Friday Football Fever with Nate Griffin on Fox 26 has become almost as synonymous with high school football in the area as Friday Night Lights itself.
We wake up on fall Friday mornings to Griffin in a pep rally-style setting at any random school in the area, running effortlessly from the cheerleaders to the pep squad, to the football team, and finally to the coaches and administrators, and maybe even the mayor. It’s excitement overload.
But what the camera doesn’t capture is the veteran sports broadcaster’s careful attention to detail, as he puts on his producer hat and orchestrates what is best described as chaos in the mornings.
Cheerleaders are given their cues to shake their poms when Griffin sprints to them. The same for the pom squad in the back. Not intentionally stepping on the band director’s toes, he instructs the band on their spacing and when to start playing. The football team is instructed to get a little rowdy while being mindful that it has a game that night.
Even the coaches and administrators – on this particular Friday morning at Manvel High School – are given some coaching on spacing and when to react. Then it miraculously goes live.
“It’s organized chaos with Nate. He organizes the chaos,” said red-shirted Alvin Superintendent Dr. Rhonda Mason, who had just gone through it all an hour earlier in an entirely different color shirt at Iowa Colony High School. “The fact that he comes with so much exuberance and so much energy and positivity, yet gets everyone organized, is amazing. He really is a partner in his work.
“He wants everybody to have fun, so it’s interesting to understand what it’s like on his end and production, but then have fun.”
Fun and insightful is Nate Griffin, and what viewing audiences have come to expect when they tune into Fox 26 in the mornings. While others in the market either sit behind a desk or deliver a pre-recorded sports segment in the mornings, Griffin comes to you live and from some God-only-knows location in the A.M as the station’s morning sports anchor/reporter.
You never know where he might show up, but you shouldn’t be surprised if Griffin and his one-man camera crew pop up at your little-known coffee shop, breakfast spot, or even local high school. And he always comes with a special guest in tow, either in person or on Zoom.
“Having played college football, I have an understanding of what those guys go through, and because of that, it helps me understand time. I know the limits, I know where I can and cannot go on the field, I know what to ask the coaches and what to talk to them about.”
Nate Griffin
It’s not your ordinary morning sports segment, and that is exactly Griffin’s plan.
“I love it. I absolutely love it,” said Griffin, who has seemingly been a face on television sets in Houston forever, but celebrates his 14th-year on air at Fox 26 this week. “The station allows me the freedom, and I certainly do appreciate it. Management has given me the freedom to explore and do different things to grow our sports core, which is great for us.
“The people with whom I interact are great, the people I interact with outside of the station are great. They are not always favorable, but most of the time favorable.”
But no matter what, the viewing audience is always entertained and enlightened about what’s going on in Houston sports whether the subject is the Astros suddenly parting ways with general manager Dana Brown, what Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud needs to do to get the town back in his favor, how Kelvin Sampson has revived University of Houston basketball, or what’s the latest going on at Prairie View and Texas Southern.
It’s usually light and fun, but nothing is sugar-coated.
“Nate has turned the mornings for Channel 26 into an institution,” said KCOH sports host and Hall of Famer Ralph Cooper. “It’s something that people don’t want to miss. They feel that if they miss, they are going to miss something very important in regards to maybe someone they know being interviewed, or a relative being interviewed, or a fan of one of those individuals he is interviewing at that time.”
Kim Davis, a longtime media member in the Houston market and the founder of ChalkTalk, agrees.
“People look forward to Nate,” Davis said. “He is a part of their morning, especially when you do morning news, and there really is no other morning sports in the market. It’s just him.”
It’s all made Griffin one of the longest-standing sports figures of any timeslot in the market and one who has been able to transcend all spectrums. The former Southern Miss wide receiver is admired by his peers, revered by the viewers, and respected by the players and coaches he has covered throughout his 37 years in the business.
“He’s very personable,” said Texas Southern football coach Cris Dishman, who also remembers Griffin from his playing days with the Oilers. “Some reporters try to trick you into stories, try to trick you into this. But he is very open and honest about what he is going to ask you. He’s very fun-loving. He’s like a big brother you are talking to.”
Prairie View A&M University’s Tremaine Jackson, who grew up in the area and has always kept up with Houston news even when he worked in other states, appreciates Griffin for his in-depth knowledge of the game and profession.
“I think the dude does a really good job,” Jackson said. “He is always on top of it. He always asks detailed questions because he played. He has an intimate knowledge of what he is talking about. And I’ve always appreciated that he has been fair with us and given us an opportunity.”
But Griffin isn’t just in front of your television during the weekday mornings. The Los Angeles-born and Mississippi-raised sports journalist is seemingly everywhere in the community these days. You can catch him emceeing events like the Labor Day Classic Kickoff Press Conference, and for the last 19 years, he has been the color analyst for Rice football games.
It all comes on top of a demanding main job that has him lining up guests the night before and planning for every detail of his segments for hours before they air on television.
“You have to get your rest. I’m so grateful to Fox 26 and D’Artagnan Bebel (station general manager) for allowing me the opportunity to do the morning show and to do it the way we do it,” said Griffin, who finished his undergraduate degree at Texas Southern before moving on to TSU’s law school before the on-air bug bit him and changed his trajectory. “But it takes a lot.
“There is an extra five hours of preparation after I’m done with the morning show. It’s about managing your time. So if I ever look exhausted on the air towards the end, that’s probably why, because we are running on fumes.”
What little he has left, the self-described homebody gives it to his beloved family, which includes his wife and daughter.
“I’m a family guy. I’m a homebody,” Griffin said. “When I leave work, I go straight home. If I don’t have an event to cover that day or that time, I’m going straight home because it requires preparation. And preparation requires rest, so I want to make sure I get a lot of that.”
“Nate has taken the mornings and turned it into more than somebody sitting around sipping coffee or drinking cocoa or a glass of milk. They are looking for those broadcasts to see who he is going to feature.”
Ralph Cooper, KCOH host and Radio Hall of Famer
As a result, when Griffin is on the air, you get a lot of fun, entertainment, and energy. Just like the Friday morning at Manvel High School.
“I love Friday Football Fever. I get a chance to run around with the kids and have fun. They keep me young,” Griffin said. “Then there is Making the Grade on Monday mornings. It’s the same thing, almost, except we have to take a little bit of that energy off. But it’s still pretty much the same thing. I love that.
“Covering pro teams, college teams, and the high school teams; it’s a lot of fun.”
