Broadcaster Joe Buck guest-hosted ‘Good Morning America’ before calling a ‘Monday Night Football’ game on the same day.
Buck enjoys the challenge of hosting ‘GMA’ as it allows him to use a different broadcasting skillset.
He credits his work ethic to his father, legendary broadcaster Jack Buck, who never turned down an assignment.
FOXBOROUGH, MA — Joe Buck walked into the broadcast booth on the main concourse of Gillette Stadium on Dec. 1 when a security guard offered some feedback.
“Hey Joe, nice job on ‘GMA’ today!”
This certainly qualified as a marathon Monday for Buck, who guest-hosted “Good Morning America” in New York before flying to call the ‘Monday Night Football’ game between the New England Patriots and New York Giants on ESPN.
It was Buck’s fifth time hosting “GMA” after he expressed interest in doing so earlier this year. The Disney bosses – the company owns ABC and ESPN – were happy to oblige. The double-duty aspect of Buck’s day was equal parts promotional and logistical, with the “MNF” assignment a short flight from New York.
“That was a blast,” Buck told USA TODAY Sports from the booth. “I’m always up for a challenge. Really, it was more of a logistic challenge. Now I’m here, so let the games begin.”
For Buck, 56, the opportunity allows him to flex a different muscle of his broadcasting skillset.
“People go, ‘Well why would you want to do that?’ It’s good for me. It’s good for my brain,” Buck said. “It’s good for, I don’t know, just kind of being challenged. It’s a long day, but so what? People work a heck of a lot harder in the real world than getting up and being on TV with makeup on your face. I’m not downplaying it, but that’s kind of what I saw my dad do when I was a little kid.”
Buck watched his father Jack Buck, a broadcaster who grew up during the Great Depression and “had to scrape to make ends meet together when he was a kid and didn’t have anything,” Buck said. “And so when he got a job, whatever they asked him to do, he went and did,” Buck added, “and he never said no.”
With Joe Buck a “yes” for this task, he flew to New York on Sunday with his prep work for the Giants-Patriots game done. It reminded Buck of calling Major League Baseball during his 25-year tenure at FOX when he’d call the postseason in the middle of the NFL season.
For the first half of Monday and all day Sunday he could concentrate on “GMA” responsibilities. “You just have to compartmentalize,” he said.
Buck woke up at 4:30 a.m. ET and made it to the studio an hour later. He sat at the anchor desk and did his teleprompter reads and tosses.
“It felt good from the start, just in the – this sounds corny – everyone’s so good at what they do,” Buck said of doing “GMA.” “I’ve never been part of a show where everything goes just like clockwork like that.”
The show is well-laid out and that makes it as easy as possible on whoever the guest host is, Buck said.
“It makes it fun,” he said. “You can lead to something, you know it’s going to pop up, you say someone’s name and they turn around. I don’t know, I feel like TV is not always like that.”
Somewhat differently than his approach for a prime-time football game, he went about his “GMA” prep segment-by-segment and tackled what was in front of him at the advice of the producers, who feed him only what he needs to know, he said. Sometimes it feels like he’s exclusively tossing to chief meteorologist Ginger Zee because “that’s what I think they trust me to do at this point,” he said jokingly.
Once the show ended at 9 a.m. ET, he hopped on a plane and made it to the Boston suburbs. He wasn’t planning on napping but by 1 o’clock “it just overtook me.” He snoozed, rose, grabbed something to eat, showered and made his way to the stadium.
“Yeah, it’s like, ‘Oh Nicolás Maduro, am I going to have to sit down with him?’ Just kidding,” Buck joked.
Normally, Buck is paying attention to news and storylines about the NFL and his fantasy team, but also enjoys being a citizen of the world.
“I try to know a little bit about the world around me,” he said, adding: “Being able to show versatility and having at least somewhat interesting conversation with somebody in that arena is a good thing.”
By nightfall, Buck was back in a more familiar arena – a football stadium.
“I don’t know, you just go do it,” he said. “And it’s fun. It’s a blast. To start my day and end my day the way I’m doing it (Monday), I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
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