Paul Finebaum

About

Paul Finebaum (born July 26, 1955) is an American sports author, former columnist, and television-radio personality. His primary focus is sports in the Southeast United States. After Finebaum spent many years as a reporter, columnist, and sports talk radio host in the Birmingham, Alabama, area, ESPN hired him in 2013 as a personality on the new SEC Network. Finebaum produces a radio show out of the network’s regional base in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Finebaum was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He is Jewish. Finebaum attended Christian Brothers High School and White Station High School in Memphis before graduating from the University of Tennessee, where he received a degree in political science in 1978.

Finebaum became a columnist and reporter for the Birmingham Post-Herald in 1980. Finebaum earned more than 250 national, regional, and area sports writing awards, including an award for his Alabama basketball player Buck Johnson recruitment stories. In 1993, he wrote the story of Antonio Langham, a University of Alabama football player who signed a contract with a sports agent while playing for the school, which led to an NCAA probation…