In a very special bonus episode, Adam and Drew sit down with alumnus, FOX NFL Sunday Host, and Sigma Nu Hall of Fame inductee Curt Menefee (Coe) to talk about Curt's Sigma Nu experience, the importance of Fraternity today, the need for Honor in today's society, and Curt's powerful video message last June.
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The Gavel Podcast - Ep 5 Bonus - FOX NFL Sunday Host Curt Menefee (Coe)
[Intro Music]
0:00:32.0 Drew Logsdon: Hello, Adam.
0:00:32.9 Adam Girtz: Hi, Drew.
0:00:34.5 Drew Logsdon: How are you doing, man?
0:00:35.3 Adam Girtz: Hey, I'm great, man. What's up? I'm seeing you twice this month. What's the deal?
0:00:42.2 Drew Logsdon: Yeah, we've got a very special bonus episode of The Gavel Podcast this month.
0:00:47.4 Adam Girtz: A bonus episode?
0:00:48.6 Drew Logsdon: Yes, yes. We were treated recently to a virtual program, a commencement program, if you will, with one of our most distinguished alumni, one of our most prominent alumni as well too. Folks will recall, Sigma Nu history aficionados, that Sigma Nu has a great history of sports broadcasters, Bob Wolff, Joe Buck, Al Michaels, and today, our special guest for our special episode is none other than Sigma Nu Hall of Fame inductee and Fox NFL Sunday host, as well as a host of America's Top Dog on A&E, Brother Curt Menefee from Coe College.
0:01:28.0 Adam Girtz: Yeah, it was very exciting. It was awesome to have him do a graduation commencement speech virtually for our Sigma Nu members, which the link to that recording will be available in the show notes here as well. If you missed out on that, definitely worth going back and checking out even if you didn't graduate this year. Still, I think a lot of great messages in there.
0:01:53.0 Drew Logsdon: Yeah, absolutely. And additionally, as I said earlier, Curt was inducted in the Sigma Nu Hall of Fame, so he's up there amongst other famous alumni, including Bob Wolff, Joe Buck, Al Michaels, the Mannings, so on and so forth. Curt was inducted in 2016. In fact, our Grand Chapter in San Diego... Curt lives in the LA area, came down in person, accepted his Hall of Fame induction and provided some great comments, great words at the induction at Grand Chapter. Just great having Curt in person, I had the pleasure of briefly, very briefly, meeting Curt, but this is a really cool episode and a really cool interview. We recorded this immediately after Curt's virtual event, his virtual commencement. So we had a chance to dig in a little bit more about Curt's Sigma Nu experience and really dig in more to the importance of fraternity today, the importance of honor in today's society, and we got to touch on a really powerful and personal video that Curt shared last June, this past summer in 2020, in June of 2020, shortly after the George Floyd incident, and get some of Curt's personal thoughts on why he felt moved to share that and what message he was trying to communicate, and really dig into that. So we'll also include a link to that Facebook video that Curt shared, so folks, if they want to go back and check that out, they can do that as well too.
0:03:14.0 Adam Girtz: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, just really great having him on the show and really grateful that he gave us some time for an interview.
0:03:24.0 Drew Logsdon: Yeah, and so hopefully, we will have more special episodes like this in the future, that'd be great, as we interact with alumni and can get them on here. So enough of us yappin' around here, let's get right into the interview. How about that, Adam?
0:03:37.3 Adam Girtz: Yeah, let's dive in.
0:03:39.0 Drew Logsdon: Alright, we'll catch you listeners on the back end of this. We'll see you later.
[Transition Music]
0:04:08.3 Drew Logsdon: Alright, and thank you for everyone joining us here for a very special episode of The Gavel Podcast, and I'm particularly excited about a special, special episode because you're getting two this month. And this one, we have a very distinguished guest, none other than Hall of Fame inductee, Fox NFL Sunday host, Brother Curt Menefee from Coe College. Curt, how are you doing today?
0:04:32.0 Curt Menefee: Alright, brothers. I was going to say brothers but then I was like, "Well, wait a minute, I call everybody brother, so." But in this case, it works. Hi, brothers.
0:04:41.7 Drew Logsdon: Yeah, capital B. Yeah, absolutely.
0:04:43.8 Curt Menefee: Exactly. Everything good?
0:04:45.6 Adam Girtz: Everything's great.
0:04:45.7 Drew Logsdon: Doing good. Yeah. We just, for folks listening to this, and obviously you'll hear this after the fact but we just wrapped up our evening virtual event with Curt celebrating our graduating students, so by the time you listen to this podcast, we will also have the recording of that virtual presentation live on our YouTube channel. We'll include that link in the show notes here after the fact, so folks can access that. But Curt, let's dive head first into this here, brother, and let's talk first about... Tell us a little bit about your Sigma Nu story, how you encountered Sigma Nu, and kind of just that early experience. I think it's something we all... Everyone has that unique Sigma Nu first couple of weeks story, how they encountered it and joined the brotherhood.
0:05:30.0 Curt Menefee: Well, I went to Coe College, C-O-E, which doesn't stand for anything. It's named after Dr. Robert Coe. Everyone's like, "What's COE stand for?" In Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Small school, at the time I went there, it was about 1200 students, and my high school's much larger. Now, we're up to about 1600. But anyway, for me, it was so many of these experiences when you start out and you're 18 years old, and you're away from home, and you're on a college campus, you find people that you gravitate towards and I found myself, especially in a small school, gravitating towards a lot of the guys that were Sigma Nus. And so when we pledged later on in our first semester, you had a sense of who the people were that were part of it and for me, that was important. And all I really knew about it, when you're going to the pledging process...
0:06:22.9 Curt Menefee: And was really kind of a little bit about the history and it being anti-hazing, which that was a big thing for them, a big thing in... I went to school in the '80s, and no other fraternity was talking about that and that was important, that out of fear of being hazed. But again, I think it just says something about who you are as a person, if you're willing to treat other people with respect. And so that was one of the things that I gravitated towards as well, besides knowing and liking some of the guys. So that's how it really started out, just being an 18 year old, figuring out, Hey this is a bunch of cool people that I know and I like what they kind of stand for, so let me investigate it. And you go through the pledging process and the more you learn, the more you find out that their values fit with yours and the rest of it is history, as they say. And I think it was... For me, being honest, it was a little back and forth at the beginning, simply because I didn't know if I wanted to be a part of a fraternity.
0:07:11.9 Drew Logsdon: Yeah.
0:07:13.2 Curt Menefee: It's like, okay, especially at a small school, I can be friends with these guys and not be in a fraternity, it's not a big deal. But then I keep going back to... It became about values and being a part of something, and that was as important to me as a young nerd as hanging out with guys.
0:07:32.5 Drew Logsdon: I think that you bring up some great points there, Curt, and I know the anti-hazing thing, I think that strikes a tone in so many men who joined Sigma Nu, and this is where I think it's really unique for us and really cool, and celebrate rightfully so is that it's an opportunity for men who come into college and say, Oh, I came from a background where maybe I was bullied or I was considered lesser than or something. Alumnus, Jerry Fields wrote an article about this last September during National Hazing Prevention Week saying, I grew up dirt poor. I had holes in my shoes and when I went to college, I wasn't going to be treated like the poor White trash kid anymore, and so anybody who considered hazing, I'm not going to pay for the privilege to be bullied for. So that's outstanding. Really stuff. And I think also men I think gravitate, most men, I won't say all men... Most men gravitate towards men who will hold them accountable, and I think most men want to... Most men want to climb up the ladder, but they want people to hold them accountable in climbing that, and so they attract to groups who are values-based, like Sigma Nu or fraternities.
0:08:40.0 Curt Menefee: And also you want people that are willing to... When they climb a rung, take a hand down and help you pull up to the rung as well. Not push you down. There's... I think I encountered it first in Australia, or at least the first person I heard it from was in Australia, I will say it that way. And they had what they call Tall Poppy Syndrome and apparently, and I know nothing about growing plants, but they say poppies, naturally in the field, they rise up to a height to get the most sunlight. And so if another one beside them is taking part of the sunlight, the roots... Nature is crazy when you think about it. But it will attack the other and try and kill it, to get rid of it so that it gets more sunlight. And they use that, the Australian that was telling me, at least, use it in reference to people and about how many people want to push you down in order to put themselves up. They want to destroy you to make themselves look better, and that's what they were referring to as Tall Poppy Syndrome. And I think that that's an apt example of something you don't want to be a part of. because you said you want to be a part of people that hold you accountable for sure, because accountability makes you better. But we also want someone who's willing to give you a hand as well.
0:09:53.6 Drew Logsdon: Absolutely.
0:09:54.2 Curt Menefee: You should do the same as you're climbing up the letter.
0:09:56.5 Drew Logsdon: Yeah, 100%.
0:10:00.0 Adam Girtz: So Curt, you mentioned during the graduation speech that you were giving for our graduating brothers, the struggles and adversity that our generation or this young generation of guys have really gone through, especially this last year...
0:10:15.0 Curt Menefee: Yeah, your generation, not our, your. I'm old enough to be your father, yes. [laughter]
0:10:23.0 Adam Girtz: I might claim it but I'm still young for sure as well.
0:10:26.1 Drew Logsdon: Adam's an old soul. [laughter]
0:10:29.9 Adam Girtz: So the question I have for you then is, why is fraternity important to today's young men? To our guys that are maybe just graduating high school, just coming into college, what does fraternity offer to this generation of young men?
0:10:42.2 Curt Menefee: I think we just hit on a little bit of it about accountability, but Sigma Nu in particular about the brotherhood that is willing to help you, not haze you. The brotherhood that's willing to put his arm around you, not to put his foot on top of you. And I think that you can't say that for every single fraternity, and I'm not bad mouthing other fraternities. But we've got something special guys, let's admit it and let's acknowledge it. And so I think that that's important, but I think that especially when you're a young person, and I talked a little bit about this earlier. We've all been there, or people listening to this podcast going there. Sometimes you're far away from home and you need someone that you can just talk to, just lean on, just share some stuff with, and those people... At least for me, I still have them in my life 35 years after graduating from college, almost.
0:11:34.0 Curt Menefee: In that, you can pick up the phone and you're having a bad day, you just shoot the crap with them and it makes you feel better. Or they understand where you're coming from, because we're all going to have those days and it doesn't mean that you're only in it to get something out, sometimes you're the person that's helping someone else who is having a bad day, but that's part of the special brotherhood that I think that is important, particularly when you are young. Because I think so many... I'm on the board of trustees at Coe, so one of the things I definitely keep in touch with is the student body there, and so many young people... And this is where I'll be the old guy, unlike when I was going to school, really struggle with mental health and talking to other people about it, and just saying sometimes, I need some help.
0:12:20.3 Curt Menefee: It doesn't make you weak, it doesn't make you bad. It's like if you get the flu or you got a cold, you ask for help. So mental health is the same way, but I think fraternity is a way of going about that without it having to be a formal setting. You can sit in your chapter room or chapter house and have this conversation with your brother, "Dude, my girl just broke my heart." You know? I don't feel like getting up today, and you'll need that in life, and particularly when you're young, and I think that's a big part of, at least for me, of my Sigma Nu experience.
0:12:51.2 Drew Logsdon: Outstanding. Yeah, yeah, I think we've all... I think many, well, almost all of us can relate to having that first heartbreak in college conversation with a brother on the back porch.
0:13:00.3 Curt Menefee: "I'm not doing well in the class, or you know what? I'm working part-time and there's too many hours, and I'm having trouble keeping up with school." It could be anything. But we all need somebody, and a fraternity allows you multiple somebodies.
0:13:13.2 Drew Logsdon: I remember distinctly, you say that, as soon as you were talking about that, Curt, this memory popped in my head and it's so... It is so crystal clear. It is me having an existential crisis with my big brother of, "What am I doing at this college? What am I... My major? Am I doing the right thing? Am I on the right track?" And just, and having somebody who just listened to that. "Hey, I'm not here to tell you what you're doing is right or wrong, I'm here to... I just want to listen." Just empathy, obviously. And so, and we talked a little bit about it, and this is same lily pad there a little bit. I think this is something, and we talked about the importance of Sigma Nu today, I think Adam and I both see it a little bit, but we want to get your take a little bit Curt of, do you think we have a problem with honor? We're an honor-based fraternity. Do you think we have a problem with honor in today's society? Because I think a lot of men, Sigma Nu stands as an institution that upholds honor, our... One of our most important founding principles, right? We say, "Our honor is dearer than our lives," and that's what we live by. Do you think we have a problem with that? And maybe not a problem, but almost a vacuum of it in today's society. We need more honorable men.
0:14:23.8 Curt Menefee: Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. To me, I don't think there's a question, particularly at this time in our country. It makes you shake your head sometimes just about what's going on, and everybody looks and want to point to politicians. Technically they're examples of leadership, but they're not the only ones. I think that look, we all want to do well financially, so I'm not criticizing people that are capitalists, because I am one. I love making money, I love getting good returns on my investments, all that stuff.
0:15:01.8 Drew Logsdon: Don't we all.
0:15:02.3 Curt Menefee: I'm here to do things in the right way. I always use the example, people like, you want to be rich? Bernie Madoff was rich for most of his life, but it wound up catching up with him, because he had no honor. And he took a lot of people down with him. So it's not just about whether or not you're rich. It's not just about whether or not you're famous. It's not whether you're the President, or a Senator, or whatever. You have to do whatever you do with honor. Because for me, you got to look at the mirror, you got to look at your kids, you got to look at your spouse. You represent yourself and a lot of other people because of your family name, because of the organizations you belong to. And that lack of honor reflects poorly on all of them, whoever's associated with you. And I do think that there's a vacuum of it that exists right now. And I don't know what the answer is. I think that's part of my reasons for going back to grad school, is to try and maybe publicly instill some honor and be an example for some people to say, "Hey, there's a way to do things and you don't have to be a jerk, or corrupt in order to succeed." But I fear for kids, and I hate to be... It's like The Simpsons cartoon. You say, "Oh, what about the children?" [laughter] Like, "Okay, yeah, that's just an act." [laughter]
0:16:25.3 Curt Menefee: But the reality is, if you grow up in an era where you see this going on around you, you start to think that that's normal, then it's harder for even parents that are trying to do the right thing to instill honor in their kids and values. And so that's my concern about we're in a place right now that the trajectory doesn't allow it to become bigger and bigger, and we lose it for good. Again, it goes back to some of the things I'm trying to do, or publicly trying to do to bring honor back.
0:16:55.6 Adam Girtz: Yeah. No, I think that's why it's so important that we have this fraternity experience, I think the... That base fraternity experience. You're living in a house with a dozen or so of your best friends, and if you don't have honor, that's going to catch up to you a lot faster than it will if you're living off on your own somewhere.
0:17:15.0 Curt Menefee: And it's good for you to learn that early on if you don't have it. I think most... I'd say most of the Sigma Nus I've ever met, and I've gone to Grand Chapter before as well in San Diego in 2016 when it was out here. But most of them, I think they're honorable men to begin with, and that's why they gravitate towards Sigma Nu, because the values match up. But if you happen to be the one knucklehead who doesn't have it, it'll shake it into you, because everybody else around you, we go back to that accountability thing. Everyone around you will make sure that you have it, or else you don't belong.
0:17:48.0 Adam Girtz: Yeah, definitely.
0:17:50.0 Drew Logsdon: Yeah. I feel you there, and it's also, it's very much... And this is something we try to teach at college at Chapters too a lot to Chapters, is that honor is not... No one's born with honor. You earn it, and it's like a debit and credit. You can lose it too, right? And you have to earn it back. But just because you join Sigma Nu does not, by joining by default make you honorable. You have to earn that honor and earn that trust and respect from the group you're in. And simultaneously, if you do something wrong, you lose that and there's consequences to that, so.
0:18:23.8 Curt Menefee: And you can lose it a lot faster than you can gain it.
0:18:26.0 Drew Logsdon: Oh, absolutely.
0:18:26.5 Curt Menefee: You can't quickly gain it back. It's hard to get it back if you lose it.
0:18:30.7 Drew Logsdon: Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's segue a little bit, Curt. So some of our listeners, especially our collegiate listeners, our younger alumni listeners are probably early in their careers, about to start their careers, and let's talk about broadcasting a little bit, so you took a... Well, at least what seems like from my research, a pretty typical broadcaster's journey, a journeyman's journey right? With bouncing with local affiliates. What were those years like where you're bouncing from city to city every couple of years, and right now it's like you're stationary, but in that early time, it seems like a lot of folks tend to do that bounce-around tour.
0:19:06.9 Curt Menefee: But for me, I bounced around, I started out in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, but I had the benefit of being on the air at a local television station, the ABC station from the time I was 19-years-old on. So when I graduated from college, I'd been on the air for two-and-a-half years. So kids that went to big journalism schools like Syracuse, or Missouri, they had no real on-air experience other than working at the college television station, that kind of thing, so I felt I had a leg up on them right there. But I worked in Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Iowa, Madison, Wisconsin, Jacksonville, Florida, Dallas, Texas, New York City as a local guy, then wound up with The Fox Network when I got to New York.
0:19:46.8 Curt Menefee: But all those moves happened in my 20s. When I got to New York, I was 29-years-old, and I was 21 when I graduated. So all those moves were in eight years. And so I was young, I was single, I had fun everywhere I was living. I had the right group of friends. I was covering sports, for God's sake. How can you be upset with that? So I absolutely enjoyed it. The only challenge I would say that I had in... Garth Brooks had a song from way back when, called "Unanswered Prayers." And the line goes, "One of God's greatest gifts is unanswered... Are unanswered prayers." And I look at my life like that now with the next story I’m going to say, because I met the love of my life, my wife, we've been married, perfect woman for me. And no question.
0:20:38.8 Curt Menefee: But along the way, I wound up having a girlfriend that I had for four years, last two years in college and the first two years afterwards. And she didn't want to live that life, she didn't want to bounce... And I get it. She's still in Iowa to this day, she wanted to marry... She's been married for, I don't know, maybe 30 years, 25, 30 years. So she found the right person too, don't get me wrong. Not saying she's pining for me, by any means. But I'm saying when you're that age and you're 23-years-old and you go, "Okay, if I want to do the business the way I want to do it, I got to bounce around. I got to be a year here, two years there, whatever."
0:21:09.0 Curt Menefee: And if you don't have the person who's with you that wants to do that, and I totally respect them, and that's one of the things I believe in talking things out right away. And she didn't want to do that. So we, after four years, had to go our separate ways. We're still friends to this day. Those kind of things, but that was the only thing that was, if you will, a hardship about it. The rest of it was just fun, man. It was just fun. Hey, I'm doing this, and someone called me up and said that, "You want to work somewhere else and it's a bigger market," Heck, yeah, let me do this. I'll cover professional sports. I had a run there where it was the last two local gigs I had, I was in Dallas for three years. The Cowboys won back-to-back Super Bowls Jimmy Johnson's last two years.
0:21:48.4 Drew Logsdon: Wow!
0:21:49.0 Curt Menefee: And Barry Switzer's first year they lost the NFC Championship game in San Francisco. I leave there, I go to New York. The Yankees then win four World Series in five years, so it's like I have this beginner's luck of seven, eight years where the local team I'm covering is winning the championship every year, so I was in heaven, man. It was perfect.
0:22:09.5 Drew Logsdon: When you travel for your Fox work, or any of that other work Curt, do you visit old friends in those markets, right, the former co-workers and stuff?
0:22:17.0 Curt Menefee: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you do. And just in general, old friends, wherever you are. It's one of those things that it obviously depends on how much time we got there. A lot of times it may be, "Hey, I've only got X number of hours. We'll meet at a restaurant, or hotel and share some drinks, some dinner, have some old fun," but I definitely still do that with friends, and even in places where there aren't professional sports team. My wife is from Chicago, so we get back there at least once a year, usually twice, and so we'll hop up to Madison, Wisconsin, just a couple of hours drive, and visit old friends that are still there that work there, and see their kids who I knew when they were born who are now college graduates and those kind of things, and it reminds you of Father Time. But yeah, I still keep in touch with so many people because of the great friendships I have with them over the time, just because we all kinda shared a similar experience when we were younger.
0:23:06.8 Adam Girtz: Outstanding. Curt, so I'd love to know just some of the background, or inside of the NFL Sunday. It looks like such a blast. It looks like so much fun hanging out there with those guys, and especially when they're cutting in or cutting out, and you see catching the snippets of the conversation that was obviously happening off air. What's that like? Does that feel like a brotherhood of its own, or what is that like?
0:23:32.5 Curt Menefee: I tell people that what you see on TV is just us without the adult beverages and swear words. [laughter] It is. We are all genuinely good friends, and I go back to our families know one another. My wife and Howie Long's wife text each other like they're high school girls. We all text each other constantly year-round. We were just together this past weekend. We do a boys' trip every year. We did it, they came out to California this year and we all just got together for... We got together Friday and left on Sunday, and just to have a good time, because we genuinely like each other. And so what you see on the air, it's not us faking it and pretending that we like each other for TV, it's a genuine friendship. And so I get... It's almost like not work. I get to go and watch football with my best friends on Sunday, and then get to talk to the nation about it, and you get to peek in. That's really what the experience is like.
0:24:26.7 Drew Logsdon: Yeah. Yeah.
0:24:26.9 Adam Girtz: That's awesome.
0:24:27.3 Drew Logsdon: There are few moments that have moved me to tears in the past couple of years, but Jimmy Johnson's Hall of Fame, that's right there.
0:24:37.9 Curt Menefee: Yeah, because he didn't know. As a matter of fact, if you go back to the weekend that it happened, on the Saturday of the weekend, because his announcement came on a Sunday, and David Baker, who's the big guy from the Pro Football Hall of Fame shows up, normally he knocks on guys' door. But for that one, he had gone to CBS, Bill Cowher went in the same year. And he was on CBS' pre-game show on Saturday and announced that Cowher was going in, and so Jimmy just assumed, first of all, they're not going to put two coaches in. Secondly, well they're telling people, they didn't tell me. So he didn't know. But two people at Fox knew.
0:25:17.3 Drew Logsdon: Wow.
0:25:18.6 Curt Menefee: Myself and the producer for our show because he had to arrange everything. Like he didn't tell the director who has to shoot it, [chuckle] the mic people who has to mic him up. He didn't tell his boss, our CEO, until the night before. Like he wanted to keep it secret. But he told me early in the week because I had some things I had to do to prepare for it. So we were the only two that knew. So it was a genuine surprise for everybody, and it was great, you saw the emotion. We cut in to Troy when he was at the game, he had a tear in his eye. Jimmy got choked up. You mentioned you had one. But this past weekend, it was funny, when we were together here in California and we were talking about the Hall of Fame game, which is when the induction's going to happen this year, because of COVID it didn't happen last year. And so Fox is doing the Hall of Fame game this year, it's Pittsburgh and Dallas. And Jimmy was... Jimmy started crying again because he goes, I was going to tell you guys. Because he didn't know we were doing the Hall of Fame game officially until then. But you guys don't have to come. He goes, My moment was that Sunday when it happened on the air and you guys were there for me.
0:26:17.0 Drew Logsdon: That's awesome.
0:26:18.9 Curt Menefee: And he just started crying again, you know? He's like, It just makes me emotional how special that was. I told him that to me, and we've had other people that work at Fox say, that was maybe the greatest moment in Fox Sports history.
0:26:31.2 Drew Logsdon: Yeah, yeah, it was outstanding. Yeah. Well, as we kind of come around here to our final little act here Curt for our interview, I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about the incredibly powerful video that you put out last June. And we shared it for our listeners, we shared it on Sigma Nu's, all of our social accounts that we could share it on, we shared it on there. It was incredibly powerful and incredibly personable as well too, I felt... It felt very genuine, very moving. I remember watching it for the first time, and I just want to know, asking you... I think it takes a lot to put yourself out there and then especially in that environment, I feel like a lot of folks, a lot to say, but we're unsure of how do I say this and how do I... Do I step forward? Do I... How did you work through those emotions and decide like, hey, I have this to say and I'm going to say it. This is important.
0:27:31.0 Curt Menefee: Well, I think you go back because of the circumstances, you wish you didn't have to. You wish there were nothing to say. But when it happened, I waited two or three days to do it, because I didn't want to be reactionary. I wanted to get my thoughts together. I wanted to have an idea of what I wanted to say. You know, I just hit record and kind of went with it, but I had an idea of what I wanted to share. And I didn't want to just get on and scream and do something that I would regret later on, having said, or done, or that would just look like, well, you're unhinged, calm down. It goes back to the honor that we talked about, and knowing that what I said, looking, in some ways lives forever because everything on social media does.
0:28:19.9 Curt Menefee: So I took my time to kind of take a deep breath, pause, get your thoughts together, and then go ahead and do it. And so that was the beginning of the genesis of it. But I think for me, it just became a matter of sharing my personal story, how I was feeling, and making sure other people understood why I felt that way, and I think so many people felt that way. And as we've said, and we don't have to rehash it or whatever, but it wasn't the first time, and that was something I think that if you look at some of these incidences as isolated incidents, it seems like people are being irrational. But when you look at the totality of it, you understand sometimes a little bit better. And the thing is, and I mentioned there, my cousin's a DC cop, I have friends that are cops, hopefully soon I have an affiliation that we'll be able to talk about, but it involves the police.
0:29:17.3 Curt Menefee: It's not about being anti-cop or whatever, it's about being pro-human, and so I wanted to kind of get that message across, and then that was why I think it was important for me to just kind take a deep breath and take my time, but that also is what spurred me, and I mentioned before and you guys may have mentioned it as well. I went back to grad school and am pursuing my Master's in Public Policy and Administration in Northwestern right now and about to wrap up my first year. But it was last June and as I was putting it out on social media and watching people protest in the streets, and write signs and all that, it occurred to me, all you're doing when you do this is asking someone else to do something, asking someone else to make change. What can I do to make change happen?
0:30:05.2 Drew Logsdon: Yeah.
0:30:05.4 Curt Menefee: For me, I realized, and I talked a little bit about it in the commencement session we had. I realized I'm fortunate in that I cross paths with a lot of people that are powerful from a political standpoint, from a corporate standpoint, CEOs, and so I have their ear. But I need to know what they need in order to make change happen. Rather than, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if we did this?" Say that, but what are the steps? And so I needed just a little bit more depth, a little more background, and so that's why I decided to go back to school to pursue a Master's in Public Policy in particular, that will allow me to then go and talk to some of these people and say, "Okay, here's the path. This is how we do it, and this is what needs to be done, or what I think you want to be done," because I think so many people, not only politicians, especially corporate America, are really open right now to making sure it's a more equitable society, and it doesn't mean everybody's treated equally, but it means everybody's treated fairly.
0:31:11.3 Drew Logsdon: Yeah.
0:31:11.7 Curt Menefee: And I think that's what we're all trying to see. And so that was kind of the impetus for it, was it all just kind of came together in that moment, last June.
0:31:21.2 Drew Logsdon: Yeah, two major takeaways I have from that video, the first is when you said, "I didn't want to speak immediately because I was angry" and I feel like so many... Yeah, I relate to that, if we're talking about what our seven deadly sins are, like anger, anger is probably my first one. I have a short fuse a little bit, but yeah when you say things angry, you don't come from a good emotional state, and maybe that's the... I'm not saying that's the wrong state you're in at the moment, it's okay to be angry when things like that happen, but maybe that isn't the best place to advocate from sometimes, but that's the one. The second...
0:31:57.4 Curt Menefee: It's hard to have a conversation, and again, it doesn't mean you're wrong. I think people are justified being angry at certain times in their life, for sure. But it's hard to have a conversation with someone who's coming from a place of anger because the first thing you've got to do is say, "Calm down. Okay, let's talk. Calm down." And then you can get the point that they're trying to relate. Because a lot of us... I mean when you see red, I don't know if you know what you're saying half the time. You know we've all been there. You're just so angry and you're just spitting out words, and then later on you're like, "I don't even know what I said." Or someone is like, "Why did you do that? Or why did you just say... " And you're like, "I don't know. I was just mad." So I didn't want that to happen, so.
0:32:37.6 Drew Logsdon: It's like the old comedy bit, right. I'm a dad, I have a five-year-old and four-year-old and my wife... I'd go off the handle. Like, he's touching me, she's touching me. No one touch anyone else in this house at all. Wife is like "That sounds completely irrational, what you just said." [laughter]
0:32:53.8 Curt Menefee: But in the moment it felt good.
0:32:55.7 Drew Logsdon: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
0:32:56.8 Adam Girtz: Well, and it's so easy to be angry immediately, right? Social media just makes it, "It is, it is... I'm angry, something happened, I put it out in a tweet, a Facebook post, whatever," and it's out there, and then it's out there like you said it's...
0:33:09.9 Curt Menefee: And again, I was angry. I think a lot of people are justified when you are angry, but it's a matter of knowing when to let the rest of the world know that you're angry. That's the key. It's like we can all be angry and you can hold it inside or go scream in your room or whatever, until you get to the point, now let me share this in a rational way with other people. At least, that was my approach. And it doesn't... People come at it from different angles. That was mine.
0:33:36.2 Drew Logsdon: Yeah. The second amazing thing... Takeaway from that video, Curt, was you said, and I'm pretty sure I'm quoting you here now hopefully, "We have an obligation to do better." And when you said that, I immediately thought of what we say in Sigma Nu frequently is, we have an obligation to excellence. Which sort of means it's aspirational, right? We will never be in an excellent society, but as long as we adhere to our obligation to pursue that and Sigma Nu our pursuit of excellence, right? So long as we're pursuing that direction, it's the old Lombardi quote. So long as we're heading that direction then we are better every day, right?
0:34:11.4 Curt Menefee: It goes back to not only... You talk about the creed of Sigma Nu, or really the constitution and what it talks about in order to form a more perfect union. It doesn't say form a perfect union but more perfect, is that we seek to get better each and every day. All of us, in our individual lives, we should as a government, as a political entity, but as a nation, to try to be more perfect than we were yesterday. We never got to achieve perfection. And I think that's kind of all in the same vein. We do have an obligation to be better, or at least attempt to be better to ourselves, which people tend to forget, to ourselves but to one another in particular.
0:34:52.2 Adam Girtz: Absolutely.
0:34:53.3 Drew Logsdon: Wow. Yeah, well Curt, thank you so much. We are at our balance of time here and you're a busy individual and we want to honor your commitment as well too. And I just want to say thank you so much for coming on our podcast, and for folks listening this will go live at the same time as a recording from tonight's... Earlier tonight's, which for you listening will be a few days ago, our virtual program. So definitely check both those out and we'll have the show notes and links for that. Curt, if our listeners want to follow you on the socials or what have you, how can they go about doing that?
0:35:26.9 Curt Menefee: I'm on Twitter @curtmenefee and I'm on Instagram under the same name as well. Blue check marks.
0:35:33.4 Drew Logsdon: Perfect. There you go.
0:35:34.2 Curt Menefee: Don't expect a whole lot of content there other than me and my dog, so. [laughter]
0:35:38.0 Adam Girtz: That's what we're here for.
0:35:39.3 Drew Logsdon: That's the best content, right? Nowadays it's the only thing, that's what I want to get yeah, so.
0:35:43.9 Adam Girtz: Too much of everything else going on, I just want some dogs. [laughter]
0:35:46.0 Curt Menefee: Amen to that, brother. Thank you for the time. I enjoyed it, really did.
0:35:50.2 Adam Girtz: Thanks for speaking with us.
0:35:51.7 Drew Logsdon: Yeah. Have a wonderful evening.
0:35:53.1 Curt Menefee: You too.
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0:36:15.7 Adam Girtz: Hello. Welcome back, everyone. What a great interview. I really was just jazzed up by being able to speak with Curt for a little while. Obviously, he's a very eloquent guy, very... He had a lot of great ideas and a lot of great sentiments when it comes to what fraternity means to him, and hopefully that resonated with a lot of you as it resonated with me. It definitely brought up a lot of good memories of my fraternity experience in school and what it means to me now.
0:36:47.6 Drew Logsdon: Yeah. Yeah, and Curt is an outstanding... Curt's a pro's pro. So he's used to this and it was a great interview, speaking with Curt and he brought a really good observation and we talked about this interview a little bit, and I think if anything, we could impart upon our listeners walking away from this interview is, A] fraternity is important.
0:37:10.9 Adam Girtz: Still today, yeah.
0:37:12.8 Drew Logsdon: Yeah, still today, B] Sigma Nu is integral to the importance of fraternity and building honorable men, ethical leaders. We need honor, Curt even said so. We need more honor in our society today. And C] what Kurt shared, which is we have an obligation to be better as men, as a fraternity, as a country, as a society. An obligation to do better every day, and that's small steps, that's big steps. In Sigma Nu parlance, we know that as our obligation to excellence. We are pursuing excellence every day, and so as long as we're doing that, like the Lombardi quote, as long as we're aiming for excellence, aiming for perfection we'll land pretty close to it everyday.
0:37:54.4 Adam Girtz: Absolutely, yeah. And the message about not... Perfection not as the goal, but as the pursuit. Right? Yeah. Like the more perfect and not necessarily perfect.
0:38:07.3 Drew Logsdon: Yeah.
0:38:08.4 Adam Girtz: I love that, I thought that was a really great message.
0:38:11.1 Drew Logsdon: Yeah, well, it was great, I hope you all enjoyed it. Curt, super generous and again, thanks, thanks to Curt if he's listening to this for joining us for that interview. It was phenomenal, outstanding. Maybe down the road, we can get him on back another time to yap around for a little bit more, but it was great having Curt and always great to do these kind of special one-off things, we can kind of do them, so.
0:38:32.0 Adam Girtz: Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, any feedback on this, greatly appreciated. If you've enjoyed it, if you have other ideas, just let us know. Reach out on social media, to our email as well. All links in our show notes as usual.
0:38:51.2 Drew Logsdon: Yep, absolutely. Alright. Adam, well, unless if there's anything else, I'm going to go ahead and motion to close.
0:38:55.6 Adam Girtz: I second that.
0:38:56.8 Drew Logsdon: All in favor?
0:38:57.8 Adam Girtz: Aye.
0:38:58.9 Drew Logsdon: Aye. Alright, Adam, we'll see you next time.
0:39:01.6 Adam Girtz: Bye.
0:39:02.2 Drew Logsdon: Bye.
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