Joe Buck has been happily married to ESPN colleague Michelle Beisner-Buck since 2014. But the play-by-play man had to work overtime to win her over.
We’ve seen Buck and Beisner-Buck share the ESPN stage a couple of times before and their chemistry working together was very apparent. But it did not happen instantly.
Buck was a guest on The Pivot with Ryan Clark. And when Clark asked about Buck having to overcome his first impression to win over his current spouse, the ESPN Monday Night Football announcer told the story with plenty of self-deprecating humor about how he won her over in spite of having to fight against the perception of being a “smug a–hole.”
“She saw me on a National Car Rental commercial and thought I looked like a smug a–hole, and now looking back on it I think I did look like a smug a–hole,” Buck said. “When I saw her, she was working for the NFL Network at the time and was standing against the wall. And I was walking out of Mile High Stadium, and I saw her and I was like, ‘hmm, I think I’m gonna stalk that person,’ and I did.”
Buck then said he elicited the help of fellow NFL broadcaster Rich Eisen to contact Beisner and play matchmaker. And when he did, she was hoping that it would be anyone but Joe Buck. She even name-dropped Al Michaels before finally getting to Buck.
“When she talked to Rich, he’s like, he was playing a game – somebody in the booth wants your number. And she’s like, ‘ok, who is it, let’s play the game, Troy Aikman?’ He’s like, ‘no.’ And she went through everybody, like got to Al Michaels. And Rich is like, ‘no not him.’ And she’s like well please don’t tell me it’s Joe Buck. And he’s like it is, he’s a good friend of mine, why would you say that. She said ‘I don’t know, I just know I saw him in a commercial and he looks like a smug a–hole.’ Rich was like, ‘he’s not, he’s a great guy you should just talk to him.’ And the rest is now we got seven year olds, to cut to the end of the story,” Buck explained.
Joe Buck has done a lot over the last several years to win over the hearts and minds of sports fans and overcome his once curmudgeonly persona. It seems like him calling Randy Moss fake mooning the Green Bay Packers fans a “disgusting act” happened a lifetime ago. And maybe part of the reason that we now see a more relaxed, personable, relatable Joe Buck is he had to do it to win over Michelle Beisner-Buck.
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