Curt Menefee seems to have a penchant for finding himself among the 12s during cornerstone moments in Seattle Seahawks history.
Aside from calling play-by-play for Seahawks preseason games from the 2008 to 2022 seasons, the veteran broadcaster and longtime host of “FOX NFL Sunday” remembers announcing the first regular season game at Lumen Field — then called Seahawks Stadium — in 2002. He recalled the Seahawks’ game against the Philadelphia Eagles at Husky Stadium, just 12 days after the events of 9/11. Menefee felt the roar of the 12s the last time they witnessed the NFC Championship at home, a thrilling win in overtime against the Green Bay Packers in 2015.
“The whole city is always electric,” he said. “But when the Seahawks are good, Seattle is good.”
Over a decade later, Menefee returned to be with the 12s in Seattle. As the Seahawks battled for a trip to Superbowl LX against the Los Angeles Rams at Lumen Field on Sunday, Menefee served as the master of ceremonies alongside his fellow analysts — four-time Super Bowl champion and Hall of Famer Terry Bradshaw, Pro Football Hall of Famers Howie Long and Michael Strahan, four-time Super Bowl champion Rob Gronkowski and FOX NFL insider Jay Glazer.
Ahead of Sunday’s matchup in the Emerald City, Menefee reflected on his fortuitous, decadeslong career as a sports broadcaster and going into his 20th year hosting FOX NFL Sunday.
From behind the scenes to center stage
Born and raised in Atlanta, Menefee played football until a knee injury and subsequent reconstruction at age 15 forced him to reconsider his future in sports.
“When you’re that age, you have this dream about going to college and being a pro, and now that’s never going to happen,” Menefee said. “It forced me to start thinking about it. I knew that I wanted to be involved in sports somehow.”
For a while, he thought that meant being a cameraman or another role behind the scenes. He attended Coe College, a liberal arts school in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. They didn’t have a journalism program — but they did have a particular alumnus who would help jump-start Menefee’s journey through sports media. That was Fred Hickman, the prime-time news anchor who helped launch celebrity.land Sports and YES Network.
After completing an internship at celebrity.land the summer after his freshman year in college, Menefee returned to Cedar Rapids and began calling up local media stations, asking for work. One of the broadcasters to take him under their wing was John Campbell, the sports director at KCRG-TV9. Campbell wrote Menefee’s number down and called him up to help cover Iowa football, eventually encouraging him to start covering their nighttime sports highlights.
“I was on the air when I was 19 years old,” Menefee said. “And six months before that, I had no inkling, no knowledge, no desire to be on the air.”
But Campbell was convinced about Menefee’s potential for a career in broadcasting, and encouraged the station’s news director to put him on high school sports, where he eventually moved on to college sports and beyond.
Menefee joined FOX in 1997 as a sideline reporter before transitioning to play-by-play commentary for NFL and NFL Europe League coverage on FOX Sports and FSN. During his tenure announcing preseason games for the Seahawks, Menefee recalled the numerous interactions with the team’s front office staff and coaches, from Mike Holmgren to Jim Mora to Pete Carroll. Through it all, Menefee had high praise for Sea-Town. “Everyone always just treated me like gold there. It’s one of my favorite organizations to be around.”
In 2007, he became the full-time host of “FOX NFL Sunday,” a role he’s now held for nearly two decades. Some would call his career the stuff of legend. But Menefee keeps a humble stance on his work, something he likens to a free agent mentality.
“A lot of this has come to me over time without my planning for it,” he said. “My mentality is always that I’ve got to keep working.”
A show built on trust and respect
That mentality has prepared him to take the stage each Sunday with his fellow analysts. At Sunday’s NFC Championship, Menefee stepped onto Lumen Field before the game wearing a wool coat over his dark suit to ward off the 40 degree chill, where he greeted broadcast staff with a charismatic smile and firm handshakes.
He took his seat on the far left of the temporary stage for the pregame show and calmly rehearsed his lines. Just a few moments before, he had been watching the first half of the AFC Championship in Denver, and would trade remarks with his fellow analysts on the game as the Patriots would go on to outlast the Broncos, 10-7.
It’s a camaraderie decades in the making. But Menefee remembers his early days on the show, back when he was “not sure Terry Bradshaw knew my last name!”
Especially as a host, Menefee stressed how critical it was to understand his show mates. “Even though you may not have the most credentials, you still have to lead the crew,” he said. “They have to respect you, and you have to lead them. And part of leadership, to me, is knowing the people that you work with and understanding who they are and what makes them tick. And it’s different for everybody.”
“He’s our voice of reason,” show mate Jay Glazer said of Menefee, and affectionately referred to him as the show’s therapist. Glazer, who has been open about his mental health journey, recalls the times that Menefee helped him through bouts of anxiety before a show.
“That’s as selfless as you could ever get, because this is his show,” Glazer said. “He’s the leader, but I [confide in him] because he’s made me feel safe to do that.
“It’s not about me or my success,” Menefee said. “I’ve always been a believer — if the team does well, then everybody does well.”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yakimaherald.com ’
