Joe Buck's Career Almost Ended Because of...Hair Plugs?

Joe Buck is the lead voice for Fox Sports and one of the preeminent sports broadcasters in the country. Occasionally he can be hackneyed or cliché, but over the past few years he has begun to show more of himself and become less a television character and more a human being who joins us in our living rooms on Sundays and for big events.

Thursday, Buck revealed something deeply personal to him. In an interview with Sports Illustrated to promote his upcoming book, Buck said that the real reason he lost his voice in 2011 was not because of a virus in the nerve of his left vocal cord, as he had repeatedly claimed, but because of a hair-plug surgery gone wrong.

At the time he was 42 and obsessive about losing his hair. He had his first hair replacement in 1993, when he was just 24. In 2011, he decided to undergo his eighth procedure and went under for a six-hour surgery. Here's how SI's Richard Deitsch describes what happened next:

"When he woke up from the anesthetic, Buck could not speak. He believes his vocal chord was paralyzed because of a cuff the surgery center used to protect him during the procedure. A doctor not part of the operation theorized to Buck that the cuff probably got jostled during the procedure and sat on the nerve responsible for firing his left vocal chord. Buck was also going through personal stress at the time, as his marriage to his high school sweetheart was ending. That stress, Buck theorizes, could have made him more susceptible to nerve damage."

When Buck saw a specialist soon after, he was given no definitive timetable for his voice to return. So he lied to his bosses at Fox and concocted the virus story. He told few people—one of them was Troy Aikman, his partner on NFL broadcasts—and according to SI this will be the first time some at Fox Sports learn about what actually happened.

"I was too scared," Buck said. "And embarrassed to tell them the truth."

Buck's voice did return, obviously. By Game 6 of the 2011 World Series, he says he felt himself again. It did take what seems like an excruciating procedure—a long needle was used to inject the substance used for lip enhancement into his vocal chord, and it was repeated every three months—and some guile.

Honestly, it seems pretty remarkable for Buck to admit to this now. He had no reason to, other than selling a book, and that probably would have done well enough without any real revelations by him. He had already gotten away with the lie.

The story about getting hair plugs, which he admits he got for vanity and makes him like so many men who obsess and worry about losing their hair, is both embarrassing and humanizing. It's clear that Buck sees this, too, at least going by what he told SI.

If nothing else, the story should make Buck even more likeable. Yes, he had the half-cocked show on HBO that bombed and he can occasionally be too high-and-mighty but Buck, unlike some of his (CBS corporate shilling) peers, is also willing to be a three-dimensional human.

"I wanted to detail the time in my life where I had a lot going on and I was stressed, a time when I started to take anti-depressants and was going through a divorce," he said. "Then I had this situation with my voice that rocked me to my knees and shook every part of my world. I'm 47 years old now and willing to be vulnerable sharing a story. Whether the book is read by one person or one million doesn't concern me. Getting this out and being honest, really telling my story, that was was the impetus behind this."

[Sports Illustrated]