One of The Cable Game's very favorite Fox News personalities, "Fox & Friends" host Steve Doocy (check out a pic of Steve in his University of Kansas radio days here) talks about his Kansas City roots, his road to national television, Villanova basketball (read on) and his love of local BBQ (he served it at his wedding rehearsal dinner! Check out his adorable wedding pic, left) in today's Kansas City Star:
Kate Spade, Calvin Trillin, Harry Truman — to that list of famous Cowtown exports add Fox News anchor Steve Doocy.
The whimsical weather wonk turned affable anchor of the top-rated “Fox & Friends” morning show is a real deal KC export. He grew up in Dickinson County near Abilene, Kan.
“I went to the University of Kansas (in the early ’80s), and while I was at KU I was an intern at Channel 9. I also worked at classic station KANU-FM in Lawrence. And one year I was the manager at KJHK in Lawrence and I worked at a disco in downtown Lawrence called Bugsy’s. It was in the historic Lawrence Opera House (now Liberty Hall).”
Speaking of Jayhawk Central, to this day, Doocy is a keeper of the faith.
“I tried desperately to get my son to go to KU,” says Doocy, who lives in New Jersey now. “But he mocked me and went to Villanova. And every time this past season when Villanova won (a basketball game) and KU lost he would call, giggle on the phone — not identify himself — and then hang up.”
As for his stint at KMBC-TV, “they hired me to do PM Magazine. Then they canceled it and put on ‘Wheel of Fortune,’ ” Doocy says. “Then I did a feature story every night on the 10 p.m. news. It was an extremely challenging job — I did it for a year. Then NBC called and I ended up going to Washington, D.C.”
Doocy’s run with Larry Moore and Len Dawson in the early ’80s might have continued, but for a Machiavellian maneuver.
“I heard one of the other stations did not want me on the air there, so they started circulating my tape,” Doocy says. “So I ended up getting a better job, but who would have ever thought of that?”
Doocy recalls Moore’s “enormous sideburns and that deep voice. I always tried to end up (his report) with something that would make Larry laugh, and I always tried to end up with a big laugh. But if I just got a little laugh — hey, I still made him laugh.”
Is Doocy a KC barbecue fan?
“Absolutely. In fact, when my wife and I got married in the Rose Garden at Loose Park we had Gates Bar-B-Q at our rehearsal dinner the night before,” he says. “Yeah, Gates and Sons is my favorite restaurant on all the Earth, and whenever my dad comes to visit me, he always brings me a six-pack of all the Gates sauces.”
