Finebaum is the most famous and most powerful media personality in Alabama. A native of Memphis, Tenn., he is the long time host of the Paul Finebaum Radio Network, which is based in Birmingham. His show airs weekdays from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. on radio stations across the southeast, including 101.1 FM in Evergreen, as well as on Sirius XM Radio. He cut his teeth as a longtime sports and investigative reporter for the Birmingham Post-Herald and also wrote a very popular twice-weekly column for The Mobile Press-Register. His column now appears on SI.com every Thursday.
In late May, the Lurleen B. Wallace Community College Foundation announced that Finebaum would be the keynote speaker at the foundation’s annual scholarship fundraising event, which was held last Thursday night at the Kiwanis Center in Andalusia. I figured this would be a good chance to meet one of my personal heroes, so I made arrangements to attend.
The event was scheduled to begin at 5:45 p.m., and I pulled up in the parking lot about five minutes late. There were already a few people there, but not as many as I expected. As chance would have it, as I walked up to the entrance of the Kiwanis Center, the only other people around was a group of three that included Finebaum and two of his companions. Since he’d yet to be mobbed by his fans inside, I figured this would be a good opportunity for me to introduce myself to one of the “SEC’s 10 most powerful people.”
Finebaum walked into the building about 20 feet ahead of me, and as I made it through the door my plans were dashed as a Covington County Sheriff’s deputy walked up and handed Finebaum some papers. At first, I thought the deputy had asked for Finebaum’s autograph, but I could tell from the look on Finebaum’s face that this wasn’t the case. When Finebaum told the deputy, “Hey, you’re just doing your job,” I knew that he’d been served with court documents. Initially, I thought Finebaum had been served with a lawsuit, so I felt it wasn’t a good time for me to introduce myself.
A minute or so later, the event’s organizers spirited Finebaum away to a behind-the-scenes VIP reception, and this left me some time to think about what I’d seen. Had it been a lawsuit or was it something else? I’d heard some of his show the day before when Finebaum talked about how he’d heard that there had been a gag order issued in the infamous Harvey Updike-Toomer’s Corner tree poisoning case. While Finebaum had heard about the gag order, he hadn’t been officially notified of the gag order.
It dawned on me that what I’d seen was Finebaum officially being served with the gag order. About 45 minutes later, I got the chance to talk with Finebaum undisturbed for about five minutes, and he confirmed that it was the gag order in the Harvey Updike case. He even went so far as to produce the document from his jacket and showed it to me. The highlight for me was just getting to officially meet Finebaum and shake his hand. The short time that we got to talk was icing on the cake.
In the end, I enjoyed scratching another item off my bucket list. How many of you listen to Finebaum’s radio show? What do you think about it? How many of you have had the chance to meet Finebaum? When and where did you meet him? What were your impressions of Finebaum? Let us know in the comments section below.
No comments:
Post a Comment