The Legend of The Paul Finebaum Show: Behind the Scenes in "Scrooge City"

If you aren't familiar with the Americans who love calling into The Paul Finebaum Show, you're in for a holiday treat. Because during this bowl season — Alabama's first without Nick Saban — no radio show has been more vital in its misery. Or more of a portal into the universe of college football in the South. (As Paul himself says: "We found this audience before Donald Trump did.") We're talking poisoned trees, verified heart attacks, and the hidden backstory of one legendary caller... who trusted us to unveil his haunting past. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Pablo Torre?

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• 0:42Pablo Torre?

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• 1:27Pablo Torre?

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• 2:10Pablo Torre?

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• 2:56Pablo Torre?

  Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today, we're gonna find out what this sound is. I am Paul Finebaum. He's the reason for this monster. Right after this ad.

• 3:10Speaker 02

  You're listening to Giraffe Kings Network.

• 3:27Pablo Torre?

  This is surreal, though. The setup we have right now, I do feel like a caller on your show, which is...

• 3:33Speaker 03

  Well, you're a FaceTime caller.

• 3:37Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, I'm a first-time, longtime. That is also true. I was thinking about how to explain you and your show to people in my life who don't already know the legend of your show, so to speak. And I realize that it's hard because I have to explain that I spend time with Paul Finebaum early in the morning on MSNBC quite a bit.

• 4:00Speaker 04

  CS fans, Paul Finebaum, thank you so much. Good luck today. It's gonna be rough. Pablo, so last night... Are we gonna talk about the Mets?

• 4:09Pablo Torre?

  And then, Paul, you go off and you do a show that I would dare say is not exactly the same audience.

• 4:17Speaker 05

  You're jealous? That's the bottom line. You're jealous. And Bama's coming back. Bama has not lost. The dynasty is not over. Do you hear me countered? Bama's dynasty has just begun. Kiss my butt. Wrong time.

• 4:38Speaker 03

  We don't have a lot of New York Times reading, NPR listening Pablo Torri podcast aficionados.

• 4:48Speaker 05

  My teacher came up and took everything from me because I was supposed to be doing my math sheet. I told her it's okay, though, because the tide just hired the bore and I smell a natty in 24. Roll down tide, Paul. See you later, buddy.

• 5:05Speaker 03

  But we have tapped into something, Pablo. We've tapped into the culture of America.

• 5:12Speaker 04

  West Virginia is where Saban is from, and they fought with the unions. Saban is a Yankee.

• 5:19Speaker 03

  I frankly think we found this audience before Donald Trump did.

• 5:24Speaker 04

  You know, Paul, going from Coach Saban to Coach the Bore is like going to bed, married to Beyonce, and waking up with Whoopi Goldberg laying next to you, brother. Is this a circle ball Alabama fans? Is this Alabama football? Is this what we signed up for?

• 5:47Speaker 03

  I understand what's going on in this country because we deal with it every day. And these are, these are hardworking people who love college football and love to express themselves on it.

• 6:02Pablo Torre?

  So if you're already wondering here why the most popular and influential sports radio show in the entirety of the South, beloved by those voices we just played for you, happens to be a program called The Paul Finebaum Show, I get the question. Paul is a bald, 69-year-old Jewish guy who is not from Alabama, although he has lived in Alabama now for 45 years. And those same voices you heard have taken to comparing Paul's general look to Mr. Burns from The Simpsons, for instance, among other things. But The Paul Finebaum Show, to be very clear, is a singular cultural institution. And this particular

• 6:44Pablo Torre?

  holiday season, Tuscaloosa's first without Nick Saban, arguably the greatest college football coach who ever lived.

• 6:52Pablo Torre?

  There is no radio show that I would rather hear.

• 6:56Speaker 03

  There was almost a sitcom done on this program. I was in DC about seven or eight years ago. I was on Kornheiser's show. Some guy heard it, who used to be the, uh, the final EP for Cheers. We went to Hollywood with this concept, uh, 25, 30 years ago, me starting as a talk show host from, from New York, uh, in Alabama. My, my family's all from New York.

• 7:21Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:22Speaker 03

  And all four networks passed on it. We, we fired the guy who came up with the idea, went back to Hollywood the next year in 2019.

• 7:33Speaker 03

  ABC bought the sitcom. Jason Biggs, who did the American Pie trilogy, signed on to play me. And it was in the early stages of development. I had already, uh, signed a contract to be the executive, uh, one of three executive producers. Covid happened.

• 7:53Pablo Torre?

  And so all we're left with now is a mental image, I suppose, of a young Paul Finebaum

• 8:01Pablo Torre?

  [bleep] a pie. And you're welcome for that.

• 8:06Pablo Torre?

  But what I did want to find out today is how Paul got into this mess, so to speak, in the first place.

• 8:15Speaker 03

  I'll spare you the long explanation of how I got here. I was a sports writer, much like you, except at a much lower level, I might add. Um, and it eventually led into talk radio at a time when talk radio was, was, was blossoming.

• 8:31Speaker 04

  Greetings to you, conversationalists all across the fruited, played, rushed, limber, raring and ready to go. And Eager Bieber couldn't wait to get to the EIB microphone today, ladies and gentlemen. Once I started perusing the news.

• 8:46Speaker 03

  The first time this show really started resonating, we followed Rush Limbaugh on a news talk station in Birmingham. So Rush got the audience ready for us and then we took them and fed them even more red meat. We weren't feeding them red meat about Bill Clinton and Congress or Barack Obama. We were feeding them red meat about Alabama and Auburn football primarily.

• 9:09Speaker 06

  Let me tell you something. I do not agree that Alabama should have went all the way to the number one spot. That is the most ridiculous thing that could happen. Wow, they are all the way to the number one spot. Who has done that yet? Nobody. Oregon, why did he jump Oregon? There's no reason for them to.

• 9:27Speaker 03

  Have you ever thought that this is just not going to be your year? Everything you wanted to happen hasn't happened.

• 9:34Speaker 06

  Oh my gosh, it's always like here when I replace.

• 9:37Pablo Torre?

  Among all of the rabid cultures across the South and the Midwest, why is Alabama the place where this show is like this?

• 9:46Speaker 03

  I know this is ancient history, but you have to go back 42 years when Bear Bryant died. He was the most famous coach in college football in the modern era. And I say the modern era, but the previous most famous was Newt Rockne at Notre Dame. And then Bryant took it over. He won six national championships. And I got there, I covered his last two years. And that was the, that was a badge that I wore, that I covered the bear because those next 25 years were a disaster. Alabama had coaches by the name of Mike Shua, not Don Shua, but Mike Shua, and Mike Price and Mike Dubose. It was a wasteland until Nick Saban

• 10:29Speaker 03

  showed up. So you go from 1982 to 2007 where nothing good happened and then Saban shows up and only wins six national championships.

• 10:38Pablo Torre?

  Yeah. And now I come to you in the post Nick Saban era, at a time when I think I am more interested in you and your audience than I've ever been. It's been a hell of a season for your show in all of these senses.

• 10:54Speaker 03

  Let me take you back to September 28th.

• 11:02Speaker 03

  Milrow, keeper. First down and more. Tight roping down the sideline. Touchdown. Unbelievable start for Milrow and this offense. Thirty-six yard lightning strike. Alabama beat Georgia. It was a major upset even though the game was in Tuscaloosa. It was just one of the wildest games. Alabama got off to something like a 28 to nothing lead. Georgia came back. Alabama won by one touchdown. Back. Watches for the answer on jump ball. Intercepted and Sabian Brown, the freshman, makes a game-saving play for Alabama.

• 11:43Speaker 03

  I sat on the show with you and Joe Scarborough, who's an Alabama graduate, and I was joking, but I said it anyway. I said- Would it be blasphemous for me to say here on Morning Joe that it looks like Kaylin DeBoer is doing a better job coaching than Nick Saban did even a year ago?

• 12:00Speaker 04

  You can't say that. Oh, come on. Come on.

• 12:02Speaker 03

  I just wanted to try that out. What happened on that Saturday, Pablo?

• 12:08Speaker 04

  This attitude, this program, and the biggest win on the West End. Vanderbilt takes down number one Alabama.

• 12:19Speaker 03

  It was the first time in 40 years Alabama lost to Vanderbilt, and I swear, I don't think I'll be reporting when the world comes to an end, but I was alive that night and it felt like that had happened.

• 12:33Speaker 04

  He can't control this thing. And isn't it amazing when the Urban Myers and Harsons and the DeBoers and all these other guys come in from around the country, they just don't get southeastern football. They don't understand the religion, Paul. They don't understand the dedication. They don't understand the terminology. They don't understand the opponents.

• 12:57Pablo Torre?

  When I tell you, though, that I first became aware of your show in earnest, in about 2010, I imagine you can guess why.

• 13:04Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 13:05Pablo Torre?

  The saga of Al from Dadeville, Paul. I struggle to begin to summarize the Shakespearean and then criminal drama that was that story. How do you tell it for people not familiar with the lore?

• 13:34Speaker 03

  It was a Friday game right after Thanksgiving. Alabama led 24 to nothing. Here comes Cam Newton. Leads them back.

• 13:58Speaker 03

  And in the aftermath of it,

• 14:02Speaker 03

  a couple of weeks later, we got a call from Al from Dadeville. Al is in Dadeville, Alabama. Hey, Al.

• 14:10Speaker 05

  Hey, Paul. How you doing?

• 14:11Speaker 03

  Well, thanks.

• 14:12Speaker 05

  When Bear Bryant died, I was living in Texas.

• 14:16Speaker 03

  Auburn rolls what's called Tumors Corners after a win. Toilet paper on the trees. They're iconic oak trees, a national landmark.

• 14:23Pablo Torre?

  Famous.

• 14:24Speaker 03

  He starts off on this Bear Bryant thing. The night that Bear Bryant died, Auburn fans rolled Tumors Corner. I said, no, they didn't. I've looked into that urban legend. Now, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. I just have the most difficult time ever believing that Auburn students rolled Tumors Corner when the news broke that Coach Bryant died. Does anyone else remember that? I don't.

• 14:48Speaker 05

  Do you want me to send you a copy of the...? I still have newspaper clipping.

• 14:52Speaker 03

  And he just kept arguing with me. He's a former state trooper in Texas. And he finally just blurted out, "Tell you what I did."

• 15:00Speaker 05

  The weekend after the Iron Bowl, I went to Auburn, Alabama, because I live 30 miles away, and I poisoned the two Tumors trees.

• 15:09Speaker 03

  Okay, well, that's fair.

• 15:10Speaker 05

  I put Spike AD D-elf in them.

• 15:13Speaker 03

  Did they die?

• 15:14Speaker 05

  Do what?

• 15:15Speaker 03

  Did they die?

• 15:16Speaker 05

  They're not dead yet, but they...

• 15:18Speaker 03

  They will?

• 15:18Speaker 05

  They definitely will die.

• 15:20Speaker 03

  Is that against the law to...

• 15:23Speaker 05

  Poison the tree?

• 15:24Speaker 03

  He said, "Do you think I care?"

• 15:26Speaker 05

  Okay, I really don't. Okay. Roll down tide.

• 15:31Speaker 03

  A week later, we got a call from somebody asking if we could hand over the tape, which we did. Two weeks later, I get a call from a friend of mine, Pat Smith, my producer actually, got the call from a guy on the Senate Homeland Security Committee in Washington, saying that they were investigating this for terrorism to the water system of Lee County. Next day, they arrested this guy, whose name was not Al, but Harvey Updike.

• 15:58Speaker 06

  And just a day after announcing that the oak trees in Tumors Connor up in Auburn were intentionally poisoned, police there made an arrest in the case. Sixty-two-year-old Harvey Updike Jr. was taken into custody early this morning.

• 16:12Speaker 03

  I got to know him afterwards. I said, "Why did you do it?" He said, "I had to do it for Nick Saban. I couldn't let Scam Newton beat Nick Saban." And he finally admitted, he said, "I guess I just had too much Alabama in me." Anyway, he later spent time in the Lee County Penitentiary.

• 16:30Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, sentenced to three years in prison. Pleaded guilty to criminal damage of an agricultural facility. And it would be one thing if it was the story of your show, if that was like the one thing people talked about. I think it was the next year when a gentleman named Smokey calls you, and he has a predicament.

• 16:54Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, you've been in radio studios often, and you have the name of the person and what they want to talk about. And I kept looking down, and it said, "Smokey", in the ER, and I just didn't quite register what that meant. Finally, after about thirty minutes, I hit Smokey, and I said, "Smokey, what's going on?" And he said, "Paul, I just want to tell you how much I love you." I'm in, I'm giving to AKG, they said about a heart attack. Paul, I love your show. I goppy your show, you know what I'm saying? I love all of your listeners and I'll end up being your best caller. So, Smokey, are you telling me that you're, you're listening to the show while you're having a heart attack? Yes, I am. That's stupid, I know.

• 17:39Speaker 03

  I said, "So, what's wrong?" Uh, he said, "Uh, I'm dying. I'm in the ER." I said, "Is it s- serious?" I mean, it was not a smart question, by the way. Um, he said, he said, "Yes." I've only had five bypasses in two stents and I've had a heart attack. Okay, but you wanted to call us while, while this is going on? Kind of a, a death wish. Well, I'm glad you did, and certainly, Smokey, we wish you well. And at that point, I remember, uh, Howard Stern having a bit like this once, uh, and, and he asked to, for confirmation. I said, "Smokey, is it possible you could put a nurse on?" I mean, I just wanted to confirm this guy wasn't just some quack. Tell her where you, who you are, is Paul.

• 18:23Speaker 03

  I'm a nurse in the ER at Trinity. Okay, you, I, I'm, I'm speaking to a nurse right now at Trinity Hospital, right? She said, "Oh, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm Jeannie Jones. I'm a, I'm an LPN in the ER." I said, "Is he really having a heart attack?" She said, "Yes, you know, he's got, uh, he's had six heart attacks on his chart." And I'm like going, "Has a, has a Hippocratic oath not made it to the state of Alabama yet?" Um, yeah. Hey, can you get up? They told me I gotta hang up the phone. I love you, Paul. Bye. He survived. He did not die, and I wasn't really sure if I was happy or sad about that because it would have been a great final phone call.

• 19:02Pablo Torre?

  But, but, okay, well, hold on. What I am finding out immediately is that Smokey, still today, is all right.

• 19:08Speaker 03

  He's still around, still, and I'm still milking that story on, on any podcast I can find.

• 19:14Pablo Torre?

  I, look, it's Smokey, it's Al, but really Harvey, it's Phyllis from Malga. I mean, Paul, like, these are, these are characters that I feel like I know, and of course, Phyllis, God rest her soul. Um, her call in 2017 about Jim Harbaugh is still seared into my brain.

• 19:32Speaker 05

  Harbaugh, you ain't better than nobody. And don't you be actor, Paul, and don't you dare come down on the University of Alabama. I will eat your ass for lunch, and I can make that a promise.

• 19:47Speaker 03

  Phyllis could have put out her own Christmas, uh... CD. And I say CD for a reason because Philip is of the era of the eight-track tape and the CD. She was amazing.

• 19:59Pablo Torre?

  There's an aspect of your show, of course, that is both therapy, that is confessional booth, that is frankly Occupy Wall Street when it comes to just the populism, taking control of what feels like a very top-down bureaucracy otherwise. And in this scenario, like the person, of course, who has most grabbed my attention all season this season, is a guy who goes by a single name.

• 20:29Speaker 03

  Legend. My favorite three words during the football season on a Monday after a loss by Alabama, that's his team. Legend is next.

• 20:48Pablo Torre?

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• 21:31Pablo Torre?

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• 22:15Pablo Torre?

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• 24:31Pablo Torre?

  Alright, so Legend. Okay. You may recall Legend from like 15 minutes ago, actually. Because Legend happens to be the caller whose analysis of a team coached by Nick Saban's replacement, Kalen DeBoer, after losing to 5-5 Oklahoma earlier this season, Bama's third loss of said season was this.

• 24:52Speaker 04

  You know, Paul, going from Coach Saban to Coach DeBoer, it's like going to bed back to Beyonce and waking up with Whoopi Goldberg laying next to you, brother.

• 25:04Pablo Torre?

  And so the first thing I wanted to find out about Legend was simple. Do you ever call Legend his real name, Paul?

• 25:13Speaker 03

  Uh, no. I believe his real name is Gary.

• 25:17Pablo Torre?

  And it is. Gary Wilson, it turns out, who has otherwise been working all sorts of jobs in Birmingham, Alabama. And so I decided that I should probably call up Gary myself.

• 25:33Speaker 04

  Hey, bro, can you hear me?

• 25:35Pablo Torre?

  I can hear you, I can see you, I can... Are you always wearing the glasses when you do this? When you make calls, when you talk, or is this just for me?

• 25:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, I always wear them. I have like a little eye problem I've had since I was a kid. Anytime I'm in a bright room, I kinda have to wear some glasses. Kinda like Jim McMahon. Got the Jim McMahon syndrome, you know?

• 25:56Pablo Torre?

  What's your day job?

• 25:58Speaker 04

  Uh, my day job is I work at a steakhouse. A few years ago, I was working construction. I had worked construction for 20 years. About two years ago, on a construction site, I was working on an exhaust fan when a restraining bar broke and shattered my front grille, shattered it. I still can't have a conversation with any of my partials in the front. So I'm toothless in Alabama this morning for one reason, brother. On this show because I love Paul Finebaum that friggin' much that I'd come on Toothless from Alabama to tell folks how much I love this man. This man has given.

• 26:41Pablo Torre?

  Paul, when did you realize? How long did it take you to realize that Legend was gonna be one of these special callers? Maybe even special in a way that no one could quite replicate?

• 26:52Speaker 03

  After that aforementioned Vanderbilt game, he unloaded on the coaching staff.

• 27:00Speaker 04

  Paul, I'm in sports hell, brother. I'm in sports hell. I never thought I would utter these words. Vandy is my daddy. Can you believe that?

• 27:12Speaker 03

  The call went viral.

• 27:14Speaker 04

  Let me tell you how pissed I am, Paul. Can I tell you, brother?

• 27:17Speaker 03

  Yes, you would. Go right ahead.

• 27:20Speaker 04

  My neighbor gave me a picture of Coach DeBoer last Thursday, a signed picture, eight by 12 in a frame, and I put it in the fire pit Saturday night and did that and put a match to it.

• 27:33Speaker 03

  You burned it.

• 27:35Speaker 04

  You don't lose to Vanderbilt. That's the ugliest little sister on the block. You don't lose to Vanderbilt. The honeymoon's over and we need some damn marriage counselor. Legend has left the damn building.

• 27:51Pablo Torre?

  When did sports radio become a thing that you knew you would enjoy?

• 27:56Speaker 04

  2008, I'm riding down the road. I'm listening to rock radio in Birmingham and, you know, it was just sucking. So I got flipping through the dial and came across somebody talking. It was Tim Brando talking to Finebaum. You made some crazy statements this year concerning Alabama.

• 28:17Speaker 03

  That sounds like a beat down, Tim.

• 28:19Speaker 04

  And I just wondered if you'd be willing to admit now that you were wrong concerning several statements that you made over the last year. But he was talking how. Alabama should keep Mark Godfrey. And I said to myself, well, that's the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life. So just off the top of my head, I told the guy that picked up the phone. I said, I'm the legend and I want to talk to that moron, Tim Brando, about Mark Godfrey. They sent me through that day and it, it went viral that day. Me attacking Brando and telling him what an entity he was for wanting to keep Mark Godfrey. You know what the funniest moment of this football season was to me? Tim, eh, Brando, is when they came to you at the halftime of the Ole Miss Alabama game

• 29:04Speaker 04

  and you realized that Alabama was kicking the fire out of your Ole Miss Rebels. It looked like somebody had hit you in the face with a big mouth bat. And that's how the legend was born, ladies and gentlemen. Blame Paul Finebaum. He's the reason for this monster.

• 29:26Pablo Torre?

  But there is something else that I needed to clarify about legend, Gary, that is critical to understanding the broader Finebaum community of callers and also how it is mathematically even possible that college football is the second most popular sport in the United States, right behind the NFL, and easily the most unhinged, which is that legend never actually attended the University of Alabama.

• 29:55Speaker 04

  Well, I was born in Annapolis, Maryland. My father was from Alabama and it's pouring down rain outside. I hope it don't start leaking here in the little legend cave. My father was from Alabama. He was in the military. My mama was from Maryland. We spent the first 10 years of my life right outside of Baltimore, Maryland, and Glen Burnie, Maryland, and Rivera Beach, Maryland. So I grew up in a sports fanatic family in Maryland. But the whole time, my father's influence about Alabama. My first rattler was an Alabama Roll Tide rattler. My first words were Roll Tide, daddy, but Roll Tide. That was my first words.

• 30:36Pablo Torre?

  All of which qualifies legend, according to his own personal estimation, for a very special form of office, a leadership position in a truly startlingly enormous community. And it's the kind of office that by definition, you cannot pay for.

• 30:58Speaker 04

  I'm president of the Sidewalk Alumni. You know, and a lot of good people with diplomas love me, but there's a lot of people in Alabama don't like the legend. I am that fan that the administration don't want to talk about, the one that never went to school, that never got a diploma, and never been in class. You know, how dare him talk from the old Alabama Christian church. And they don't like that because they think, you know, that old fan, Sidewalk Alumni fan, he's stupid, the only thing he knows about is flying football, he don't know nothing about real football. Shut up.

• 31:33Speaker 03

  I can make it really simple. Uh, legend is the president of the Sidewalk Alumni, and your colleague Joe Scarborough is the president of the upper crust elite Alabama alumni. I love Joe, but I gravitate more toward the sidewalk. That's, that's what I do. You know, some of them have been to Tuscaloosa, some of them have actually even been to an Alabama game, but that doesn't matter to me because those folks have always needed representation. I think, I think you can look at, you can bring a political scientist in here and, and this is really where the country is, and I think they're, we have heard in, in, in elections that they're, they're not being paid attention to. Uh, and I really believe that we give them a voice and, you know, it may make the athletic

• 32:18Speaker 03

  directors and the chancellors and the, the bow tied crowd in the ivory towers uncomfortable, but I really don't care.

• 32:24Speaker 04

  I can say whatever the hell I want to. I worked my ass off today. I might have made a hundred and twenty dollars. Don't you agree? I can say whatever the hell I want to about somebody that makes ten billion dollars a year. Would you agree with that, brother?

• 32:40Speaker 03

  Legend, if somebody told me we can't allow that, it will, it would be my last day here.

• 32:48Speaker 04

  Hell yeah, we can say whatever the hell we want to say, and I got a few things to say.

• 32:54Pablo Torre?

  It's an unbelievable asset to hear from a guy like Legend. What he did after Tennessee, after Alabama loses to Tennessee.

• 33:04Speaker 04

  You know, they say that a team takes on the personality of their coach. Well, our team is undisciplined and soft. And no doubt you, Coach DeBoer, are undisciplined and soft. Strike frigging dude, man. Strike frigging two. We about to go to the Birmingham Bowl. I ain't left the building. I've kicked the damn door down because I'm pissed off at this crap. This ain't Alabama football, and any Alabama fan that accepts it ain't a real damn fan.

• 33:41Speaker 03

  Tony Kornheiser said this to me once, and I'll clean it up for this family podcast. He said, "How come you talk to those effing people?" And of course, he did it with, you know, the Long Island accent. Um, and I, you can't explain it. I mean, Tony, you don't have to talk to them. You pontificate. You used to have a show in Washington where you got James Carville and all these muckety mucks around the table. And then you sit around with Wilbon and Opine for 30 minutes. And don't laugh. I saw you co-hosting that show yesterday.

• 34:15Pablo Torre?

  Guilty. The ivory tower still has a nice padded cushion in my seat. Yeah.

• 34:20Speaker 03

  I love it. And I feel like whenever they take me away, I hear the barbarians at the gate right this moment. That will be my legacy. It won't be yelling at Stephen A. Smith or Greenberg or anyone else. It will be that.

• 34:40Pablo Torre?

  No, you will be forever the guy who brought me the collar who said that losing to Oklahoma was like going to bed with Beyonce and waking up next to Whoopi Goldberg.

• 34:54Speaker 03

  I thought that was the line of the year and I was not surprised at all that the next morning on ESPN, they edited that out, knowing that Whoopi was probably watching and I think she's employed by the family.

• 35:06Pablo Torre?

  Oh sure, the larger, the larger, the larger family of networks.

• 35:09Speaker 03

  I think, I think, I think The View should have had, should have both of us on after this is published and let us, let, let the group hear that call.

• 35:19Pablo Torre?

  I concur. In terms of just the callers and their own views of themselves, you know, I was talking to Legend and Legend wanted to be very clear about this. He said, "I am not Harvey Updike. Harvey Updike is a criminal, that's not me."

• 35:35Speaker 04

  It's not a performance. I'm a fanatic in the sports world. I'm not a criminal, I'm a fanatic. There's a difference. A criminal poisons trees, hurts other people. A fanatic might cuss his coach out, might cuss the quarterback out, might cuss the general manager out, the owner. That's what a fanatic is, but he's doing all that and the fact that he loves his team.

• 35:58Pablo Torre?

  And of course, in my mind, I immediately went to, of course, Legend's own past.

• 36:04Speaker 03

  Well, I knew there was a story behind Legend. Legend was part of a group called Sons of Saban. That's like one of those groups in New York that go around and keep the law.

• 36:19Pablo Torre?

  That's right.

• 36:20Speaker 03

  So, we had lunch and I said, "Legend, what's the deal? I know you've alluded to your past." And he looked at me, he said, "There's nothing to run away from." He said, "I've been to prison." I said, "Okay." Couldn't really counter that by saying, "Well, so have I." I said, "What were you in for?" He said, "Murder."

• 36:52Pablo Torre?

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• 37:36Pablo Torre?

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• 38:21Pablo Torre?

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• 39:05Pablo Torre?

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• 39:48Pablo Torre?

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• 40:13Pablo Torre?

  On paper, it is grisly, right? I mean, what we're talking about with Legend is a story of him when he's 17 years old. It's Winston County, it's Northwest Alabama. The argument with his cousin over a girl, I believe he also mentioned.

• 40:26Speaker 04

  We were distant cousins, you know? We grew up in a little town where there wasn't but 30 people in the whole town, you know? We grew up around each other all of our lives. And then when we got up to about 17, you know, I was already deep into drugs, you know? And so when we got to that age, we got into a fight over a young lady and it escalated from the fight over the young lady and to the incident that happened.

• 40:54Pablo Torre?

  And he goes to his father's gun cabinet. His dad's out, his dad apparently working in the coal mine. It's a 22 rifle and he takes his cousin out to the woods and he shoots Randy Barton, also 17, twice in the back of the head.

• 41:11Speaker 04

  When I was 17 years old, I took a young man's life, another 17...

• 41:18Speaker 04

  Ten year old young man, it was an act of a coward. Anybody that takes a gun and takes a life is committing an act of cowardice. You know, God gave you a brain and we ought to be able to use it. I killed a man, destroyed his life. I threw my life away. As a young man, I destroyed many families associated. It was a horrible, horrible thing. I'm very ashamed of it. I faced the electric chair for eighteen months. And at the time in the state of Alabama, Charles Graddock was running for governor. He was the attorney general of the state of Alabama and he wanted to lock everybody up and throw away the key.

• 42:01Speaker 04

  I'm Charlie Graddock. For vicious killings like this, it's been proven that capital punishment can be an effective deterrent. That was his big commercial. So they were going to intently, they was gonna make an example of me. They was intended to give me the electric chair for eighteen months, from seventeen to I was eighteen. I faced the possibility of going to what they call the big yellow mama in Alabama. And it looked for a while like that is what would happen. And then we went to court and my lawyer worked out a deal for a life sentence with the possibility of parole.

• 42:41Speaker 04

  And we went that route realizing how young I was that, you know, there was, it wasn't guarantee, but there was a possibility that I would get another chance in society, you know, and I'm so thankful for it.

• 42:55Speaker 03

  That day at lunch, when he was telling me the story, I said, so what exactly do you do, legend? He said, I'm an electrician. He said, and by the way, if you or your wife ever need any, and I started thinking, maybe I gotta get to know this guy a little bit better. But today, I would, I would, I would give him the keys to my house.

• 43:14Pablo Torre?

  You believe that this guy who had served his time, who has come out and, and gotten to know you over the airwaves, and apparently in person, that he is in fact rehabilitated? That is not a question to you.

• 43:26Speaker 03

  A hundred percent. Uh, not only that, Pablo, I mean, he's, he's a genuinely good person. He, he helps a lot of people. And I think a lot of people hear him on the show. Plenty of people have had problems, as you well know, and they go, I can, I'll try to say this with a straight face. I can be legend. Uh, I mean, he is. He's a personification of what our show is all about. Um, a guy that, that probably should be dead. But now he's a, he's a famous fine bomb caller.

• 44:01Speaker 04

  You know, I spent 15 years in prison, uh, 15 hard years in, in prison. It was a rough life, and when I came out, I was determined to make it when I came out.

• 44:15Pablo Torre?

  Paul, you say you don't know the story of actually how legend got the name legend.

• 44:22Speaker 03

  I, I don't.

• 44:24Speaker 04

  The first few years I was out of prison, I traveled the country as an evangelist preaching the gospel and sharing the goodness of what the Lord had done in my life. And when I would go to different churches across the country, because I had been in prison, one of the things they would do is have me go into the prisons and preach in the area. So I was in Defuniac Springs, Florida, preaching at a big church, and they had me go down to the prison one Sunday night and preach at a minimum security prison. And I preached there that night, and over a hundred men came to know the Lord.

• 45:03Speaker 04

  And as I was leaving the prison, an inmate was running behind me saying, "That guy is a legend. That guy is a legend. He's a legend." And a preacher that had brought me in with him, he picked it up and he started calling me Legend that day. And before I knew it, everybody around me was calling me Legend.

• 45:25Pablo Torre?

  And that's, that's how it happened.

• 45:29Speaker 03

  That's legendary.

• 45:31Pablo Torre?

  He had mentioned, I don't know if you remember this, but there was a moment, I guess about a year and a half ago, I believe it was a school shooting of some kind.

• 45:38Speaker 04

  The first emergency calls coming Tuesday morning, and they were horrific. An active shooter at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

• 45:48Pablo Torre?

  And he said that this was the thing that made him want to go and actually take his act, so to speak, out on the road to these, to these prisons.

• 45:56Speaker 03

  Oh, he gave a impassioned speech that day on, on our program, Pablo.

• 46:01Speaker 04

  They think, hey, Legend's crazy. That might be in sports. But in real life, it's serious. Real life is different than sports. And in real life, put the guns down. Put them down.

• 46:16Speaker 03

  Somebody called in off the air and said that they were thinking about killing someone that day. It was a guy, I think it was in Philadelphia, but he'd had some run in with a guy down the street and he had already, he'd gone back to get his gun. And somehow he thought of what Legend had said.

• 46:32Speaker 04

  I grew up in a house, you know, watching my grandfather throw the remote at the television, cuss the TV, you know? I grew up in that kind of house, you know what I'm saying? But thanks to Paul and that therapy that I get each day, I managed to move on.

• 46:50Pablo Torre?

  It does feel like Paul is giving out a kind of medication.

• 46:53Speaker 04

  We are the castaways. We are the throwaway fans. We are the fans that nobody says, I'm not Kenzo, one of them fun bomb callers, you know what I'm saying? The fun bomb callers are crazy. We're that fan. We're that fanatical, crazy fan. And we are real. We are real.

• 47:24Pablo Torre?

  Legend now, okay, his mission now, right? He has a couple of missions, crusades for the good in life. He also wants to fire Kalen DeBoer.

• 47:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, I mean, let's, let's forget saving mankind. Let's get to the important things right now. Kalen DeBoer, I'll have to keep reminding the audience, is the man who replaced Nick Saban.

• 47:42Pablo Torre?

  Paul, I don't know if you can even begin to disagree with my assessment here. That stuff is what makes the job itself at times so hard, isn't it? The idea that this is a hot seat and the, the, the fire underneath, you can tune in and listen to it every time you put on The Finebomb Show.

• 48:06Speaker 03

  To me, uh, it's, it's the part of the job that probably is the most interesting and challenging. And, and by the way, I mean, we just went through 17 years with Nick Saban. And, and a week ago, I don't know if you saw, he was on The McAfee Show and he was defending DeBoer. And he talked about how he never paid attention to the media. And he proceeded to identify me.

• 48:29Speaker 04

  We got criticized every time we lost a game. I don't know how many times I heard Paul Finebomb say, this is the beginning of the end. I, I'm, I mean, but it never was, but he said it.

• 48:40Speaker 03

  I always like it when a guy mentions your name in, in terms of, I never listened to him. But the point was, of course he listened. But we never really had, we, we may have had six Mondays in 17 years where there was real, I mean, we would criticize Saban for losing the national championship. That's how difficult it was to find something to say about it. DeBoer took care of it by the first weekend in October.

• 49:03Pablo Torre?

  But the influence is obvious to everybody, I think, who spends a couple of minutes listening to the people that, that listen to you. And when I listen to Legend talk about what this particular holiday season is gonna be like, Paul, I mean, let's just say it bluntly, this is a weird Christmas.

• 49:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, if you're an Alabama fan, uh... It's Scrooge City. Uh, I mean, there's nothing, uh, there's nothing to be happy about. Alabama is going to the Relia Quest Bowl.

• 49:35Pablo Torre?

  Yes, against a seven and five Michigan team.

• 49:38Speaker 03

  If you go back to 2009, I mean, Alabama has practically either played for the national championship or been in the playoffs all but two or three years. Uh, and this year, it feels very empty.

• 49:52Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, Legend, for the record here, offered me his ticket to the Relia Quest Bowl.

• 49:58Speaker 04

  You can have my tickets, brother. Listen, if it ain't for champ, no, no offense. You know, a lot of Alabama fans say, oh, good boy, Legend. We pull for Alabama in every game. Let me say actually something. If the Yankees are out of the playoffs, do they care about an exhibition game with the Toronto Blue Jays? I don't care nothing about that.

• 50:15Speaker 03

  Somebody tells me that you will not be there on New Year's Eve.

• 50:19Pablo Torre?

  I, uh, I hesitate to leave the ivory tower for the Relia Quest Bowl.

• 50:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, don't do it. You don't, you don't want, you don't want to be seen there.

• 50:28Pablo Torre?

  No, no, God, no. And so the question becomes ahead of Christmas now. What do you want for Christmas, Paul Finebaum? What do you hope for your audience?

• 50:38Speaker 03

  I tell you what, I, I, I just thought of this and I don't know. I think Legend is currently, uh, uh, unattached. I can't do any better than Legend in my career, which is starting to creep toward. It's late autumn, okay?

• 51:00Speaker 03

  It's winter time.

• 51:02Pablo Torre?

  The leaves are rustling, Paul. The leaves are still rustling.

• 51:05Speaker 03

  I have, I just had this, I've never thought, I have this idea that Legend gets married again. I don't care if he gets married or not, has a child and produces the next generation's Legend. Can you imagine 20 years from now, some guy sitting where I'm sitting, 25 years from now, 30 years from now, and going, Legend Junior is next.

• 51:27Pablo Torre?

  Paul, it's such a beautiful sentiment and it may not surprise you to learn that when I asked Legend this same question, he said this.

• 51:38Speaker 04

  Man, I tell you the truth, man. What I Wish would show up under the Christmas tree was a 40-year-old Nick Saban, ready to go back to work at the University of Alabama, baby. That's what I wish would show up under my Christmas tree. Yes, a 40-year-old Nick Saban, ready to go kick some butt and lead this university and this program back to where it belongs, the mountaintop, the mountaintop. We're in the gutter this morning, DeBoer. No playoffs for us. Playoffs? Come on, man. Are you kidding me? Give me a 40-year-old Nick Saban, ready to go back to work. That would be the greatest Christmas ever.

• 52:23Pablo Torre?

  So, Paul Finebaum, thank you for introducing me to your community and happy holidays.

• 52:32Speaker 03

  Thank you. It's been a great pleasure, Pablo.

• 52:44Pablo Torre?

  This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production.

• 52:50Pablo Torre?

  And I'll talk to you next time.