Joe Buck is being forced to defend himself this week in response to his since viral story of drinking alcohol on the job. While appearing on the Colin Cowherd podcast, the long-time broadcaster opened up about how he and Troy Aikman would drink tequila in the booth.
“We haven’t done it in a long time now, but it was good for a stretch, and I feel like it’s a good mental trigger to just chill and remind yourself that you’re not refueling a F-16 in midflight,” he said. “You’re doing a sporting event, and if you treat it like anything other than that, you’re doing yourself a disservice.”
The story went so viral that Buck has since had to defend himself in a series of tweets on Twitter:
“I don’t tweet much anymore, but I feel compelled to send a few about this dumb drinking in the booth story that is complete clickbait,” Buck wrote. “Also, me giving it more attention is moronic on my part, but so what?
“My bosses at FOX have not said a word to me about it. They know how dedicated I/we are, and how hard we work and how much we care about EVERY WORD that comes out of our mouths. Most of all they trust us. For those three hours and through all the prep NOTHING is more important.
“My only regret with anything I said on Colin’s pod was mentioning @TroyAikman. Nobody has more integrity or works harder than him and I am blessed to call him one of my best friends on the planet. We have fun with what we do and back then I started this trend in baseball and when I went back to football I told him I had the beer in my line of sight as a visual reminder and took a sip from time to time – to be loose and to remember to enjoy it. I have a tendency to get stressed and try to be perfect calling a game – as impossible as that may be.
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“As I said with @ColinCowherd it wasn’t there to be consumed, it was there as more of a visual reminder that the world wouldn’t end if I made a mistake. It was symbolic and one of MANY things I would use, like texting with my wife and kids or calling my mom at half – just to chill.
“Troy had zero to do with it. I am an open book – sometimes to a fault, but I just really don’t like hiding anything (see: hair transplants or battling depression and anxiety). But when a http://NJ.com headline writer says I said I had 1 or 2 drinks during a game??
“Well it is just another reminder that journalism is indeed dying and clickbait rules the day. Please listen to the podcast starting at the 5 minute mark and let me know where I said that. I didn’t. I am 51, not 15. I believe I am old enough to understand what a drink is.”
It was a great story, just rather unfortunate that he had to defend himself.
