re: Question about Finebaum

Give the devil his due. I've never cared for him very much. Met him a couple of times and he's kind of a squirt. I've been sucked into calling him before and had him hang up on me one time.

With that said, he was in college during Watergate as a journalism student. Set the wheels in motion as a sports writer for the college paper wanting Bill Battle canned. When he came to the Birmingham Post-Herald in the early 80's he was just a "reporter." He moved over to the sports dept in '83 coincidentally with Ray Perkins' first year as Alabama's new football coach.Couple that with Pat Dye's underachieving teams in 1984 and 1985 and he was off to the races. Finebaum basically would take turns poking Perkins and then Dye.At the time it was almost unheard of for a "local" writer to take-on/jab the prominent coaches. He would also slam the then All-American Bowl's selection causing a drop from advertisers in the P-H due to so many corporate head honchos saying,fine,we'll show you.

He then fell into a gold mine with Bill Curry and the rest his history.