Who is Paul Finebaum?
Paul Alan Finebaum was born in Memphis, Tennessee USA, on 26 July 1955 – his zodiac sign is Leo, and he holds American nationality. He’s a sports correspondent and author, TV personality and former columnist, while he’s probably known best for the work which he’s done for ESPN as a sports reporter and radio show host.
Early life and education
Paul was raised in Memphis alongside his older sister Pam Finebaum, by their father Benjamin and mother Gloria; not a lot is known about his family, as he respects their privacy, but it’s said that his father was a lawyer, and his mother a housewife.
Paul became interested in sports while attending Christian Brothers High School, and played both soccer and baseball for school teams. He was interested in a couple of other activities during his teenage years, as he practiced creative writing, wrote for the school sports newspaper, and appeared in a couple of school plays.
Paul eventually transferred to White Station High School, from which he matriculated in 1974, then enrolled at the University of Tennessee, from which he graduated in 1978 with a Bachelor’s degree in political science.
Career as a sports news reporter
Paul began attracting attention in 1980, when he moved to Birmingham and began working for the daily “Birmingham Post-Herald” newspaper as their columnist.
Since then, Paul’s won over 250 awards for his reports on sports. He covered the recruitment of famous American professional basketball played Alphonso ‘Buck’ Johnson Jr., and in 1993 revealed that now-former professional Football Player Antonio Langham was still playing for the University of Alabama, when he’d signed a contract with an agent; because of this, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) put the university on probation. In 1998, Paul was the first person to cover the firing of American college football coach Terry Wilson Bowden from Auburn University.
In 2001, he began working for the thrice-weekly newspaper “Press-Register”, and wrote a weekly column for them for the following nine years; since 1 September 2010, Paul’s been writing columns for the magazine “Sports Illustrated”.
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Career on radio
It was in 1985 that Paul launched his career on radio, when he began giving morning commentary on WAPI-FM (I-95)’s “Mark and Brian Radio Show”. As he steadily gained recognition and became known for his work, Paul was given his own afternoon radio show on WAPI-AM, which in only a year became the highest-rated sports talk-show in Birmingham. Paul moved his show to WERC in October 1993.
He, together with producer Johnny Brock and director Pat Smith, founded The Paul Finebaum Radio Network in 2001, and the magazine “Sports Illustrated” ranked it amongst 12 best sports radio shows in the US in 2004.
Paul’s show then once again moved, this time to WJOX in January 2007.
He attracted a lot of attention in 2011, both positive and negative, after the famous trees at Auburn University were poisoned. A man named Harvey Updyke called Paul’s show, wanting to speak only to Paul, and claimed that he had poisoned the trees; the audio of their conversation was then played on nearly all national radio shows. Paul was then invited to talk about what had happened in the talk-show “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams”, and he appeared on various other TV networks, such as CNN, MSNBC and ESPN. Many people didn’t like that Paul spoke to Harvey, and even sent him various threats, however, Harvey talked to Paul again a couple of months later, and their 45-minute conversation even made national news.
Paul’s contract with WJOX and Cumulus expired on 21 January 2013, and his show was then put on hold. Consequently, he then had talks with Sirius XM, CBS and ESPN, and signed with the latter in May 2013. Since 2014, Paul’s sports show’s been airing on ESPN’s SEC Network.
Other works
Paul worked at WIAT-TV as their sports director from 1998 to 2002, and he co-hosted several sports shows on both WBMA and WVTM-TV.
He was the narrator for the documentary movie “Roll Tide/War Eagle”, which was released on 8 November 2011.
Paul’s been hosting ESPN Radio’s “The Paul Finebaum Show” since 2014, while he’s today also working for WBRC as their sports analyst.
He’s published various books, with some of his most popular being “I Hate Michigan: 303 Reasons Why You Should, Too”, “The Worst of Paul Finebaum”, and “Finebaum Said”.
Love life and relationships
Paul prefers to keep the details of his love life to himself, but it’s still widely known that he’s today a married man. He exchanged vows with Linda Hudson in a private ceremony in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1990; they married at church, with only around 50 of their closest friends and family members attending. Linda’s a former doctor of internal medicine, and but a lot else is known about her, as she prefers to stay away from the media’s attention.
Paul and Linda don’t have children together, and while this is widely believed to be because they’ve always wanted to focus on their careers rather than to raise children, some of Paul’s fans believe that perhaps one of the two, or both are infertile.
Paul hasn’t mentioned any other women whom he’s perhaps been with, and as of July 2022, he’s married to Linda Hudson, and they don’t have children.
Hobbies and interesting facts
Paul’s Jewish.
He’s a philanthropist, and has donated money to various animal shelters, mostly to those which aim to improve the quality of life for underprivileged children; he’s also donated money to several hospitals searching for a cure for cancer.
Paul’s a lover of animals, with horses being his favorites.
He’s passionate about travelling and has been to nearly all of the US states, mostly for work but also for pleasure. Paul and his wife have vacationed in a couple of European and Asian countries – his dream travel destination is London, England.
He likes to watch movies late at night – his favorite actors are Al Pacino, Will Smith and Robert Duvall, while a couple of his favorite movies include “Secondhand Lions”, the trilogy “The Godfather” and “Independence Day”.
Age, height and net worth
Paul’s age is 66. He has short brown hair and blue eyes, his height is 5ft 8ins (1.75m) and he weighs around 145lbs (65kgs).
As of July 2022, Paul’s net worth’s been estimated at over $2 million.
