LOS ANGELES — Terry Bradshaw spilled a cup of coffee, but Curt Menefee didn’t flinch. As Bradshaw continued to make his point about the Cincinnati Bengals, Menifee reached for some paper towels from a tray not visible on the television to help clean up.
Howie Long helped clean up and Bradshaw kept talking. Jimmie Johnson listened intently.
Menifee then teased Bradshaw about needing another cup of coffee, which Johnson used as a transition to talk about the Baltimore Ravens and Seattle Seahawks.
“Terry spilled the coffee on live television… now, how do you react?” Menifee said shortly afterwards, sitting in a dressing room at Fox Studios. “Instead of going into panic mode, we made it part of the show and we laughed about it and had some fun with it.”
It was an interesting moment in the studio. Menifee, a longtime sports personality on Fox Sports, will tell you he has one of the most interesting jobs in the world as host of “Fox NFL Sunday.”
Curt Menefee (left) and Terry Bradshaw on the set of “Fox NFL Sunday.” (Lily Luo Photography/Courtesy of Fox Sports)
One day that might turn into coffee. The next day, Johnson might be talking excitedly about coaching, or Long might be enthusiastically discussing the Raiders, a team he spent 13 seasons with. Michael Strahan is as busy as anyone on the show, working on multiple TV jobs. He can be funny or serious when discussing football. If the show had a script, it would go off script most of the time.
But someone has to keep the show going. This is where Menifee steps in.
His colleagues call him a friend, a therapist and the point guard of the show. Menifee, 58, is in his 18th season hosting a football-themed show, but he may be best known for the wacky moments that make viewers laugh.
Menefee isn’t just a host; He’s the outspoken guy in the NFL comedy troupe.
“People will never say, ‘You were great on Cover 2.’ It’s, ‘I love it when you guys fight each other,'” Menifee said. “That’s the thing people remember most from the show: (Bradshaw) spilled his coffee and you laughed about it and talked about it getting on his suit.”
To understand Menifee’s significance, consider the cast. Bradshaw is a four-time Super Bowl champion and Hall of Fame quarterback of the 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers dynasty. Long is a Hall of Fame defensive lineman who won a Super Bowl with the Los Angeles Raiders. Strahan is a Hall of Fame defensive end who holds the NFL record for most sacks in a season (22.5, tied with the Steelers’ T.J. Watt) and won a Super Bowl with the New York Giants. And Johnson, a Hall of Fame coach who won two Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys and a national college football championship at the University of Miami.
Kurt Menifee (left) with the “Fox NFL Sunday” cast: Terry Bradshaw, Jimmie Johnson, Michael Strahan and Howie Long. (Lily Luo Photography/Courtesy of Fox Sports)
Rob Gronkowski is a relative newcomer to the mix, having won four Super Bowls as a tight end for the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and will likely Enter the Hall of Fame. Add to that the ever-energetic NFL insider Jay Glazer, and there’s a personality on set that could cause television mayhem. Someone might be talking nonsense without anyone knowing the direction.
Menifee learned how to let everyone have their time while making sure the show went on schedule.
“People don’t know what he did for us,” Glazer said. “He’s our leader. He’s our therapist. There are six people on the show, so there are 19 characters, Bradshaw and I have 12. Curt was able to control us like that… you know, we It’s a family.”
Spilled coffee is just a microcosm of what Menifee means to the show. Both Glazer and Bradshaw have openly discussed some of their mental health struggles. Glazer said Menifee took the time to check in on them and was a confidant during difficult times. Glazer said that when he was dealing with possible anxiety attacks, Menifee was often the first to stop what he was doing to help.
That’s because Menifee develops real friendships with the crew. There are off-season holidays. Ten years ago, Glazer served as best man at Menifee’s wedding. Their spouses also know each other.
Menifee said he was one of the “rare” guests who was able to fish at Johnson’s house for two days during the offseason, since Johnson usually only gives visitors one day. Additionally, Menefee will watch college football games with Bradshaw and Johnson every Saturday, which can bond and provide some insight into their thoughts on the NFL, which may help the show.
“I get to spend time with my best friends in life. It’s not a job,” Menifee said. “It’s just a fun time. It’s just an extension of the blessings I’ve been given and the joy I’ve been able to have in my life, being able to do this and call it my job. I know not many people can say that.”
Friendship is the basis for the smooth running of the show. It lets Menifee know when to let someone continue talking and when to use nonverbal communication to tell someone to finish his point. Menefee evaluates running content on the fly. All of this he did through a headset with show producer Bill Richards talking to him.
What makes this show so interesting is its unpredictability – but it can also be stressful if someone can’t keep order. The show was not rehearsed, so Menifee would have instant reactions to Bradshaw’s rants or Johnson’s monologues. Controlling the room is an important skill to ensure that segments don’t get too long and sponsor reads aren’t forgotten.
Emphasis on “controlling the room.”
“I’m not trying to scold these people, but if this kindergarten class gets crazy, I need a teacher to say, ‘Now we’re going to go commercial,'” Richards said. “We can just let it go, these people You can go for an hour and we’ll never do a commercial and we’ll all be fired. Simply put, keep the train on the track and I can’t tell you how important that is.”
It also helps that Menifee has been appearing on live television since he was 19, dating back to his days as a student at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He was trained to be ready for anything.
In 2007, after James Brown left for CBS, Menifee took over as the full-time host of “Fox NFL Sunday.” Long said he admired how Menifee became the “bullpen guy” when Fox first tried using Joe Buck to host and call games. Menifee taking over means the show doesn’t have to travel to where Barker works.
It has worked for nearly two decades. And formed friendships in the process.
Kurt Menifee (far right) with Jimmie Johnson and Jay Glazer at the Empire State Building in November. (Noam Gallet/Getty Images for Empire State Realty Trust)
Menifee’s preparations were meticulous. The Santa Barbara, Calif., resident wakes up at 5:30 every morning to meditate and exercise with his wife, Viollette. Starting early also allows Menefee to call or text various sources around the East Coast NFL who want to communicate early.
Menifee likes to watch as little football as possible on Mondays so Violet can have a stress-free day with him. By Tuesday, he was communicating with Richards about a vision for Sunday’s show. The synopsis for the show is usually set on Thursday, when Menifee begins focusing on Sunday’s important teams and statistics.
On Friday, we sent out a lot of text messages and phone calls to people all over the league. On Saturday, he drove about 100 miles from his home in Santa Barbara to a hotel room in Los Angeles, where he followed a weekly tradition to watch a college football game with Bradshaw and Johnson around noon. Menefee likes to be in his room by 5 p.m. to prepare some of the written portions of the show, and he prefers to go to bed by 8 p.m., then wake up at 4 a.m. to meditate and arrive at the Fox studios by 5 a.m. Preparing for the show.
Menifee jokes that his football career ended in middle school, but his friends on set don’t think of him as a football outsider. They recognize the work he does, including visiting multiple training camps during the offseason and maintaining relationships and insights throughout the league to help the program grow.
He understands the game and has the ability to juggle halftime highlights in multiple markets. He can also help someone instantly with some information.
“If I’m on a pro football game and I have to call a friend to get some kind of information, Kurt is the guy to call,” Long said. “Curt gets along really well with a lot of the big guys on the show. We’re not rehearsing the show. I think that’s part of the reason we’re successful, honestly, because what you see are real reactions to the first conversations.”
For all the praise Menifee receives, there’s no denying that he’s his own harshest critic. He used to stutter over a word or mispronunciation. He said these things no longer bother him because they happen in everyday conversation.
His focus in his postgame chat with Richards was the flow of the show. What is the role of each market segment? What’s not there? For Menefee, it’s more about the bigger picture.
“Did I get Terry on board quickly? Did I wrap him up fast enough?” Menifee said. “Do I go from serious to light, or vice versa? I don’t think I’ve ever done a perfect show. I’m still working on it, still trying to get there. I’m not there yet.”
“The best point guards take a few shots, and those are the things you probably think about when you go out,” Richards said. “But he’s a great shooter, so he makes most of the shots, so no one cares. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on Curt’s mistakes because there aren’t a lot of them.”
Glazer’s friendship with Menefee dates back to the 1990s, when both were working in New York and Glazer invited Menefee to co-host “Unnecessary Roughness,” a show on the MSG Network. He thought Menifee would be great to work with as a friend, but added that Menifee could be “very, very, very hard on herself” after the show.
“I always tell him, we’re going to do it your way,” Glazer said. “So, you might think there’s something bad that the rest of us don’t see. So, don’t put it in our heads. Our show isn’t perfect. We improvise. I would just say to him, “Hey, bro, you’re blaming yourself, but the rest of us can’t see what you’re angry about. So, don’t bring it up. Let you and I talk about it.”
“Then we talked it out and he said, ‘You’re right.'”
therapist. Point guard. perfectionist. The adults in the room. There are many ways to describe Menefee. His main focus, though, is making sure his friends look good on the stream.
He became a celebrity in his own right. The show was inducted into the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2019 — so technically, Menefee yes A Hall of Famer like his fellow panelists.
But he’ll be happy if his friend does well on the show and viewers keep coming back.
“The number one goal is for people to leave the show feeling like they had a great time and they enjoyed it because entertainment comes first,” Menifee said. “The second thing is they got some information out of it.”
Speak like the adults in the room.
(Above: Noam Galai/Getty Images for Empire State Realty Trust)
