Sports

Colleges

Paul Finebaum Q&A

By BRIAN LANDMAN, Times Staff Writer
Published September 29, 2007

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Paul Finebaum will tell you, tongue in cheek (we think), that as the rest of us were celebrating the coming of a new year on Dec. 31, 2003, he was "crying my eyes out."

In 2003, the University of Alabama not only dealt with the fallout of coach Dennis Franchione leaving, but then its hiring of Mike Price, its firing of him for his escapade at a strip club and then its hiring of Mike Shula. Later that year at Auburn, the school president secretly met with Louisville coach Bobby Petrino - just days before the annual Auburn-Alabama game - about replacing Tommy Tuberville.

For a Birmingham sports radio talk show host like Finebaum, an institution in the state of Alabama and a good chunk of the southeast, it just couldn't get any better than that.

"And I knew I'd never see a year like that," he said with a laugh.

But Finebaum, 51, a Memphis native and University of Tennessee alumnus who, by the way, grew up a New York Yankees fan, hasn't had to fret about running out of material.

Not ever.

Not in his adoptive home.

Not with Alabama and Auburn.

"You'd think that in a state reasonable sized and that has cable TV, there wouldn't be so much attention on college football," he said. "But there is. You have passion here that's hard to compare (to anywhere else) and you don't have to be a genius to figure that out."

His fans say Finebaum is investigative (he has won numerous awards); his critics say he's simply provocative. Either way, it makes for good radio, and his show has been the most listened to in the state for the better part of a decade.

Florida has no comparable counterpart.

"Paul Finebaum is a shrewd manipulator of the (Alabama and Auburn football) obsession; he understands it totally," former Auburn coach Terry Bowden said. "His job is to find the cracks in the armor that he can work on, that he can grind on to get the heat going. I was a 36-year-old kid who won his first 20 games and it was hard find that chink. When mine showed up, as all people's do, he jumped all over it, buddy, and I jumped all over him. ... He's good at what he does."

"I thought I'd hang around here a year or two," Finebaum said, "but I kept finding gold."

[Last modified September 28, 2007, 18:45:12]

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