Not Your Average Cup of Joe

St. Louis is home to Prince Albert and the King of Beers. But when it comes to royalty, the real king of this jungle is a Buck.

Joe Buck is heir to his father’s crown, the late Jack Buck who called out Cardinals games over the air for over three decades. He is currently the lead MLB and NFL announcer for Fox and hosts his own sports talk show on HBO.

“What should I wear,” I asked my mom a good 30 minutes before my coffee date with the sweetest voice in town. I couldn’t just wear the usual because, well, this wasn’t anywhere close to usual. We collectively settled on my recently purchased light-blue button down, khaki slacks and my St. Louis sports teams belt. Oh, and of course I was rockin the penny loafers.

While driving to the Ladue starbucks I reviewed my arsenal of questions so that I would be fully prepared to attack any awkward silence. I haven’t been on too many dates lately (as noted by my nearly four-year-old facebook relationship status) but for comparison purposes I’ll just throw out that I was much more nervous here than on prom night.

Checking my clock I could see that I was cutting it close on time. Pulling in at exactly 5:30 meant I just made it in most people’s book, but for us Kukla’s ‘on time’ means you are already five minutes late. I guess I can just be thankful that I didn’t get caught for a ticket while cruising through one of St. Louis’ notorious speed traps.

I walked in and was relieved to discover (after two full laps around the small coffee shop) that I had made it there first. Finding a suitable table by the window, I picked out a chair facing the door and waited. Five minutes later, Joe Buck walked through the door.

For a split second I forgot about the circumstances and thought this was some freak celebrity sighting. Sporting a ball cap and t-shirt, Joe clearly wasn’t meeting anyone important here but rather just making his normal evening coffee run. That’s when I remembered he was here to see me and realized… I was right.

We exchanged smiles, greetings and a handshake then made our way over to the counter. After ordering my iced cafe mocha I reached for my back pocket and offered to pay for Joe’s drink as well. “No,” he said smiling as if I had said something foolish. “I got it.” He then handed cashier a $20 and I realized that ‘it’ not only meant his drink but mine as well.

We headed outside where the atmosphere suited Joe’s standards (quiet and warm). For the first 10 minutes all he wanted to talk about was me. He seemed genuinely interested in my Vietnam trip, especially the living conditions and religious aspects. Conversation then turned towards college life where we swapped stories about reluctantly landing in the Midwest after failed aspirations of attending an ACC school.

Eventually he brought up the topic of my job search. His idea was to get me in touch will Mike Schmidt, the New York Times writer who just broke the Ortiz steroids story. There are no guarantees of course, but I’m willing to bet that Mr. Schmidt will at least look at any e-mail he gets with Joe Buck’s name listed in the ‘from’ section.
Our conversation eventually came to a close around the half hour mark. I agreed to send him a selection of my work for him to review and send to Mr. Schmidt. It took me over an hour later that night to finally decide on which articles to choose.

My impression of Joe

As a businessman, my dad always talks about providing ‘raving-fan’ customer service; this means customers shouldn’t merely be satisfied but so happy that they rave about their experience to all their friends. Consider the following as evidence of my new-found raving-fandom of Joe Buck.

For every second of those 30 minutes I felt like the most important person in the world to him. You woulda thought I was his best friend by the way he treated me. He is incredibly engaging, asks follow-up questions to let you know he is both listening and wants to hear more, laughs at your jokes (all of you, take notes), and at least acts like your stories are the coolest thing he’s heard in years. Then he says something in that famous voice of his, reminding you who you’re talking to and that he has absolutely nothing to gain from even showing up in the first place. As for the joe in my cup, lets just say there’s a reason I am not a raving fan of coffee and or Starbucks.

Joe Buck trivia gleaned from our conversation

• He was guaranteed a walk-on spot to the Duke baseball team but lost it when he failed to get admitted to the University.
• At Indiana University, he dated a girl in Chi Omega, which is the same sorority my sister is in at TCU.
• One of his best friends from Indiana also lived in St. Louis, but the two did not know each other before hand.
• He really likes to read, especially fiction. He enjoyed the book ‘Outliers’ by Malcolm Gladwell and is a fan of John Grisham books as well.
• He doesn’t like how anyone can blog about anything ‘from their kitchen table or a deer hunting stand’ because it ‘dilutes good journalism’… so naturally I turned around and blogged about our meeting.

Cheers to diluted journalism and starBUCKs coffee!