‘He is our leader. He’s our therapist’: Curt Menefee is ‘Fox NFL Sunday’ host and unsung hero

LOS ANGELES – Terry Bradshaw spills a cup of coffee, but Curt Menefee doesn’t flinch. Menefee leans toward a tray not visible on television to find some tissues to clean up as Bradshaw continues to make a point about the Cincinnati Bengals.

Howie Long helps clean up, and Bradshaw keeps talking. Jimmy Johnson listens attentively.

Menefee then tells Bradshaw he needs another cup of coffee, and Johnson uses coffee as a transition to talk about the Baltimore Ravens and Seattle Seahawks.

“So Terry spills coffee on live TV… how do you react now?” Menefee said shortly afterwards as he sat in a dressing room at Fox Studios. “Instead of panicking, we made it part of the show, and we laughed about it and had fun with it.”

It’s a funny moment in the studio. And Menefee, the longtime Fox Sports sports personality, would tell you he has one of the best jobs in the world as host of “Fox NFL Sunday.”

It could be coffee one day. The next day, Johnson might get excited talking about a coaching situation, or Long might have an impassioned discussion about the Raiders, a franchise he played with for 13 seasons. Michael Strahan is as busy as anyone on the show with his multiple television jobs. He can be funny, but he can also be serious and serious when he talks about football. If the show had a script, it would usually go off-script.

But someone has to keep the show flowing. That’s where Menefee steps in.

His coworkers call him a friend, therapist, and kind of a point guard on the show. Menefee, 58, is in his 18th season as host of a show that’s all about football but is perhaps best known for its silly moments that make viewers laugh.

Menefee is not just the host; he’s the straight-talking personality in an NFL comedy troupe.

“People never say, ‘You did a great job making Cover 2.’ It’s, ‘I love it when you guys beat each other up,'” Menefee said. “That’s something people will remember more than anything from the show: (Bradshaw) spilled coffee, and you guys laughed it off and talked about it when he put on his suit.”

To understand the importance of Menefee, think of the cast. There’s Bradshaw, the four-time Super Bowl champion and Hall of Fame quarterback from the Pittsburgh Steelers dynasty of the 1970s. There’s Long, a Hall of Fame defensive lineman who won a Super Bowl with the Los Angeles Raiders. There’s Strahan, a Hall of Fame defensive end and the NFL record holder for most sacks in a single season (22.5, tied with the Steelers’ TJ Watt) who won a Super Bowl with the New York Giants. And then you have Johnson, a Hall of Fame coach who won two Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys as well as a national college football championship at the University of Miami.

Someone who is relatively new to the mix is ​​Rob Gronkowski, who won four Super Bowls as a tight end with the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers and is likely on his way to the Hall of Fame. Add in the always energetic NFL insider Jay Glazer, and you’ve got a lot of personality on set with the potential for television chaos. Someone may be going on a rampage without anyone knowing the direction.

Menefee has learned how to give everyone time while ensuring the show stays on schedule.

“People have no idea what he does for us,” Glazer said. ‘He is our leader. He is our therapist. There are six of us on the show, so there are 19 personalities – and Bradshaw and I have 12. For Curt to be able to keep us in check like that… you know, we’re family.”

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The coffee spill is just a microcosm of what Menefee means to the show. Glazer and Bradshaw both have that publicly discussed some of them mental health struggles. Glazer said Menefee takes the time to check on them and is a confidante during difficult times. When dealing with a possible anxiety attack, Glazer said it’s Menefee who is often the first to stop what he’s doing to help.

That’s because Menefee has built real friendships with the crew. There are holidays out of season. Glazer was Menefee’s best man at his wedding ten years ago. Their spouses also know each other.

Menefee said he is one of the “rare” guests who can fish at Johnson’s home for two days during the off-season, because Johnson usually only allows one-day visitors. Additionally, Menefee watches college football with Bradshaw and Johnson every Saturday, where a bond is formed and Menefee gains insight into how they feel about the NFL, which could be helpful on the show.

“I spend time with my best friends in life. That’s not a job,” Menefee said. “It’s just a fun time. It’s just an extension of the blessings I’ve been given and the joy I can have in life, to be able to do this and call it my job. I know not many people can say that.”

The friendship is the foundation of what makes the show work. This allows Menefee to know when to let someone keep talking and also when to use non-verbal communication to tell someone to finish their point. Menefee immediately gauges what works. He does all this while show producer Bill Richards talks to him in his earpiece.

What makes the show so fun is its unpredictability, but it can also be stressful if someone can’t maintain order. The show is not rehearsed, so Menefee will respond immediately to a Bradshaw rant or a Johnson monologue. Controlling space is an important skill to ensure segments don’t run long and sponsor talks aren’t forgotten.

Emphasis on “control of the room.”

“I’m not going to make fun of the boys, but if this kindergarten class gets out of hand, I need a teacher to say, ‘Now we’re going to commercial,’” Richards said. “We could just let it go and these guys could go on for an hour, we’d never make a commercial and we’d all get fired. Curt keeping the train on the track, I can’t tell you how important that is.

It also helps that Menefee has been on live television since he was 19 years old, going back to his days as a student at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He is trained to be prepared for anything.

Menefee took over as full-time host of “Fox NFL Sunday” in 2007 after James Brown left for CBS. Long said he admired how Menefee handled being the bullpen guy when Fox first experimented with using Joe Buck to host games and also call. The acquisition of Menefee meant that the show did not have to travel to where Buck worked.

It worked for almost twenty years. And friendships have been formed in the process.

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Menefee’s preparation is meticulous. The Santa Barbara, California, resident wakes up at 5:30 a.m. every day to meditate with his wife, Violette, and exercise. The early start also allows Menefee to call or text various sources around the NFL on the East Coast who want to communicate early in the day.

Menefee likes to keep Monday football to a minimum so that Violette has a day with him without the workload. He will communicate with Richards on Tuesday about the vision for Sunday’s show. The schedule for the show is usually set on Thursday, and that’s when Menefee begins to focus on teams and stats that will be important for Sunday.

Friday is spent with lots of texts and calls to people around the league. On Saturdays, he drives about 100 miles from his home in Santa Barbara to a hotel room in Los Angeles for his weekly tradition of watching college football with Bradshaw and Johnson at their hotel around noon. Menefee likes to be back in his room at 5 p.m. to work on some written parts of the show, and he likes to be in bed by 8 p.m. He is then up at 4am for meditation and arrives at the Fox studio at 5am. am for show preparation.

Menefee jokes that his football career ended in high school, but he isn’t seen as a football outsider by his friends on set. They recognize the work he does, which includes attending multiple offseason training camps and cultivating relationships and insight across the league to help grow the show.

He knows the sport and can juggle halftime highlights in multiple markets. He can also immediately help someone with some information.

“If I was on a pro football game show and I had to call a friend for information, Curt would be the guy to call,” Long said. “Curt is so good with a lot of big personalities on the show. We are not a rehearsal show. Honestly, I think that’s part of the reason we’re successful, because what you see are genuine, authentic responses to an initial conversation.”

For all the praise Menefee receives, he is admittedly his own worst critic. He was obsessed with stumbling over a word or mispronunciation. He said those things don’t bother him anymore because those things happen in normal conversation.

His focus in post-show conversations with Richards is on the flow of the show. What worked for each segment? What not? For Menefee, it’s more about the big picture.

‘Did I get Terry in fast enough? Did I pack it fast enough?’ Menefee said. “Have I gone from being serious to being light-hearted or vice versa? I don’t think I’ve ever done a perfect show. I’m still striving, I’m still trying to get there. I’m not there yet.”

“The best point guard is going to make some shots, and those are the shots you might be thinking about when you go out there,” Richards said. “But he’s a great shooter, so he makes most of them, so no one cares. Curt’s mistakes aren’t something I spend a lot of time on because there aren’t many.”

Glazer’s friendship with Menefee dates back to the 1990s, when both were working in New York and Glazer asked Menefee to co-host a show, “Unnecessary Roughness,” on the MSG Network. He thinks Menefee is great to work with as a friend, but added that Menefee can be “really, really, really hard on himself” after a show.

“I always tell him we’ll go as you go,” Glazer said. “So you may think something was wrong, but the rest of us don’t see it. So don’t put that in our heads. Our show is imperfect. We’re done with it. I’ll just tell him, ‘Hey, buddy, you beat yourself up, but the rest of us don’t understand what you’re mad about. So don’t bring it out. Let’s just let you and I talk about it.’

“Then we talk it out, and he says, ‘You’re right.'”

Therapist. Point guard. Perfectionist. The adult in the room. There are many ways in which Menefee is described. However, his main goal is to make his friends look good on air.

He has become a celebrity in his own right. The show was on inducted into the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2019 – so technically, Menefee is a Hall of Famer like his panelists.

But when his friends shine in the sky and the viewers keep coming back, he’s happy.

“The main goal is for people to leave the show feeling like they had a good time, that they enjoyed it, because entertainment comes first,” Menefee said. “The second thing is that they get some information out of it.”

Spoken like the adult in the room.

(Top photo: Noam Galai/Getty Images for Empire State Realty Trust)