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

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out.

I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is.

Blame Paula Fine Bomb.

He's the reason for this monster.

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This is surreal, though.

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

Well,

you're a FaceTime caller.

Yeah, I'm a first-time, long-time.

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 Feinbaum early in the morning on MSNBC quite a bit.

CS Fans, Paul Feinbaum, thank you so much.

Good luck today.

It's going to be rough.

Pablo, so last.

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

You're jealous.

That's the bottom line.

You're jealous.

And Bema's coming back.

Bema has not lost.

The dynasty is not over.

Do you hear me, Countard?

Bama's dynasty has just begun.

Kiss my butt.

Run time.

We don't have a lot of New York Times reading, NPR listening, Pablo Torre's podcast aficionado.

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 board and I smell a nanny in 24.

Roll dance high, Paul.

See you later, buddy.

But we have tapped into something, Pablo.

We've tapped into the culture of America.

West Virginia is where Sabin is from, and they fought with the Union.

Sabin is a Yankee.

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

You know, Paul, going from Coach Sabin to Coach Deborah is like going to bed married to Beyonce and waking up with Woofie Goldberg laying next to you, brother.

Is this acceptable, Alabama?

Is this Alabama football?

Is this what we signed up for?

I understand what's going on in this country because we deal with it every day.

And these are hardworking people who love college football and love to express themselves on it.

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 Feinbaum 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 Feinbaum Show, to be very clear, is a singular cultural institution.

And this particular holiday season, Tuscaloosa's first without Nick Sabin, arguably the greatest college football coach who ever lived.

There is no radio show that I would rather hear.

There was almost a sitcom done on this program.

I was in D.C.

about seven or eight years ago.

I was on Kornheiser's show.

Some guy heard it who used to be the final EP for Cheers.

We went to Hollywood with this concept

25, 30 years ago, me starting as a talk show host from New York in Alabama.

My family's all from New York.

Yeah, yeah.

And all four networks passed on it.

We fired the guy who came up with the idea, went back to Hollywood the next year in 2019.

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 signed a contract to be the executive, one of three executive producers.

COVID happened.

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

f ⁇ ing a pie.

And you're welcome for that.

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

I'll spare you the long explanation of how I got here.

I was a sports rider, much like you, except at a much lower level, I might add.

And it eventually led into talk radio at a time when talk radio was blossoming.

Greetings to you, conversationalists, all across the fruited plain.

Rush Limbaugh 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.

the first time the 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.

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 have happened.

Paul, 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 way.

Have you ever thought that this is just not going to be your year?

Everything you wanted to happen

hasn't happened.

Oh, my gosh.

It's always my year when I'm replacing.

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

is like this?

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 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 Sabin showed up.

So you go from 1982 to 2007

where nothing good happened and then Sabin shows up and only wins six national championships.

Yeah, and now I come to you in the post-Nick Sabin 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.

Well, let me take you back to September 28th.

Millro Keeper.

First down and more.

Tightroping down the sideline.

Touchdown.

Unbelievable start for Millro in this offense.

36 yard lightning strike.

Alabama beat Georgia.

It was a major upstate, even though the game was in Tuscaloosa.

It was just one of the wildest games.

Alabama got off to something like a 28-0 lead.

Georgia came back.

Alabama won by one touchdown.

Beck launches for the end zone.

Jeffo

intercepted.

And Xavier Brown, the freshman, makes a game-saving play for Alabama.

I said 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 Kaitlin DeBoer is doing a better job coaching than Nick Sabin did even a year ago?

Oh, come on.

Okay, come on.

I just wanted to try that out.

What happened on that Saturday, Pablo?

This attitude, this program, and the biggest win on the West End.

Vanderbilt takes down number one, Alabama.

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.

He can't control this team.

And isn't it amazing when the Urban Meyers and the 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, religion, Paul.

They don't understand the dedication.

They don't understand the terminology.

They don't understand the opponents.

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

Oh, yeah.

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?

To Bryant Kennedy Stadium in Tuscaloosa.

It's Auburn and it's Alabama.

And it's the Iron Bowl.

And here

comes Alabama.

It was a Friday game right after Thanksgiving.

Alabama led 24 to nothing.

Here comes Cam Newton.

Leads them back.

And in the face of all of the turmoil,

he leads his team from 24 down

to a 28-27 victory in the Iron Bowl.

And in the aftermath of it,

a couple weeks later, we got a call from Al from Dadeville.

Al is in Dadeville, Alabama.

Hey, Al.

Hey, Paul, how you doing?

Well, thanks.

When Bear Bryant died, I was living in Texas, and I really didn't.

Auburn rolls what's called Tomorrow's Corners after a win.

Toilet paper on the trees.

They're iconic oak trees, a national landmark.

Famous.

He starts off on this Bear Bryant thing.

The night that Bear Bryant died, Auburn fans rolled Tomorrow's Corner.

I said, no, they didn't.

I've looked into that urban legend.

Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.

I just have the most difficult time ever believing.

that Auburn students rolled Tomorrow's Corner when the news broke that Coach Bryant died.

Does anyone else remember that?

I don't.

Do you want me to send you a copy of the news?

I still have a newspaper clipping.

And he just kept arguing with me.

He's a former state trooper in Texas.

And he finally just blurred out.

I'll tell you what I did.

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

Okay, well, that's fair.

I put Spike 80 DF in them.

Did they die?

Do what?

Did they die?

They're not dead yet, but

they definitely will die.

Is that against the law to poison a tree?

He said, do you think I care?

Okay, I really don't.

Okay.

Roll downtide.

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 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.

And just a day after announcing that the oak trees in Tomorrow's Connor up in Auburn were intentionally poisoned, police there made an arrest in the case.

62-year-old Harvey Updike Jr.

was taken into custody early this morning.

Box 10 News reporter channel.

I got to know him afterwards.

I said, why did you do it?

He said, I had to do it it for Nick Sabin.

I couldn't let Scam Newton beat Nick Sabin.

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.

Yes, 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.

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

it just didn't quite register what that meant.

Finally, after about 30 minutes, I hit Smokey and I said, Smokey, what's going on?

And he said, Paul, I just want to to tell you how much I love you.

I'm in, I'm getting an EKJ that said, said I've had a heart attack.

Paul, I love your show.

I copy your show.

You know what I'm saying?

I love all your listeners.

I'll end up being your best caller.

So, Smokey, are you telling me that you're listening to the show while you're having a heart attack?

Yes, I am.

That's stupid.

I know.

I said, So, what's wrong?

Uh, he said,

I'm dying.

I'm in the ER.

I said, Is it serious?

I mean, it's not a smart question, by the way.

He said, yes.

I've already had five bypasses in two cents.

I know I've had a heart attack.

Okay, but you wanted to call us while this is going on?

Kind of a death wish.

Well, I'm glad you did.

And certainly, Smokey, we wish you well.

And at that point, I remember Howard Stern having a bit like this once, and he asked 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 me where you are, is Paul.

I'm a nurse in the ER at Trinity.

Okay,

I'm speaking to a nurse right now at Trinity Hospital, right?

She said, Oh, yeah, I'm Jeannie Jones.

I'm an LPN in the ER.

I said, Is he really having a heart attack?

She said, Yes, you know, he's got

six heart attacks on his chart.

And I'm like, going,

has the Hippocratic Oath not made it to the state of Alabama yet?

Hey, get up the phone.

They told me I got to hang out the phone.

I love you, Paul.

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.

But

hold on.

What I'm finding out immediately is that Smokey still today is

all right.

He's still around.

And I'm still milking that story on

any podcast I can find.

Look, it's Smokey.

It's Al, but really Harvey.

It's Phyllis from Mulga.

I mean, Paul, like, these are characters that I feel like I know.

And of course, Phyllis, God rest her soul.

Her call in 2017 about Jim Harbaugh is still seared into my brain.

Haribal, you ain't better than nobody.

And don't you be after Paul?

And don't you dare come down of the University of Alabama.

I will eat your ass for lunch.

And I can make that a promise.

Phyllis could have put out her own Christmas

CD.

And I say CD for a reason because Phyllis is of the era of the 8-track tape and the CD.

She was amazing.

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 the guy who goes by a single name.

Legend.

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

Legend is next.

What's up, listeners?

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All right, 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.

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

So the first thing I wanted to find out about Legend was simple.

Do you ever call Legend his real name, Paul?

No, I believe his real name is Gary.

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.

Hey, bro, can you hear me?

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 when you talk or is this just for me

yeah i always wear i'm having like a little eye problem i've had since i was a kid anytime i'm in a bright room i kind of have to wear some glasses kind of like jim mcmahon got the jim mcmahon syndrome you know what what's your day job uh my day job is i work at a steakhouse

Two 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 grill, 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 Feinbaum that friggin' butts that I'd come on toothless from Alabama to tell folks how much I love this man.

This man has given Paul.

When did you realize?

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

After that aforementioned Vanderbilt game, he unloaded on

the coaching staff.

Paul, I'm in sports hell, brother.

I'm in sports hell.

I never thought I would utter these words.

Bandy is my daddy.

The call went viral.

Let me tell you how pissed I am, Paul.

Can I tell you, brother?

I wish you would.

Go right ahead.

My neighbor gave me a picture of Coach DeVore last Thursday, a signed picture, 8 by 12 in a frame, and I put it in the fire pit Saturday night and

put a match to it.

You burned it.

You don't lose the Vanderbilt.

That's the ugliest little sister on the block.

You don't lose the Vanderbilt.

The honeymoon's over and we need some damn marriage counseling.

Legend has left the damn building.

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

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 Feinbaum.

So you made some crazy statements this year concerning Alabama.

That sounds like a beatdown, Tim.

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 went viral that day, me attacking Brando and telling him what an ended he was for wanting to keep Mark Godfrey.

You know what the funniest moment of this football season was to me, Tim

Brando, is when they came to you at the halftime of the Ole Miss Alabama game and you realized that Alabama was kicking the fire out of your old miss rebels.

It looked like somebody had hit you in the face with a big mouth bath.

And that's how the legend was born, ladies and gentlemen.

Blame Paula Feinbaum.

He's the reason for this monster.

But there is something else that I needed to clarify about legend, Carrie, that is critical to understanding the broader Feinbomb community of collars 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.

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 Burney, Maryland, and Rivera Beach, Maryland.

So I grew up in a sports fanatic family in Maryland.

But the whole time, my father's influence of Alabama, my first rattler was an Alabama row tide rattler.

My first words were row tide, not daddy, but row tide.

That was my first words.

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.

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, never been in class.

You know, how dare him talk to the Alabama cousins and talk?

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 flag football.

He don't know nothing about real football.

Shut up.

I can make it really simple.

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 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 you can look at, you can bring a political scientist in here, and this is really where the country is.

And I think we have heard in elections that they're not being paid attention to.

And I really believe that we give them a voice.

And it may make the athletic directors and the chancellors and the bowtide crowd in the ivory towers uncomfortable, but I really don't care.

I can say whatever the hell I want to.

I worked my ass out today.

I might have made $120.

Don't you agree I can say whatever the hell I want to about somebody that makes $10 billion a year.

Wouldn't you agree with that, brother?

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

Hell yeah, we can say whatever the hell we want to say.

And I got a few things to say.

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

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 the boar are undisciplined and soft.

Strike friggin, dude, man.

Strike friggin' two.

We're 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.

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, you know, with the Long Island accent.

And

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 and opine for 30 minutes and don't laugh.

I saw you co-hosting that show yesterday.

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

Yeah.

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.

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

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 that whoopee was probably watching.

And I think she's employed by

the family.

The larger family of networks.

i think i think the view should have had uh should have both of us on after this uh is published and and let us let let the group hear that call 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.

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.

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

Well, I knew there was a story behind Legend.

Legend was part of a group called Sons of sabin

sounds like one of those groups in new york that uh go around and and keep the law um that's right so uh we had lunch and uh i said legend what's the deal i know you've alluded to uh 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.

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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.

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.

You know, but we,

and he goes to his father's gun cabinet,

his dad's out, his dad apparently working in the coal mine.

Um, it's a 22 rifle, and he takes his cousin out to the woods and uh he shoots Randy Barton, also 17, twice in the back of the head.

When I was 17 years old,

I took a young man's life, another 17-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 the 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 electorate chair for 18 months.

And at the time in the state of Alabama, Charles Graddick 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.

I'm Charlie Graddick.

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 going to make an example of me.

It was intended to give me the electorate chair.

For 18 months from 17 to I was 18, 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.

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

That day at lunch, when he was telling me the story, I said, so what do you 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 got to get to know this guy a little bit better.

But today,

I would give him the keys to my house.

You believe that this guy who had served his time, who has come out 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.

100%.

Not only that, Pablo, I mean, he's...

He's a genuinely good person.

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 all know, and they go,

I can,

I'll try to say this with a straight face.

I can be legend.

I mean, he is,

he's a personification of what our show is all about.

A guy that

probably should be dead,

but now

he's a famous Feinbaum caller.

You know, I spent 15 years in prison,

15 hard years in prison.

It was a rough life.

And when I came out, I was determined to make it.

When I came out, Paul, you say you don't know the story of actually how legend got the name legend?

I don't.

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 100 men came to know the Lord.

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

and that's that's how it happened

that's legendary 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

The first emergency calls coming Tuesday morning, and they were horrific.

An active shooter at Rob Elementary School in uvalde texas

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 oh he gave a an impassioned speech that day on on our program pablo they think hey let's just crazy i 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

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, that he'd had some run in with a guy down the street.

And he'd gone back to get his gun.

And somehow he thought of what legend had said.

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 that therapy that I get each day, I'll manage to move on.

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

We are the castaways.

We are the throwaway fans.

We are the fans that nobody says, I'm not Kansas one of them fine bomb callers.

You know what I'm saying?

The fine bomb callers are crazy.

We're that fan.

We're that fanatical, crazy fan.

And we are real.

We are real.

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.

Yeah, well, I mean, 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 Sabin.

Paul, I don't know if you could 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 fire underneath, you can tune in and listen to it every time you put on the Fein Bomb Show.

To me,

it's the part of the job that probably is the most interesting and challenging.

And by the way, I mean, we just went through 17 years with Nick Sabin.

And a week ago, I don't know if you saw it, he was on the McAvee show and he was defending Deborah.

And he talked about how he never paid attention to the media.

And he proceeded to identify me.

We got criticized every time we lost a game.

I don't know how many times I heard Paul Feinbaum say, this is the beginning of the end.

I mean, but it never was, but you said it.

I always like it when a guy mentions your name in terms of I never listened to him.

But the point was, of course he listened, but we never really had, we may have had six Mondays in 17 years where there was really, I mean, we would criticize Sabin 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.

But the influence.

is obvious to everybody, I think, who spends a couple minutes listening to the people that listen to you.

And when I listen to Legend talk about what this particular holiday season is going to be like, Paul, I mean, let's just say it bluntly.

This is a weird Christmas.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If you're an Alabama fan,

it's Scrooge City.

I mean,

there's nothing to be happy about.

Alabama is going to the ReliaQuest Bowl.

Yes, against a 7-5 Michigan team.

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.

And this year,

it feels very empty.

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

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, come on, Legend.

We pull for Alabama in every game.

Let me ask you 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 it.

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

I hesitate to leave the Ivory Tower for the Relia Quest Bowl.

Don't do it.

You don't want to be seen there.

No, no, God, don't.

And so the question becomes: ahead of Christmas now:

what do you want for Christmas, Paul Feinbaum?

What do you hope for your audience?

I tell you what,

I just thought of this, and I don't know.

I think Legend is currently

unattached.

I can't do any better than legend in my career, which is starting to creep toward.

It's late autumn, okay?

It's winter time.

The leaves are rustling, Paul.

The leaves are still rustling.

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 Jr.

is next.

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.

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, DeMore.

No playoffs for us.

Playoffs.

Come on, man.

Are you kidding me?

Give me a 40-year-old Nick Sabin ready to go back to work.

That would be the greatest Christmas ever.

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

Thank you.

It's been a great pleasure, Pablo.

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

And I'll talk to you next time.