THEY’RE READY FOR FOOTBALL: Local pair hosts gridiron radio show on Fridays

Published 12:05 am Thursday, August 24, 2017

If you are traveling to football games on Friday nights and need something to listen to on the radio, look no further than Art Gilbert and Mike Couch’s show college football show on WAMI.

“We have been doing this for 11 years,” Gilbert said. “It’s just two boys without a script and we just talk about whatever comes to our minds. Most of the time it’s ridiculous, but if you can’t laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?”

Couch and Gilbert began their football show, “Southern Nirvana” because it was just something they enjoy.

“We started it just to give people something to listen to on the way to football games on Friday night,” Gilbert said. “There are football shows on after the game, but there wasn’t anything on before.”

Couch said that the show is a lot like water cooler talk at work, but just longer.

“It’s like at work when every one is talking about the games,” Couch said. “We are just two boys talking football for an hour and a half. We spend a lot of time on Thursdays and Saturdays watching as many games as we can.”

Gilbert said the pair has a strong record picking against the spread.

“We make predictions each week against the spread and there haven’t been many times when we didn’t have 55 percent of the them right. We don’t do this professionally, but I would put our record up against a lot of them.”

To prepare for the show, the pair usually finds somewhere to go fishing.

“We spent a lot of time fishing this summer,” Gilbert said. “We just sit out there and talk about football, which is exactly what we do on the show. Just two friends talking about the sport we love. This summer we did catch a lot of fish, also.”

This year, the pair plans to use Facebook Live while broadcasting the show.

“We are going to be going live on Facebook this year during the show,” Gilbert said. “This is going to give every one the opportunity to see and hear things that they don’t on the radio. There is no telling what may happen. Mike took his pants off once last year, so you really never know what is going to happen when we go on the air.”

The pair said that they are excited to get back on the air starting on Friday night.

“We are ready to get back to it,” Gilbert said. “Today, we did show preparation by playing golf at Robert Trent Jones. Mike hasn’t even swung a club in several years and he still managed to beat me. Either way, whether we are golfing, fishing or just sitting around, we are talking about college football. It’s what we love to do and a lot of time it’s entertaining to hear. We don’t always know what we are talking about but it’s good entertainment.”

“Southern Nirvana” can be heard on WAMI from 5-6:30 p.m, on Friday nights during football season.

“We really want to thank every one that has been listening to us for the past 11 years,” Gilbert said. “We also want to thank our sponsors, Shaw Industries, Moore and Moore Tire, Glidewell Lawn Care, Lucky Cope and ALFA Insurance. It’s because of them that we are able to be on the air.”

When the can’t be found on a boat, watching football or playing golf, Couch and Gilbert can found at their “real life” jobs at Shaw Industries.