The process was an arduous one: a series of satellite phone calls, a dead drop at a barren bus station in Albany, Georgia, coded message sent by microburst transmitters across state lines…but finally after a long, blindfolded journey in the boot of a car to an anonymous safe house somewhere in the suburbs of Birmingham, we got in touch with Paul Finebaum, the agent provocateur of SEC sportswriters and host of a massively followed sports talk show on XM Radio. (For more on exactly who Paul Finebaum is if you don’t know about him, and why Alabama fans sometimes try to flip his car over, the Library of Congress recommends that you check out Wikipedia’s article on him, which includes mention of the book his friend Tommy Charles wrote about him, “I Hate Paul Finebaum: 303 Reasons Why You Should, Too.”) We talked about living under the angry eye of Bama fans, why you shouldn’t go to Garth Brooks shows, and about actual football matters later in the interview. Enjoy.
Orson: Do you find it unusual that your career in sportswriting led you to testifying in a trial?
Paul Finebaum: If you go back 25 years perhaps, I’ve probably been in a courtroom more times than O.J. Simpson. It’s been-almost from the beginning—trending in that direction. I’ve had a number of lawsuits. I’m kind of surprised when I don’t get called now.
Finebaum in reporter’s garb.
O: Was the Ronnie Cottrell case the most high profile, the one with the most at stake?
PF: Clearly, I think that that’s true. We had a couple of trials in the 80s, and I was involved in a couple of cases in Alabama—I’m actually on the fringe of one now involving a prominent former CEO who had an infamous trial, I don’t know if you followed the case of Richard Scrushy—
O: Oh, yeah, yeah.
PF: They’ve got a case against him, too. In terms of walking out of a courtroom and feeling like I just testified against Samuel Alito in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, or talking about Clarence Thomas like I was the one who checked out the porn tapes for him, it was pretty amazing. There were about 80-90 cameras and 5-6-7 more reporters. It was pretty heady stuff for a lowly sportswriter. I could get used to it by the way. It would make me think that I’d killed my wife or was running for president. I’m not really sure which.
O: Or both.
PF: There’s been times when I’ve thought about doing both.
O: You live in a particularly intense fishbowl—Alabama—where you cover the most popular sport in the state. While publicity’s good, the intensity has to wear on you. How do you cope with that?
PF: It does. I take a lot of drugs, been in and out of rehab more than Courtney Love. Here’s an interesting story: my wife was reading Warren St. John’s book, and she got to one of the chapters about what I went through, and she asked “Did this really happen? Did these people try to turn your car over after the championship?” My wife was shocked that people hate me this much, because I think that sometimes people think this is some big façade, that I play this role on the radio or in the newspaper and it really doesn’t happen. It happens, and it can be kind of scary. You don’t see me walking to a bar at 5 o’clock on St. Patrick’s Day and saying “Anybody wanna fight?” You don’t go looking for trouble when you’re me. I don’t mean to make myself as anything I’m not, but I’m recognized as someone people like to hate, so therefore you do have to be careful. I try not to get involved in pool games in places that are called “Lefty’s Pool Hall.” I try to be pretty careful, and when I go to Wal-Mart on Sundays I wear a Groucho Marx mask.
O: Give our readers you most recent example of fan contact of a non-pleasant or at the least disturbing variety.
PF: Usually, it’s particularly bad at the football games. You go down to the field and walk down on the field from endzone to the other, and the student section begins chanting Finebaum sucks and throwing things, all 5-10,000 of them. The worst experience I think I’ve had in that regard came about 10-15 years ago at a game in Baton Rouge. (more…)
