MICHAELC@CULLMANTIMES.COM

Jeff Speegle is the weekend sports anchor for ABC 33/40 News in Birmingham, but you already know that.

Speegle, a native of Cullman County, graduated from Good Hope High School in 1979 and started his professional career in Cullman — but you might already know that too.

What you probably don’t know about Speegle is his intense dedication to his family and faith, deep commitments he said are more responsible for his success than anything else.

“When you do this job, having a good supportive family is important,” Speegle said by telephone interview recently, adding he and his wife Julie will celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary this year. “She’s been really supportive of me. The hours are really goofy — you’re usually traveling. I don’t get to spend as much time with (my family) as I would like to, but my family has been very supportive, and I thank the good Lord for them every day.”

Speegle’s family comprises his wife, Julie; a son, J., who is 18; and a daughter, Cara, 15. J. plans to follow in his father’s footsteps by entering the University of Alabama this fall. Cara competes on the tennis team at Pelham High.

“In this business, your family is so important, because if they’re not happy, you’re not going to be happy with what you’re doing,” Speegle added.

And then Speegle transformed from interviewee to teacher in a flash: Do you have a wife or a girlfriend, he asked.

“Tell her, ‘Thank you’ the next time you talk to her,” he advised.

Off camera, Speegle serves as a youth deacon at Riverchase Church of Christ in Hoover. As youth deacon, he works with Riverside’s youth group, an experience Speegle said is enjoyable and fulfilling.

“I think it’s also important to have a good balance in your life, to know who’s really in control of your life. Sometimes we kind of mess that up,” Speegle said about his faith. “God is in control of every part of your life. When you look at your life in that perspective you’ll do better in every area of your life.

“Don’t worry about your boss or your co-workers being happy,” he added. “Worry about God being happy — that puts your life in the right perspective.”

Speegle admitted it took him some time to find the correct perspective for his life and work. Born in Cullman, Speegle first attended Jacksonville State after graduated from Good Hope High in 1979. In Jacksonville, Speegle said those close to him advised him to go into the business world.

“A couple people encouraged me to go into accounting, because they felt that was the area where I could make the most money,” Speegle explained. “And when you’re growing up that’s what you’re all about — the money signs.”

But Speegle said a group of friends advised him to put his talents to better use.

“What I did is I started out going to Jacksonville State as an accounting major, but I had a lot of friends who encouraged me to go into broadcasting, I guess because I had a good voice,” said Speegle.

“I think what drew me to journalism is meeting people and finding out what their stories are, and telling those stories in a creative way,” he continued. “I never liked covering city council meetings. I would rather have four or five root canals at the same time than cover city councils meetings.”

After deciding to pursue a career in journalism, Speegle finished his degree at UA in 1986, majoring broadcasting and film communications, with an emphasis in news and public affairs.

“I was there during the Ray Perkins years,” said Speegle, who grew up as a Crimson Tide fan. “I remember really being into it because my dad was a big coach Bryant fan. I was raised on watching Alabama and coach Bryant.”

But as his career in broadcasting developed, Speegle said he found himself rooting for the players from several teams, rather than supporting a specific squad.

“As I got into this business, I migrated to more in the middle because people from both sides are really good people,” he said. “I kind of root for both.

“People ask us all the time whether you’re an Alabama or Auburn fan,” Speegle added. “I tell them I don’t root for the teams as much as I root for the players. You get to know the kids and get to know them more as people, and there’s no way you can root against any of them because, for the most part, they’re really good guys.

“It’s hard to convince an Alabama or an Auburn fan that you root for neither team, but that really is the case.”

Speegle’s story is easier to understand when one considers his sports information gathering exploits as a high school student in Good Hope. Every week during football season, Speegle said, he would call Bill Shelton, then the sports editor at The Times, to ask for football statistics for each county team.

“I’ve always been crunching stats and crunching numbers,” Speegle said. “When I was a kid, I kept a book of Cullman County football teams and what their records were. I’d call and harass Bill Shelton on Saturday mornings.

“There wasn’t a Saturday paper at the time, so you had to wait until Sunday to get stats. But I’d call him on Saturday, and he was always really nice.”

Just a few years later, Speegle would working with Shelton in the sports department at The Times. The opportunity came about when Dennis James, one of Speegle’s friends from Good Hope High, offered to help Speegle get a job in the sports department. In his time there, Speegle said he learned plenty of life lessons from Shelton.

“He was an amazing man,” Speegle said of Shelton, who contracted polio at a young age.

Speegle then related the story about how Shelton had gotten the job years ago at The Times. When he came for an interview, Shelton discovered reporters needed to know how to type and drive to perform their duties. Though he could do neither at the time, Shelton took a few months and taught himself how to do both.

“He learned to type with one hand, and to drive, and he got the job,” said Speegle, adding how Shelton could shoot free throws better than most prep players. “He became sports editor, and stayed there for a long time. He was really something.”

Shelton later became the first inductee of the Alabama Sports Writers Association Hall of Fame. His picture hangs in Jordan-Hare Stadium.

From his job at the local newspaper, Speegle transitioned into radio broadcasting, joining WKUL 92.1 for about a year. There, Speegle met Ron Moseley, who taught him how to succeed in the radio business.

“He was great, he taught me a lot about the radio business,” said Speegle. “And I said, “This is really what I wanted to do.’”

During that time, Speegle met his wife, Julie. After getting married, the couple moved to Tuscaloosa so Jeff could finish his degree. While there, Speegle worked at WACT, the university radio station WACT, which was owned by Clyde Price, a man who got his radio start in Cullman. Speegle worked there for four years, first as disc jockey before moving over to news and then sports.

“Its been kind of like a door opens here, and walk through it,” Speegle said of his career. “Things have worked out, and I can’t really explain how. I thank God — he opens doors for you. You walk in that direction and trust in him.”

Speegle’s first job out of college was at Tuscaloosa’s WCFT-TV, where he worked for a couple of years. From 1989 to 1991, he lived and worked in Knoxville, Tenn., before taking a job in 1991 at WAAY-TV in Huntsville. Speegle stayed there until 1996, when he moved to Birmingham to join 33/40.

“And that was a leap of faith right there, because I had been working in Huntsville and things were going pretty well there,” Speegle said. “But when I was growing up I had always wanted to work in Birmingham. It’s the biggest market in the state.

“This station was a new business startup,” he continued. “It was kind of like going to work for a new company, and there are some risks that go with that. There’s no track record and you just don’t really know how that’s going to work out. You just kind of take a leap of faith and look at the people that are running the show and you think this is going to work.”

Speegle’s apprehension came about because the station had recently been founded by Robert Albritton, who bought CBS affiliates in Tuscaloosa and Anniston and merged those into ABC 33/40. At the time, Birmingham had no ABC affiliate because FOX had bought former ABC station WBRC. The station signed on Sept. 1, 1996.

Over the years, Speegle said he’s met several figures who have inspired him, including teachers and bosses.

“Along the way you meet a lot of people that help mold and shape you, and help you become the person you need to be,” Speegle said. “Those people can have a variety of personalities and affect you in so many ways. You need to take advantage of that and what they can teach you.”

Having worked in print, radio and television journalism, Speegle has had a chance to cover all kinds of interesting people, something he said makes his job so enjoyable. But which medium is his favorite?

“I think in newspaper, you have a little more of an opportunity to be more creative and tell their story,” he said. “In TV, you’re working on a deadline and then you go on and present it. And if you present in the way you drew it up its really a neat thing, kind of like they way a coach is satisfied when a play is run correctly, because there are so many people involved.

“It’s something like 11 other people that have to do their jobs correctly, so you’re really like a team,” Speegle added. “There’s really a lot of satisfaction in that.”