ESPN’s top NFL play-by-play broadcaster Joe Buck said his now-wife, Michelle Beisner-Buck, thought he was “smug a–hole” before their first date.
During an appearance on “The Pivot” podcast Tuesday, Buck explained that his friend, fellow ESPN broadcaster Rich Eisen, introduced him to Beisner, who is a features reporter at the worldwide leader, and she was reluctant to go out with him.
“She saw me on a national car rental commercial and thought I looked like a smug a–hole,” Buck, 56, said, adding that he thought the same. “When I saw her, she was working for the NFL Network at the time and was standing against the wall. I was walking out of Mile High Stadium, and I saw her and I was like, ‘I think I’m gonna stalk that person,’ and I did.”
Although Eisen played “matchmaker,” Buck explained that things got off to a rocky start with Beisner.
“Please don’t tell me it’s Joe Buck [who wants my number],” Beisner said when Eisen tried to set them up, noting that she saw him in the car commercial.
They ended up meeting for a first dinner date in St. Louis, where she was covering a Rams game and he was working at the time.
“She insisted that she ride separately to dinner in case I was either a psycho or awful, and she had a way out,” Buck said. “And she was like, ‘I’ll just meet you there,’ and I said, ‘No, I’m gonna pick you up.’
“I swear to God I knew before the appetizers were put down that I was going to marry her… She just was different, and it was the greatest decision I have made as an adult.”
Buck joked that he proposed in his play-by-play voice.
“To cut to the end of the story, we’ve now got 7-year-olds,” Buck said of the couple’s twin sons, Wyatt and Blake. “I wore her down, and I just couldn’t give up.”
Beisner reshared a clip of the moment in an Instagram post, where Eisen commented, “Can confirm.”
Buck explained that Beisner “kind of reopened my eyes to getting married after being married for 19 years the first time around,” adding, “it’s probably the last thing I thought I was going to do again and the first thing I’m glad I did do again.”
Buck and Beisner dated for a year before they got married in 2014. They welcomed their twin sons in 2018.
Buck has two daughters, Trudy and Natalie Buck, from his previous marriage to Ann Archambault Buck. The former couple divorced in 2011.