Indulge me this one more time. My 2024 college football covering season is already a struggle. When my SEC football watching buddy, Aunt Barbara, in Brandon, Mississippi died this past April, it reminded me of that Jerry Clower story where he met his brother coming back home as Jerry was walking to school. Jerry’s brother told him there was no reason to go to school that day. Someone let the air out of the basketball. That about sums up facing a college football season without Aunt Barbara. Alas, she would want me to press onward.
Aunt Barbara and I went to games together in Oxford, Jackson, Lexington, and Bloomington. Yes. I got her up here twice to watch the Hoosiers. She thought the Indiana Hoosier Football experience was kind of, well, quaint.
One topic of conversation we often shared when I called her in the late afternoon was whether or not she had watched that day’s installment of THE PAUL FINEBAUM SHOW on the SEC Network. It is the place where they “Call Paul”.
Calling Paul is a ritual to many SEC fans. Listening to folks “Call Paul” is even more popular. Count me in that number for sure. The man is phenomenal from a phenomenon that he saw before the rest of us did.
Paul Finebaum has a nose for news. He is a natural. Along the way football has proven a nice vehicle for Paul’s news-oriented style of journalism. In the early days of his journalism career, Paul was at his best and making a name for himself while he was digging up the dirt.
The world may never know what lured Paul Finebaum to The Shreveport Journal in 1978 after he had served as the sports editor of The Daily Beacon at The University of Tennessee. Paul Finebaum, the political science major, headed to Shreveport to embark on a journalism career that has made him the most popular Paul since McCartney.
What did bring Paul Finebaum to Shreveport in 1978? Was it the only gig he could find? Was it the lure of working with venerable and proven journalism veterans in town in the likes of Jerry Byrd and Nico Van Thyn? I sat with these two during a 1986 High School Jamboree in Shreveport at Caddo Parish Stadium and had a great time.
My grandparents lived in Shreveport for nearly 40 years. Being a newspaper buff, perhaps the last one, I have enjoyed looking back at Paul Finebaum’s early days of working for The Shreveport Journal.
Paul Finebaum has always been about the story and the personalities around the game more than the game itself.
In April of 1979, Paul wrote a small feature about a Captain Shreve High School track participant. For Some, the Sun’s Enough was the title of the piece. Paul, in less than 300 words, reported this kid’s lack of track prowess and let us know that the young man was, as the boy said, “Really I’m out here for a suntan but don’t tell Coach that.” The 5-9 165-pound defensive back was also on the track team at the behest of his football coach to stay fit, so we found out. Paul, like only Paul can, wrapped things up with a suntan being the rest of the story. My apologies to Paul Harvey.
One of the most interesting things I found was a story series Paul did in June of 1979. Riding With: An Independent Trucker was something Paul worked on while an independent truck driver strike was going on in this country. Paul was riding along with Shreveport truck driver Bill Sams. One of Bill’s regular runs was from Shreveport to Evansville. I know it well. Run up to Hope and catch I-30 on to Little Rock to hit I-40 to Memphis. Pick up I-55 in Memphis to I-57 in Sikeston. MO to I-64 East at Mount Vernon, Illinois and that will lead you to Evansville. I have driven it many times.
This assignment was not an easy gig for Paul. Bill Sams was still running while many of his contemporaries were on strike. It was an ugly scene for a while. Bill couldn’t afford to stay overnight at a truck stop due to the threat of violence. He opted for the Holiday Inn instead of his cab’s cheaper sleeper. Paul did a great job painting the picture of the plight of this gutsy guy who was not in a union. He had to work to eat and provide for his family. But leave it to Paul to throw in a zinger. In one story Paul referenced the Evansville run as being one of the “tackiest stretches” in America. Coming from a guy working in Shreveport, I can’t help but turn my head a little sideways.
In August of 2022, when I called The Paul Finebaum Show and had speaks with Paul, he asked where I was in Indiana. That day we talked more about Mid-South Wrestling than we did football.
In Shreveport, Paul did dig the sports dirt. There was an issue with LSU Basketball in early 1979. Seems Paul Finebaum found out that LSU basketball player DeWayne Scales had been contacted by pro scouts. It was true. At the behest of LSU coach Dale Brown, the sports writers at the papers in New Orleans and Baton Rouge acquiesced to Coach Brown’s wishes and they stayed away from the story. Paul Finebaum? Paul was all over it and won an award for his article in The Shreveport Journal.
By 1980, Paul moved on to Birmingham. The SEC loomed. Alabama, UT, Auburn, Georgia, the big boys. He may have been fixed on the Alabama Crimson Tide before even he knew it. 1978 was a magical season for the Alabama Crimson Tide Football Team. In a November 1978 column in The Shreveport Journal, Paul was ruminating over where the Tide was going to land during the Bowl Season. Remember this was 1978. Your old Uncle Dan can remember that there were only 15 bowls played that year which were two more than were played the year before.
The question at hand in 1978 was if Georgia lands in the Sugar Bowl, which was a looming possibility at press time, could the once beaten (by Southern Cal) Tide still play an undefeated Penn State team in Jacksonville in the Gator Bowl (the last time we would see Woody Hayes) for all the marbles if Bama could not make it into the Sugar Bowl? No worry. Calm down all ye yellow hammers. The Bulldogs would stub their toe and tie Auburn. We know what happened next. Barry Krauss made THE TACKLE. But a month and half before Matt Suey was denied, Paul Finebaum was worried about the Tide and just where this game was going to be played. He ended that November column with an inference that indicated he himself had bought an Alabama hat.
The Finebaums go to Birmingham. That is where you will usually find the earliest references about Paul Finebaum’s journalism career. If you don’t know any better, you’d think the road started in Birmingham and not Shreveport. I suppose the SEC road did. Just ask those folks. That is the only road that matters.
From The Birmingham Post-Herald to The Mobile Press Register to various local radio and TV gigs to the great SEC Network where you can find Paul from 3 to 7 Eastern Time on most days. From feuding with Ray Perkins to pushing and pulling with Lane Kiffin, Paul was made for the SEC and most of all, Paul was made for the place in time we exist now.
The 2024 College Football scene was made for Paul Finebaum. These days one doesn’t have to dig the dirt anymore. The dirt is everywhere. On The Paul Finebaum Show the topic of the day is whichever dirt pile we care to talk about. NIL? Coaches? Transfer Portal? Conference Woes? Toomer’s Corner?
Like the Billy Joel tune suggests, Paul didn’t start the fire. With a demeanor and a delivery that is wise, experienced, discerning at times, and still willing to pounce, when need be, Paul is there for an SEC Nation.
I’d give anything to talk football and life with Paul. I’d tell him about the time I was at an Ole Miss at Alabama game in 2019. Tua threw 6 touchdowns passes! After the game, I heard a Tide fan say, “Yeah…but Tua left a few balls out there.” I thought I was going to faint. I started to but it was too hot. Indiana Hoosier football fans won’t see 6 touchdown passes in a month of conference games.
I’d tell Paul about how I was in the Louisiana Tech football locker room getting ready for practice one day and a very large fella sat down next to me. Long story short, I chatted with him for a while. I admired his physique and presence. I asked him if he ever played basketball. I asked him if he had any eligibility left. He asked me about basketball in Indiana. He asked about my family. He told me he was from Summerville. When he dropped his meat-hooks over my shoulder pads when I was putting them on under my jersey, I heard assistant trainer Bob Rash yell, “Don’t hurt him, Karl! He’s just a kicker!” It’s true. In 1986, I asked Karl Malone if he ever played basketball. I found out. I watched him play for the Utah Jazz that night in a preseason game against the Dallas Mavericks in the Thomas Assembly Center.
Or I’d tell Paul about how I went nuts when I saw this graphic on the television before TCU played Georgia for the National Championship in January of 2023. He may know already.
More than anything, I’d ask Paul Finebaum why I still need to care about college football. This child of the voice of Keith Jackson, I dial up games Keith called on YouTube when I exercise, wants to know why I should still care.
Six years ago, when I was kicking field goals in an empty Rose Bowl, I never dreamed that a Big10 logo would one day be placed there. And the Midwest dream that was the PAC-12 v. the Big 10 in The Rose Bowl would be nothing but a memory. I am a traditionalist.
Paul was the first I heard say it, as he was heading to break many months ago, when a caller referenced the potentiality of college football becoming pro football. Paul said, “I hate to be the one to break this to you, but it is pro football.”
I’m on the metaphorical couch here, Paul. Let me tell you about it.
Speaking the rights.
Danny Johnson