For nearly four decades, Nate Griffin has been a fixture in Houston sports, covering everything from professional franchises and major college programs to HBCU athletics and Friday night high school football.
Griffin is celebrating 14 years as the morning sports anchor and reporter at Fox 26, where he has carved out a lane unlike anyone else in the Houston television market. While most local sports coverage is delivered from behind an anchor desk or during evening newscasts, Griffin has built his mornings around going directly into the community, often broadcasting live from schools, restaurants and wherever Houston’s sports stories take him.
He is also currently the only Black man working in television sports in Houston, a distinction that stands out in one of the nation’s most diverse cities and in an industry where Black men are often far more visible on the field than in the press box.
But understanding what has allowed Griffin to remain relevant after 37 years in a rapidly changing television industry requires seeing him before the camera comes on.
Nate Griffin Is Everywhere. That’s the Point.
On a recent Friday morning at Manvel High School, Griffin was everywhere.
He positioned the cheerleaders and gave them their cue to shake their poms. He checked the spacing of the dance team. He talked with the band about when the music should start. He told the football players when to get rowdy, while reminding them not to get too rowdy. They did, after all, have a game to play later that night. Even the coaches and administrators got a little coaching.
Then the camera came on. The band played. The cheerleaders erupted. Players shouted. Griffin moved through the crowd with the energy of a man who had simply wandered into a pep rally and decided to join the fun. What viewers didn’t see was that Griffin had spent the minutes before airtime producing nearly every second of what looked spontaneous.
“It’s organized chaos with Nate. He organizes the chaos,” said Alvin ISD Superintendent Rhonda Mason, who had gone through the same routine with Griffin an hour earlier 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 wants everybody to have fun.”
That combination of preparation and personality has become Griffin’s calling card. It has also helped him remain relevant through nearly four decades in an industry known for constant change and turnover.
An unlikely path to television
None of this was necessarily the plan.
Griffin, who was born in Los Angeles and raised in Mississippi, played wide receiver at Southern Miss before finishing his undergraduate degree at Texas Southern University. He then enrolled in TSU’s law school. The courtroom, however, lost out to the television camera.
Thirty-seven years later, Griffin has built the kind of career that is increasingly rare in local television, where shrinking newsrooms, changing viewing habits and constant industry turnover have made longevity difficult.
“I love it. I absolutely love it,” Griffin said. “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.”
That freedom has produced a morning sports segment that looks little like the traditional guy-behind-a-desk sportscast. Griffin might be at a high school one morning and a neighborhood breakfast spot the next. His guests can range from coaches and athletes to longtime Houston sports personalities, either sitting beside him or joining by Zoom.
And while the tone is often light, Griffin isn’t simply a cheerleader for Houston sports. He weighs in on the Texans and quarterback C.J. Stroud, the Astros’ front-office decisions and Kelvin Sampson’s University of Houston basketball program. He also regularly makes room for Prairie View and Texas Southern, programs that historically haven’t always received the same attention as the city’s larger college programs.
Prairie View football coach Tremaine Jackson said Griffin’s playing background shows in the questions he asks.
“He always asks detailed questions because he played,” Jackson said. “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.”
Texas Southern coach Cris Dishman, who remembers Griffin from Dishman’s playing days with the Houston Oilers, said trust is part of Griffin’s longevity.
“Some reporters try to trick you into stories,” Dishman said. “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.”
Making difficult television look easy
The ease viewers see every morning is deceptive. Griffin is not simply showing up, turning on a microphone and talking sports.
Guests have to be booked. Locations have to be coordinated. Interviews have to be researched. Segments have to be planned. And on mornings like the one at Manvel, dozens of moving parts have to somehow move in the same direction when the red light comes on.
Griffin says another five hours of preparation can follow the morning show.
“It’s the dream of a lifetime to be able to do something that you didn’t think you would be able to do, and it happens. It didn’t just happen overnight. It took a lot of people. It was a village. I am great within that village of people who were so great to me.”
Nate Griffin
“It takes a lot,” he said. “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.”
And Fox 26 isn’t his only job. For 19 years, Griffin has served as color analyst for Rice football. He also emcees community and sports events around Houston, including the Labor Day Classic kickoff press conference.
That schedule is one reason Griffin describes himself as a homebody. When the work is finished and there isn’t another event waiting, he heads home to his wife and daughter.
“When I leave work, I go straight home,” he said. “Preparation requires rest.”
Still having fun
Longevity in television can make some broadcasters fixtures. Griffin has managed to remain curious.
KCOH sports host Ralph Cooper believes that is part of why viewers have incorporated Griffin into their morning routines.
“Nate has turned the mornings for Channel 26 into an institution,” Cooper said. “They feel that if they miss, they are going to miss something very important.”
There is also something notable about Griffin’s ability to move between generations. Coaches who remember him from decades ago know him. Current professional and college athletes know him. So do high school players who weren’t alive when Griffin began working in television.
At Manvel, linebacker Samuel Weary was participating in Friday Football Fever for the third year.
“He brings a lot of energy,” Weary said, “and I feel like it puts us on the map.”
For Griffin, that’s part of the point. “I love Friday Football Fever,” he said. “I get a chance to run around with the kids and have fun. They keep me young.”
What people are saying about Nate Griffin:
“He’s fun. I can give him a hard time like I do a lot of times. I try to catch him off guard with stuff. He’s got a great sense of humor about that. He has never gotten mad at me for doing stuff. He kind of encourages it, and I think people like that in the mornings.”
John McClain, retired NFL columnist for the Houston Chronicle
“I think it’s cool that he has carved out a place for himself. The morning show that he does at Fox, that didn’t really exist. So he kind of created that and made it what it is.”
Kim Davis, veteran broadcast journalist and founder of ChalkTalk
“He has really been good because Nate played football. I have a lot of respect for guys who played the game that they cover. He has done a lot, even before I came back here to be the head coach at Prairie View. I just always watched him on Saturday mornings, or Monday mornings. Even when I was in Georgia, I kind of tuned in to the local stuff.”
Tremaine Jackson, Prairie View football coach
“It’s been really good, a really crazy atmosphere with the band and everything. This is my third year doing this. We do this every year, and each year it gets better and better. He brings a lot of energy, and I feel like it puts us on the map.”
Samuel Weary, Manvel linebacker
“You have to give him his pats on the back because he is having a great run, and he is in a situation where hopefully those who are coming behind him can learn from him also in regards to what hard work and not giving up can mean for a person.
Ralph Cooper, longtime radio voice and sports anchor at KCOH
“When Nate calls, Nate is the only one who can get me up this early in the morning and do a story. When Nate calls you, you have to respond to him because he is one of the good guys.”
Cris Dishman, Texas Southern football coach
