, people wanted him out, and he got pretty sick of all the negativity leading into him on his number one Birmingham affiliate. So he got

me fired. So got you fired. So let me ask you this for radio, because I get this question a lot. I got into radio, started with writing, went into radio, then went into TV. How did you find doing radio compared to writing? Because you get that question a lot, and there's not a lot of people who do all three. And I'll get to television later, But how did you find radio? Did you find it easier, more challenging, difficult? What? How did you find their different disciplines and what works

in one may not necessarily work in the there. I struggled early on because I would come in, I would try to write things out. I remember you, I saw me one day, so what are you doing? He should just talk and and and it took a long time, but but I liked it. I like to give and take in clay, Uh, I was so confrontational back then with everyone. I mean I would yell at the callers, I would yell at the guests. Um. It took me a long time to to slow down my my radio game.

But I did love it though, and and and and so I lost. Yeah, I lost the job, and the next day the Auburn station hired me. You know, but the radio career took I wasn't doing a talk show for a long time. I was doing I was on with some morning guys UH doing doing FM commentary, and ultimately, in the late eighties, UH, I started doing a Saturday show UH with one of the legendary voices in town. And and that moved into a nighttime show, which still

took a long time too. I was still on a fairly off off the off brand station, so it took three or four years. But I got what I What I got was a lot of experience, and I began meeting a lot of people and and but but I found myself at a crossroads in the nineties because you know, the newspaper wanted to send me to cover some event and I couldn't leave the radio show. So I I I made the decision. Uh. And by the way it looks, some people say, man, you were smart to get out it.

It wasn't tough to figure out the newspaper business was was heading towards the abyss um. I I stayed with it for a while, but radio became my main concentration. So when did you start to think I might be good at radio? Was there a moment where you went back and you had a show, you finished it, you walk out of the studio and you're like, you know what,

I think that was pretty good? Or do you think it was just a gradual thing where you, you know, kept getting a little bit better, a little bit better. I mean, I'm sure if you went back and listened to some of those shows you did in the early eighties, you'd be like, God, those were awful shows. Maybe you listen to him and think, my god, they're incredible. But at what point did you start thinking, hey, I got some talent here. It probably took a long time, um,

because I I cannot listen to myself. I know that sounds like a lot of artists, but uh, I mean, slowly, but surely, I just got I became more comfortable with it, um and I started having fun with it, which I which, which took a while. So, I mean, I wasn't sure where I was going, but I was. I spent I spent about ten twelve years on a news talk station in Birmingham. We followed Rush Limbough every day, and I probably had more fun talking about politics than I did

about sports. So it was a little bit of everything. So I began. I did get to meet a lot of people outside of the sports world. Um so, I bet. But but yeah, I mean the answer to your question is it took a long time before I felt comfortable. And since we were in a sports show per se, Uh yeah, I didn't. Uh I was. I was still somewhat lost because I mean, you know, I mean, you know, the stations back then you would talk about everything. It wouldn't just talk about sports. So you go to jocks.

Is that the point for who who aren't who aren't familiar with Alabama Radio Jocks is five in Birmingham. It's got, you know, I don't know, a hundred thousand watt station. It just kind of broadcasted out everywhere. When did you go to Jocks? What was the first year there? Yeah? I I had talked to them every time my contract could come up. We had talked, and it just it was it was hard to make it work. And then finally, um I I began to realize that it was time

to make a change. I was at this news talk station, as I said, and ratings were great, then they were terrible. They were all over the map. But we were competing with the sports station. So the sports station came to me. Uh, Ryan Haney, Uh, someone you know well called me and said listen, we want to talk. And I had this weird cause in the contract that I could start talking

ninety days out or whatever it was. So they we had lunch at just just absolutely dreadful Chinese restaurants, and they told me that they were about to make make a move to f M. Now think about this, Clay. This was nineteen excuse me, two thousand and six. Yeah, that's not that long ago. That's how long AM radio had been really really popular in in Birmingham. And you know, look, Birmingham is basically the capital of college sports in America. You go look at the ratings. People are obsessed with

college sports, all right. So this is two thousand six. This was November December two thousand and six. Uh. They they were they were about to make a change. They had a legendary guy doing the afternoon show. He happened to be a friend of mine. It was it was really awkward. Um, you're always facing that situation. I said to what's gonna happen with him. They said, we're gonna put him on the the second channel. Yeah, I said this was gonna I think, by the way, that's the

station that my morning show is on. I think we're on the Jock's Am in the morning. I'll kick the coverage, I think. So anyway, I uh, I still wasn't sure. I mean, all yeah, I had a team together. We had just moved in. We were we were working for Clear Channel. They had put us into just incredible studio that overlooked downtown Birmingham from a mountain. I mean, it was all the people. Uh So I kind of I

was really not sure what I wanted to do. And so one day, um, this guy came in and they called him in around right right right before Christmas, and they said, we're gonna move you to the Beach Channel whatever was called. He blew up. He yelled that heiney, you know, I'll spare the language and quip and he went to the newspaper and said, I'm not I'm I'm not a j V guy. I'm a And so then I knew I had to go. I mean that at that point, uh, it was it was going to be

uh so I started gravitating towards it. I still couldn't sign a deal yet. Um and Clear Channel, Uh, Clear Channel was trying to too high to sign these guys named Rick and Bubba, and I knew they weren't going there because I was friends with them too. And all of a sudden, about a week later, they lost Rick and Bubba. So suddenly they had money to try to retain me. So they came to me and so I

but I I had already decided I was leaving. And by the and the the offer was terrible, uh Clay, I mean the the GM was who was a close friend of mine. Now he was longer there, but uh, it was a terrible offer. And I had I had Pat Smith with me. I don't know if you remember the past. Patt had started the network. And I said, listen, Pat, that's the guy running this network. I mean they gave

they gave me a blanket number. And I said, well, what is They said to the guy to look at me, So listen, I don't care if you give him the entire salary. This is what we're offering you. And uh, I asked, we had like four guys, four other guys that I worked with, and I sent each one of them an email. I said, I want to keep this private. I want you all to tell me what you want to do. Go or stay. All four voted to stay at the station we were at. I decided to leave,

and they were furious with me. But I knew even though I was making, by the way, not less money, significantly less money, I knew it was the right decision. Now, what I failed to tell you was it two weeks before they went to FM and one other thing, the Nick Saban arrived and I knew, I knew. I knew I had to be on sports station and Clay, I don't need to tell you that. I think within uh, within it. Within a year, the station's men demos headquadrupled.

And so I want to go to this this moment here because the podcast is called Wins and Losses, and I feel like so many people chase the money, right, they make the decision wherever the most money is. I'm going to go there here. You are not a young guy, right, You've been in your career for a long time at this point, and you chose because you thought the opportunity was offered better. Jocks down in Birmingham and Nick Saban

is arriving. And by the way, before we get to that, do you accept credit for rich Rod not taking the Alabama job? Because people forget that the expectation was rich Rod was going to take the job. But that your callers and what you had said on the air upset. What's the story there for how rich Rod didn't leave West Virginia As our mutual friend Lance Taylor takes some of the credit. Um, what happened was I think we

had more to do with it. Um. A bunch of callers car started calling in our show when it when I mean rich Rod was going to Alabama, I mean he had, he had agreed to the deal, and the Birmingham News broke the story, and and and the night before as it was being speculated, a couple of people started calling in. I think, Uh, I mean, I think at the time you couldn't stream our show. I mean, it wasn't that long ago. Uh, and started just trashing

Rita Rodriguez. Yeah, I mean, with with everything imaginable, what she looks like, trailer park, you got you know, you name it. And there's no question I heard from pretty pretty reliable and I've got to know Rich and I've never asked him what I will. The word was his wife heard about it and said, we're not going there. Um. When the story broke that he had turned the job down, he broke about two two thirty in the afternoon on our show, I had a stream of callers called up

and blamed me for costing him, uh costing Alabama. Rich Rodriguez, a talk show host in Mobile, literally came out and said, it is Paul Finebaum's fault. He has destroyed this program. Now that's what That's where all that came from. And at the time I was a little bit upset about it. And now I mean, I listen, I think for the university owes me a statute. So that's the story on rich Ron. So. Uh So this is kind of fascinating

in and of itself. Um So you go to ninety four five jocks in Birmingham right as Nick Saban is arriving at Alabama two weeks later, Did you know Nick

Saban at all? Yes, that's what's so interesting. A good friend of mine, uh had been who has met as a graduate assistant at Alabama, later became Saban's administrator of assistant at L s U and he kept telling me about Saban and there was a controversy of no consequence that, Uh, everyone in Alabama hated Saban because he got into a t to tay with Alabama coach at the time, Dennis

Friend showny. My friend told me about it. I think Saban even talked to me off the air and then came on our show on the year I took up and Clay, you've done this before. You know what, you know how important it is you take up for someone when everyone else is after him. And I took up

for Saban. He never forgot it. And the day that he was introduced to Alabama, he agreed to do one exclusive interview and it was with us on on My on My show that afternoon, and that that bonded us and we we became fairly close after that was Saban. Saban is one of these people. Uh. And we could do a whole another podcast on him another date where if he if he trust you, you're good. He doesn't. He doesn't really care, he doesn't want it. He doesn't

trust more than a handful of people at one time. Uh. He's like Noah's ark In. In the first year that he was in Birmingham. In Tuscaloosa, he chose two newspapers, two newspaper radio guys that were going to be his friends. Who was myself and Cecil heard the rest of them he had no use for. Is it still the same way? No, because I mean, listen, Saban, Uh, you know, by by leaving there, I don't see him as much. Um and I have certainly had critical comments about him over the years,

and I know he hasn't liked them. But yeah, I think I think there's mutual respect. But the fact that um, I've left town and and don't see him very much, I think probably has you know, it puts a little more distance between people. So for people who out there, because it's it's amazing how quickly you can go from a program that is in the absolute depths of despair. Because I think people forget about Alabama now because they're so good. But Mike Schula had lost six straight years

to Auburn. Right when Nick Saban took over, there was the question of will Alabama ever be anywhere near what they were with Bear Bryant. Right, there was that desperate hope. I mean, you can contextualize the program status better than I can, but I feel like people have short memories.

I mean, they were worse than Tennessee has been at the dregs of Tennessee's ability, right, Like, that's kind of where the Alabama program listen when, uh, when Saban originally came out in late December in Miami in this famous moment when someone said, are are you going to be the Alabama coach? And and Saban said, if you're asking me to say I'm not going to be the Alabama coach, I'm saying i Am not going to be the Alabama coach.

That moment was one of the darkest days in Alabama history because at that at that point, remember Rich Rodriguez had already said no, Spurrier had been offered the job and said no, and now Saban has said I'm not going there. I mean, there was no one left. I think Bobby Petrino was the next coach on the list, and it just seemed like always lost. And then three weeks later, uh, Saban was there and and and it

all seemed right with the world. But yeah, no, I mean, the Alabama program was a was a total dumpster fire. If Nick Saban never comes to Alabama, your career year is where right now? I'm in Birmingham right now, maybe employed,

maybe not, because uh, he did you know? It was the confluence of going to that station at that moment in time, and without him there, I'm not sure I would Without saving I listen, I think I probably would have still gone to Jocks, And I'd say it's likely I would still be at Jocks, but it would be a different story than it is today for people out there listening on on this podcast who maybe aren't familiar with radio. You're being humble, but how big were the

ratings for you guys at Jocks? Me, Joses, And let me give pre credit to Ryan Haney too, one of the best program directors for a radio station that I've ever heard of. And I'll give you a story. I don't know if you know this story. The first time that Lance Taylor had had me on who was doing the mid days before your show was when Mike Shulo stepped down and I wrote a column at CBS Sports at the time with the best potential replacements for uh for Mike Sula, and one of it was like ten

kind of a joking suggestions, right. One of my ten was the reanimated corpse of Bear Brown. Remember that, Yeah, all right? And he like the phone lines just I mean exploded. If you ask a Lance about this right now, Me coming on in Birmingham and suggesting the reanimating corps of Bear Bryant as the replacement for Mike Sula just set tongues wagging like crazy. And I remember I met Ryan Haney shortly and Lance was like, Lance loved it.

So I've been going on jocks for you know, weekly with Lance for over a decade now, um, but Lance loved it. But he was like, man, you should have heard the calls. And I feel like, and you'll know this, in our business, there are two different kinds of managers. There is the manager who the minute they get a complaint, he curls up in the fetal position and it's like, calls you in and just read you the Riot Act and he's like, nobody's gonna listen if you say X,

Y or Z. Right. Ryan Haney is the exact opposite, and he's as aggressive as anybody I've ever heard. He said, man, if we're not getting a ton of compliments, I mean a ton of complaints every day, it means we're doing radio the wrong way right. And you can speak to this better than I can. But he gave you a runway and let you run wild with that show. No, absolutely, And and you know what's interesting. Uh, when I went to Jocks Clay, even though I just turned fifty, I think, um,

I've been in Birmingham forty almost thirty years. A lot of people didn't know me because, uh, you know, the newspaper business had already collapsed. Uh, young young people were not listening to me following Rush Limbaugh on a news talk So I was introduced to well and and he he uh you know, he took a gamble because he didn't have that he didn't have to have me. Um. And I took a gamble by taking significantly less money that it would work out. And and I mean the

place was a dump. Okay. I walked in there with my team, and I mean they were like, how did you and how did you? Uh? A guy came I think it was trying to remember it was a New Yorker writer. Uh. He described the building we were in as a as a as a Russian prison camp or something. I mean it was by the way, that's where a lot of radio stations are, right. I mean, there's not you said you had a great view in the in

the you know, the studio that you left. There's a lot of people who do radio out of basically Russian bunkers, but it was it was you were one of the few people that that understand my next statement, it was the single best decision in my entire career to go to jocks for less money, uh, for less, for inferior working conditions, uh, the wrath of my my closest friends and team, But it was the right call because without that I could have never uh gotten to where I

am now. And and sometimes you just have to you know, you have to take a chance and potentially be willing to go backwards in order to go forwards, right, I mean, it's like anything else. So the show takes off, becomes wildly popular. Uh, Nick saban Is is driving you know, the Alabama Dynasty to different levels. Um. And a guy named Harvey Updke calls your show and talks about the fact that he had toys in the yoaks at Tumors, which is I think, I mean, more than anything else,

put your local radio show into the stratosphere. Well, you mentioned the ratings and and and for for a guy that used to be at the news talk, I mean you kind of dreaded the four days a year when you got the ratings. I mean, now it was just it was it was It was ridiculous. It was like going to Vegas and just saying and having the pit boss nod saying that you're letting you know you're about to win a million dollars UM. So the ratings started

going crazy, the show started getting attention. And one thing before that, I want to say, after Alabama won the national championship, while on the way back from from Pasadena and in early two thousand and ten, Pat Smith called me and said, I just got a crazy call from Sirius XM and they want to put our show in the afternoons on their college sports channel, which we went on. UH, and I thought they were insane. So a couple of months later, it's now January of two thousand and eleven,

and Cam Newton had just led Auburn to a national championship. UH, in part because of the most creative lawyer ing in the history of the medium, our very close and dear and late friend Mike's live UH and UH. The last thirty minutes of the show, I'm like all hosts at the last year, just kind of get me out of here. It's it's it's January, and a guy named Alfam Daville calls up and starts rambling about something of no consequence

that happened thirty years later. Then finally at the end he admits to poisoning the tumors trees and we hang up play and I didn't give it much thought. Two weeks later, I got a call from a friend who was uh uh the staff person for Richard Shelby, the Alabama senior senator on the Homeland Security UH Subcommittee, and he said, uh, this, this deal is being investigated for a as a terrorist threat. And the next day they arrested Harvey ub Duck and and from there it's just

an absolute craziness. Now, I want to go into here from a perspective of a show. What I admired listening to your show, and I'd go back and forth from Birmingham quite a bit, is the high low dichotomy. And I'm curious how much of this was conscious on your part. People who are listening to this podcast are probably going to think Paul fis Paul five Bomb is a pretty

smart guy. And certainly if you conduct interviews on your show, they are very high level interviews, and you've conducted interviews with like you said, you're interested in politics like culture. I mean, you can talk to pretty much anybody right on your on your radio program. But you would mix that with some of the most outrageous and outlandish callers that you have ever heard, and so it was a carnival of excess, both high end and low end. Was

that a natural decision or did it happen organically? How did you go about creating the dynamic that exists and still exists in your show. I think it just happened. Listen. I love the highbrower interview. Um, and I've had I've had Mike Slive's wife once tried to talk me. She said, you probably you're wasting your time doing what you're doing. You need to know go to work for NPR. Yes, And I said to her, I said, listen, Liz uh,

I really would rather not starve. I enjoy you and and and I think there's I think it's I think this could be said about you as well, not to psychoanalyze you for a podcast that on the subject, But I love those highbrower interviews, but when when it when it comes down to pure entertainment, my curiosity level goes to the lowest common denominators and I want the drama. And and I don't think I did it consciously, It's

just started to happen. Um, and the when I'm talking to one of these type of callers, uh, that you have talked to and uh you you and and uh and Chris Vernon used to just destroy on our show. We would have a lot of fun. Just I would take calls, you know from Alabama fans who are furious with me. I just there's not another thing in the world that matters to me other than pushing that person lower um and getting the most insane call out of it.

Because it's entertainment and it's listen, Howard Stern. What makes thirty two million dollars a year appealing to that level? And I don't I don't think I could do it every day, But I think the mix of it. Someone once wrote or described the show as a three ring circus that you have the middle ring and then you have the two extremes. And they're really smart people know what's going on at all times on all three rings, but a lot of people only lock into that singular

ring that that appeals to their level. No, I think that's all said. And that's what I always say about high low drama. The people who like and this is where I think Stern was brilliant. The people who like high end intellectual discourse on radio interviews are often the same people who like, uh the Jared Springer elements too.

And the Internet certainly has has brought this home to bear very much so where really high caliber, high end intellectual entertainment does well, but so does the exact opposite. And uh, and you mentioned I want to get to to this certainly, you mentioned Mike Slide just threw a quote from his wife there. When did Slive start listening to the show? When did you start interacting with Mike Slive?

What was your relationship? And for people out there who don't know, Mike's live was the SEC commissioner who basically took the SEC into a national brand. Um and obviously the SEC is based out of Birmingham. Uh So you guys were not very far apart from a geographic perspective as this show is going. I met him for the first time. I chased him down in the U A B basketball game, uh, yelling at him why why the league had not taken U A B into Conference USA?

And he the next time I think I saw him a correction, That's not true, because he was he was he was at he was at a U A B game as a Conference us A commissioner. I was. I was chasing him down, asking him why uh, something about Alabama's probation Clay I stand corrected. He was the chairman of the Appeals Committee. And he brushed me off, like

like I was a bum on the street. Um, and this would have been at something uh and and then I think I was critical of him about something else involving a Conference USA, and and uh and and you a B but when you know? And then then there was a break, and then he came back his first press conferences commissioner. He said every every school would be off probation in five years. And I spent the entire afternoon cascadading him, saying that this guy is so clueless,

doesn't know what he's talking about. He heard about it, and instead of saying, you know what, I'll never talk to that guy again, he decided to come down and do the show. Um. About a month or two later, we found ourselves in a press box and Sayettville, Arkansas, and he asked me. I'd gone with one of the team doctors and he said, uh, are you are you

going right back? Or what? I said? Well, there was something long we we had to go somewhere, he said to me, Um, he said, well, why don't you fly back with Liz and I. So I flew back with Liz and we spent the entire she was learning Hebrew at the time, or it is, or I can't remember what she was, and we spent the entire time talking about Judaism. We had lunch about a week or two later. I brought him a book and you know the rest. Uh.

We we started this book club, which he was. He loved talking about that and we would just have these intellectual lunches every four the six weeks. And I was with him the day I had lunch with him the day he was going over to Atlanta to meet with John Skipper to UH agree on launching the SEC network.

I was with him many other momentous moments uh and we had and these lunches were fantastic until we started talking about my own career at one of these at the lunches, and then most of the fun was over because it was much more fun talking about books and than whether or not I would go to work for ESPN. I know, I just jumped about eight eight blocks ahead there. But he's he was sixteen years older than me. He

was the older brother I never had UM. And by the time he died a little over a year ago, I mean, he was clearly one of the closest friends UH in my life, and the being asked and delivering the eulogy at his general remains the singular UH honor of my career and the thing I'm most proud of.

He is he was an incredible guy and UH, I will say this, the high low humor was not lost on him because I remember I did a big profile piece on him and UH, and before we started the profile piece, he wanted to talk about me taking calls from your callers and say how much he loved it, right, I mean, how much he absolutely loved me going after the callers and UH and arguing with them and you know, kind of getting in the mud, so to speak. And

he was like, oh, it's you know, fantastic stuff. And um, and I think and I don't think I'm doing any exaggeration here. He was so instrumental in the way that the SEC network exists in sounds now because the conservative and we're talking about Ryan Haney and the risks that programmers can take. The conservative gesture would have been to do a little bit like what the Big ten network has done, right, anything remotely controversial, let's run away from it.

You're on that network for four hours every day, and I don't know what you know, what the numbers would be, but every single day a lot of coaches and administrations and schools come in for for for getting censured by callers, right, and sometimes negative things that are being said, maybe even

frequently negative things that are being said. Yet it's also a as a result, a somewhat accurate reflection of a fan base or fan basis on a day to day basis, which we had not seen and frankly still haven't seen from the Big ten network. So this was a pretty radical jump for him to want to put you on the SEC network. No, and and and listen, Uh, I don't want to go too many steps back, but but the road here was pretty fascinating. Uh, Clay because um

I you've probably heard the story before. But towards the end of the towards the middle of two thousand and twelve, I was I was not unhappy with with Jocks per se. I love jocks. It was the it was the it was a parent company that I was distraught with him. I had joined the club. Yeah, well, uh, Clay and I were pretty much introduced, having many conversations about so anyway, I had had legal issues with them. You had you had legal issues with them, and so I began looking

around for a someplace to go. I mean, I just did not want to stay there any longer. The company was the parent company was in bankruptcy, was just too So one of these lunches with Mike Slive, Uh, we had now been on serious X them for two years. They wanted to hire me, I said, Mike, I said, listen, I'm talking to various people. Had I had a really good lawyer in town that represented me, that represents a lot of our mutual friends. But I felt like I

needed an entertainment agent. So he recommended somebody and he said, let me let me set it up. I said, I'm sure. Um, So he set up this meeting with I would say at the time Clay, he was the number one guy in the business. Uh in New York. Took six weeks to set the meeting up. Not only was he there, but the head of the company was there. I thought my career was had been made um that this was it. I mean, you get a meeting with a guy like that. The guys like this don't take meetings with with SMOs

like me. I walk in, Uh, he said, in a very brusque New York fashion. I'm over. We're over on the floor, We're looking Central Park. He goes, what can I do for you? I'm like, going, whoa this is? This isn't going very well. I said, Uh, don't worry this. This is not a long conversations, so you don't worry about wearing at a tape on this one. I said, I've been in contact with Sirius XM. And before I could even finish, he said, they're not going to hire you.

I go, okay, I said, well, I'm um. By the way, I've been on serious X time out for two years. He said, I said, well, he said, listen, I'm oh, all those guys. Uh, you know, someone shows one of my closest friends. They're not gonna hire you. You're a regional guy. I go, well, I mean, Clay, I didn't for a guy who talks for a living. I didn't know what to say. We're now at maybe the two and a half minute market this meeting, so I'm I said, well, listen,

uh anything else. I'm like what I said, Well, I had given some thought to maybe working for ESPN at something. He said, ESPN is not gonna hire you. I go, well, um, he said you. He said, do you know who something my clients are, and then he listed a bunch of a list people that we're all at the very upper echelon of the business. I go, well, I'm struggling to even say anything at this point. So the president of

the company is no longer the president. He he looks at me, he looks at the other guy, says, well, maybe we could uh, I mean, feeling sorry for me, he said, we get Paul some uh you know we own uh and say it we own. I am g college, Um, maybe we could get Paul some sideline work. I'm like, I mean, I'm like, I mean, I'm you know about being I mean, humiliation doesn't describe it. Okay. I said, well that's okay, um, so he said anything else. We're

now maybe eight minutes in okay, okay. I have another meeting in about two hours before I go to La Guardia. I said, well, listen, um, if you get a chance, maybe you could call the guy's serious xm uh. He said, yeah, I'll give him a call. And he said, you know, as a as a favor to the family. That was a take that for whatever you want. But I was like, I'm doing this as a favorite of Slive. I walk out of there. I head over to Central Park because my next meeting was at the Ritz Carlton On I

think Central Park South. I mean, I'm talking to myself. I mean, I'm like a bum in Central Park. I call my wife. She said, howd to go? I said, it was a disaster, and she she said, well maybe I guess, um, I guess, I said. I said to her, I said, I guess we'll just spend the rest of our lives in Birmingham. And she said, well, there's nothing wrong with that, you know. She's I called Pat Smith

and he's in shock. And I mean I literally walked around for an hour and finally meet this guy at the Rich Carlton and you're gonna You're gonna figure out the story here in a minute. He was a blogger and he had asked if he could do talk to me if I was ever up there, and I told him I'd be in New York. So I meet this guy named Reid's Wideman for some coffee. I'm not listening

to a word he says. He's a he's a sports blogger for the New Yorker magazine and he I heard him say David Remnick, who's the editor of the magazine, that had wanted to do a college football profile they had not done one in many years, and that they talked about something between five and six thousand words on me. Am I going, what uh So? Anyway, I leave, I go,

I go, I catch a Capital Guardia. A week later, the same guy just sat with in the office who blew me off, called me and said serious wanted to hire me and he'd be more than happy to send me an engagement agreement. I went back to Slide, I said, Mike, I'm done with this guy. I ended up talking to Joe Tessa Tour, who I had gotten to know through roll Tide War Eagle He and Bruce Felman had been the producers of them, and he said, I got a guy for you need to meet Nick Con. I said,

I didn't know who Nick was. UM, so Nick offered to fly to see me. UM, think about this. One of my closest friends I got named Gene Hallman. Do you know Gene. Gene used to be an agent. I told you, Jean said, I really know who this guy is. Let so Jene calls Nick con who, for those who don't know, is now the biggest agent in the business, and in full disclosure, also refer that's me in addition to a lot of a lot of other people in the universe of sports. Me. But Nick is an awesome guy.

But yes, I can tell you Gene calls and interviews Nick con form and make sure he's okay. That's how, that's how, that's how down on agents. I was so anyway to speed this story up because I realized we're gonna go into like the tenth hour here in a minute. UM. I go through the college football season the first week of December, the Monday after the championship game, the epic game between Alabama and Georgia. Hello, Aaron Murray. UM, the article comes out in the New Yorker. Uh the I'm

in New York the next day. I'm happened to be there for the Sports Business Journal conference. I get a call from a literary agent who comes up with this idea to do a book. Nick con sends the article to John Skipper, the former president of the ESPN. I don't know one of your closest friends. He had called Skipper in September and said, listen, I got a guy named Paul fin Boum. I think you ought to look at He goes, never heard of him. The article that that's wild in and of itself to me that Skipper

hadn't heard of you at that point. But that's what the New Yorker can do. Write profile piece, he tells. The Skipper reads the article, so we gotta hire this guy for the SEC network. A couple of weeks later, I'm running I run into uh, Mike's Mike's Live. I run into Mike's Live on the field of the National Championship game between Alabama and Notre Dame. He said, you're not gonna believe this story. I go, what's that? He said?

I had breakfast with Skipper today and he goes Mike, I've got a guy I want to make I want to hire to be the first guy at the SEC network. Make him to face. But I'm not sure you're going to go along with it. But we have we have to have this guy. And Michaels well, who is it? Of course my card, he knows the story, he says, it's Paul fin Boum. He said, what's your relationship? He said, other than the fact he's one of my two or three closest friends, he said, we don't know each other

very well. Skipper breaks out laughing. They make the stason to hire me, obviously, I just I sped through a lot of a lot a lot of ground there on that long, drawing out story. But I think you know, you realize now how I got to ESPN. So you're at ESPN. You've got the show two to six, the SEC Network of launches. It has been wildly successful, blown through all of the pre revenue expectations. The show has gone really, really well. You are now in many ways.

We started off this conversation talking about the fact that they now have a drink named after you. At the five year anniversary party for ESPN and the SEC How has the show changed as a result of being on the SEC network. It's different in certain ways. Uh. It's it's a television show versus a radio show, which, um, a lot of the old line people don't like it. I mean it's it's it's you know, television, television, Clay you do it. Uh, it's not quite the same as

as a freewheeling radio show. You end up doing certain things to to check check boxes because it is a conference affiliation. Uh, it's not quite as cutthroat as it was back in Birmingham. I mean, you are cognizant of of the relationships, although I don't you. I don't. I don't walk in every day going or are you gonna

make somebody mad? Because you you you know, Uh, it's impossible not to make somebody mad if you give an opinion on anything, and you and you wrote a lot about things that happened a year ago which are no longer terribly important that m I uh, you know, I've made a few people mad here, um, and but you just you work through it. And unfortunately now we're in a really good place. The company is in a good place, and and all of that seems like another lifetime ago.

But uh, it's been Uh, I've been at the company six years, about starting my seventh. The network is celebrating its fifth and I mean, you go through a lot of a lot of trials and tribulations in any kind of relationship like us, but it's still, at the end of the conversation, a really great place to work. Be sure to catch live editions about Kick the Coverage with Clay Travis week days at six am Eastern, three am Pacific. We're talking Paul Fine Bomb, Wins and Losses is the podcast.

I'm Clay Travis. Last question for you, how would you distinguish for people out there who are listening to us right now and they're interested in writing, they're interested in radio, they're interested in TV. I tell them all that the disciplines are completely different. What works in one may not work in the other may not work at all across

the board. What have you learned about writing, radio, and TV having done them all well, that you think is useful for people out there listening right now who may want to one day following your footsteps and potentially be doing all three well as a radio reporter, excuse me, as a newsaper reporter. I think you have to have a level of of relentlessness because nowadays there's there's so many doors being slammed in your face. In radio, I think you have to find a way to nuance that

a little bit. Uh. You don't want to come off to crass. You want to you want to give people a chance to talk. But but you always in radio have to be aware that there's there's somebody sitting in their home, they're driving in their car, they're they're listening to it on their phone on a train. You have it's say, it's an audience of one, and you have to keep them entertained. You cannot put people to sleep.

And television is a little bit different television. The hardest thing I've had to learn about television is the visual is the most important thing. A lot of times I'll rush to a breaking story and if the if the network isn't ready with the graphics, you're talking to yourself. Uh,

there's a there's a great story Clay about Ronald Reagan. Uh, CBS had done like a fourteen minute hit job on him during Iran Contra, and his PR guy called the the correspondent Leslie Stall afterwards and said, well, by the way, thanks so much. That was great. She said, what are you talking about? We just like killed your boss, she said. She said, nobody listened. He said, nobody listened to a word. You guys said. The graphics were great. You have great

Mount Rushmore at Normandy. I mean, it was just beautiful. And that's the hardest thing I've had to learn is that if you're watching on television, um, you have to you the words are not quite as important. In fact, most people probably watch our show, or watch ESPN or most shows with the sound low. Uh. And and that that that's something that I may never quite grasp but but it is. And by the way, I've thought about this at some point later in my life to uh,

to teach. I talked to various schools, and it's something that I am really interested in. But the thing that that baffles me the most with young people, and I say, is a lack of curiosity. I know you have it. It's driven your career through law, into journalism and the radio and now obvious very successfully into television. And I've tried to apply it as well. But too many people

just are are satisfied with whatever they're told. Uh. They don't follow up, And I know I'm sounding like my grandfather or yours, but it continues to to literally baffle me about younger people. Uh. And maybe it's the times, maybe it's all the toys that we have, but you can never be satisfied with an answer. I don't think

even in a two hour podcast. Has I know I said last question, but has there ever been a time where you have finished a program and thought to yourself, either one, I'm gonna get fired or two I need to apologize for something that I said on radio. Yeah. I have apologized before, because I think what what always upsets me the most is when I when I key off on a call or without really thinking it through and I've done an interview. I mean, rarely am I

going to want to apologize to some uh suit I interview? Um. I have occasionally uh with a gun at my head, but uh most of the time, Uh, I have not. Uh. But yeah, I mean there are a lot of days you walk out. I mean, and I take it very personally. I mean, I I don't go go back go home and listen to the show or watch it. But I know when I've I've done a poor job. And I know when I've been ill prepared for something, and that probably upsets me more than anything else, Clay, to interview

someone and to miss something. Uh. To me, the job of the host is, as you know better than anyone, is to try to make the person you're talking to as interesting as possible and to use whatever resources you have. And I think too often, uh we don't do that. But that that that that really drives me crazy. Uh to have a to have somebody that's really interesting or talented, uh, and not get that across, because too often people just

don't want to say anything. I mean, how many interviews if you had with a d S or coaches or and they give you and that's why and and and I know they're not telling the truth. And and and that probably of all the things that that that drive me

uh over the edge more than anything. It's it's being lied to, it's being deceived, Uh, it's being misled, it's being it's being told what I can say and what I can't say, what guests I can have on the show, and what guests I can I think you're I know we're leading into a sequel, but but but that that I think it's just it goes back to the very beginning of of how I was brought up with New Yorkers and how I pursued my career. That I just,

I just I'm not sure. I don't I don't have to have the last word, but but I don't like being I don't like people dictating what we can do and can't do here. I think I think you are. My obligation every day is to the audience. You said when we started that your goal was to be at

the New York Times by thirty. Do you feel like it's some way you met that goal with that New Yorker five thousand word profile that they did, because I mean, there are a lot of people who have written at the New York Times over the years, I don't think there are very many of them that have had a five thousand a word profile in The New Yorker. For that was you almost like a capstone on your career, even though you've got a lot of years left still to work. But that also feels like a fulfillment of

that initial desire you had when you entered newspapers. It Uh, it was as much a game changer as anything that could possibly happen, because it led to ESPN. It led to a book. Uh, it led to a level of of awareness. When when when? When? When I got I got back that night and told my wife. She said, well, who's going to read that? I said, oh, I've really really about ten people in America. If they read it, I'm going to be very happy. Yes, And I think most of them did. I remember you tweeted the day

it came out. You were one of the few people of my friends and colleagues who understood it. I mean, you knew exactly well. I was a New Yorker subscriber for a long time. I still am. I read those articles. I mean when they did a review of my newest book, I was like, wow, this is I mean, they did a couple of thousand words, mixing it in with a couple of other books. But I remember thinking, it's hard

for me to feel like I've made it anymore. But when I read that piece for you, it's you said it, well, it's not only about how many people read it, it's about whether the right people read it right. And I think similarly on this podcast, a lot of people were starting off early. The amount of people I'm hearing who are listening that are quote unquote the right people. Um, you start with the right people, and then eventually everybody else knows about something too. And that's what I thought

when I read the piece. No, it Uh, it was, it was. It was a stunning revelation to me to to to see and hear the reaction of certain people. Um, and you know, I don't know, Uh, you never know what's next. And I'm listening. I thought, my career has been over a couple of times, so I don't everyone says, well, what are you gonna do? How long are you gonna do it? I mean, these are these are questions I

don't know the answer to. Uh. There are a couple of things I'm interested in doing, and I rarely say something that I'm about to say. Uh, I am working on something that's really interesting that it may become, it may be a big deal, it may disappear, it may vaporize in the night. Um. But I'm like you and and and and other people that we know. Well, I mean, there's always something that I'm I'm I'm working on next. I'm not overly satisfied with the status quo. UM, I

probably should uh enjoy what I'm doing. But I read an interview with Stern and Jerry seinfeld once who, by the way, Jerry Seinfeldt turned down a hundred and ten billion dollars to do another year of Seinfeld and I and Stern said, I mean, of all people, Howard Stern said this to him, you don't seem like you're you're enjoying this for him, But you don't. You never seemed like you were enjoying doing Seinfeld and and and And

Jerry said something that I will forever remember. He said, my job isn't too, isn't It's not for me to enjoy the acting. It's not for me to enjoy presenting. My job is to present something to an audience that enjoys it. And I feel the same way. Um, It's it's not about me, It's about entertaining. However, many people are watching or listening on a given moment, and I think that's what what too many people lose sight of. I mean, I'll have fun doing something else one day. Um.

And and Clay, I enjoy this. I mean you you enjoy it, But it's it's not a picnic. Um. I wouldn't trade it for anything. But but the job and the goal is for other people and to enjoy it. I mean when someone calls up and says, you know what I'm I'm disabled and and this is what I look forward to every day, that is satisfying to me. Uh, not to have a you know, somebody you know slap me on the back and and say, you know whatever I mean I want to me. It's it's about it's

about affecting people in in various ways. My wife told me this story. I once she had a patient, she's a physician. A lady came into her office and said, you're not gonna leave this, but your your your husband has really changed my life, she said. And my wife's fairly cynical. How in the world did my husband change your life? Well, she said, my mom died. Uh. And I'm the youngest of like, I have three older brothers, and I had nothing in common with my dad nothing uh.

And I would go over to see him and we literally could not carry on a conversation. After my my my mom died. And one day he was in there, he was in the d he was in the kitchen listening to your husband's show. So I started listening to your husband's show. And she admitted as difficult as it was, Um, And when I would go back to see him every Sunday, we would talk about the callers, we would talk about the guests, and we would talk about the show, and

suddenly we had a relationship. And that was That's more important to me, Clay, than than you know, winning the Herbie Kirby Award or or or you know, being a greeter at the SPS. I mean to me, that's really, in some ways what this is all about. It's a

great final question. I've asked final questions a bunch of different ones, but I do want to mention your wife does she listen to the show, because I'll tell you this, my wife is terrified to listen to my show because she just is afraid every time I opened my mouth that I'm going to say something. Uh. You know that ends up costing him my job because I talked the same way on the show, which could be good as I do with her, I mean, there's not much of

a filter. I'm curious what your wife would say if I asked her about her opinion of you. You know, I would prefer her not to listen UM, because I mean she will pick out Like your wife, the one thing you don't want to hear about one you know, the one phone or feud between Jim from Tuscaloosa and I man and so I mean, I I have finally

learned though. When she does say something, I just thank her and keep my mouth shut because there's no upside and telling someone this is gonna sound familiar with a Vanderbilt medical degree, Um what what what's life all about? She's far smarter and far better well rounded than I am. So I just I just don't. I just don't discuss the show with her. If if I don't have to. Um, she said, she pays me a compliment, which is rare.

I say thank you. If she says that's this dumbest interview or dumbest guest I've ever had, you've ever had, I say thank you. Let's move on. Well, that's good advice for life in general, certainly, marital Uh. Paul fine Bomb go follow him on Twitter at fine Bomb. His show airs two to six pm Eastern every single day on the SEC Network. You can hear it certainly on many of the stations as well across the Count three.

Has been outstanding. I appreciate the time, Clay. It has been my pleasure thank you, and Uh, I don't remember when when two hours have flown by faster than this. Hopefully, hopefully our listeners agree, but I agree with you, it's been a really fun conversation. I hope people enjoyed it, uh, and I hope they learned a lot. But to me, it's gone by really fast. I hope they agree as well. You bet, Clay can't can't wait to see you soon. Thanks you, thank you so much. That's Paul find Balm.

This has been the Wins and Losses podcast. I am Clay Travis. Go subscribe. If you enjoyed this one, you'll probably enjoy the other conversations as well. Thanks for listening, guys. Be sure to catch live editions about Kicked the Coverage with Clay Travis weekdays at six am Eastern three am Pacific.