Memoir book cover
To millions of watchers who used to tune into the “Today” show on NBC in the 1990s and early 2000s, co-host Katie Couric had such a naturally relatable manner while also doing the serious news interviews that viewers almost felt like they knew her.
As it turns out, a few Chattanoogans her age did and still do.
Little publicized over the years, several graduates of Baylor, McCallie and Girls Preparatory School went to the University of Virginia with her in the mid-to-late 1970s and were good friends with her through the Greek life program and other activities.
And their views of her are not that much different from those of America, who found her outgoing and usually smiling manner appealing overall.
“She was a girl who was attractive, bubbly, fun and gregarious and was a good egg,” recalled Matt Lewis, chief advancement officer for Baylor School and a student at Virginia at the time.
“She was lots of fun to be around and had tons of friends.”
The memories of Ms. Couric, who went on to be the first woman solo anchor of “CBS Evening News” and later had her own talk show, have come to light due to her recent memoir, “Going There.”
In the book, she recounts in brutal honesty her life in TV journalism and broadcasting, as well as her early life. Although she only scantly mentions her time attending U.Va., there is one line in the book that hints of her possible friendship with some Chattanoogans.
On page 244 of the hardback edition, she writes in a reflective manner of her new experience in college, saying, “U.Va. introduced me to a different world with its own language, customs and dress code…Many of the students radiated privilege and hailed from places like Richmond, Chattanooga, Atlanta, and well-heeled Connecticut suburbs.”
For years the University of Virginia has attracted students from the three local independent schools as well as possibly other area institutions due to its good academic reputation and the fact that founders of both Baylor and McCallie attended it.
Ms. Couric had enrolled at Virginia in 1975 after attending public school in Northern Virginia. According to 1974 GPS graduate and recent board of trustees member Mary Moncure Watson, Ms. Couric joined the Delta Delta Delta sorority in which Ms. Watson was also a member, but not until later in her college career.
“I am a year older than she, so we didn’t have a huge overlap,” she recalled, adding that she was aware of the book and the fact Ms. Couric was in Ms. Watson’s current hometown of Atlanta doing a recent book signing, although she was unable to attend.
One GPS graduate who was even closer to her in college and has kept up with her some over the years is Mitsy Clark Costello from the class of 1975. Contacted, she kindly offered some praising memories.
“She was an unassuming, fun person -- smart and involved in U.Va,” she said, also recalling that they went to Florida together on a senior spring break trip and also attended many sorority functions. “She had an outgoing personality and knew lots of people.”
Ms. Costello has also kept up with Ms. Couric some over the years, including when she and her daughter visited New York City not long after Ms. Couric’s husband, Jay, died in 1998 from colon cancer.
“We went to the ‘Today’ show and Katie took us on a tour of the studio and of her office, which was very sweet,” she said.
Ms. Costello, who lives in Chattanooga, also attended her recent book tour stop in Nashville and was able to say hello. “She seems really happy and the same Katie I knew in college,” Ms. Costello said of the noted woman who happily remarried in recent years and focuses on documentary filmmaking at present.
Local physician Dr. Jack McCallie also became acquainted with her after enrolling at Virginia following his graduation from McCallie School in 1975.
“We were friends then, and I have seen her off and on over the years at our five-year reunions,” he said.
Although he said he has not kept up with Ms. Couric or her broadcasting work in more recent years and has not read her book, he did say that her manner on the air over the years is reflective of the college student he once knew well.
“I would say that her personality on air is genuine...a very funny, nice and intelligent woman,” he said.
Mr. Lewis said that many of the Chattanooga young men who went to Virginia at that time were in Zeta Psi fraternity, which is commonly known as Zete, and they became acquainted with Ms. Couric through the various Greek social activities.
One of Mr. Lewis’ fraternity brothers at the time, Scott Brittain, dated Katie, Mr. Lewis recalled. He was from Nashville and had attended Montgomery Bell Academy. He unfortunately died in 2018, Mr. Lewis said.
Another Virginia student at the time and whom Ms. Couric references in the book is Paul Hicks, whose daughter, Hope Hicks, worked in communications and as a close adviser to former President Donald Trump while he was in office.
As a special feature while she was still at the “Today” show before leaving in 2006 to begin working for CBS, Ms. Couric went back and visited her old sorority and even sang sorority songs with the students at the time.
Mr. Lewis said he ran into Ms. Couric years after graduation. He said he went up to visit New York and was among the crowd that gathered out on the Rockefeller Center plaza to try and get on TV when the hosts like Ms. Couric came out for brief segments. He said he had parked himself near the door where she and the others went in and out, and he was able to get her attention.
“I had a chance to say hello,” he recalled. “She acted like she remembered me.”
Readers of her book will likely remember it, too. Told in an openly honest and candid style both about herself and those she worked with, she recounts her career when she became interested in journalism and her slow rise to being a nationally known newsperson through stops at Miami and at then-fledgling CNN.
Whether she is talking about her dating relationships, her perspectives of other people with shortcomings, or her own stumbles and successes, she is brutally open. She said she was inspired by the advice of her current husband, John Molner, with whom she admittedly found that sometimes elusive compatibility. She said he told her, “If you’re not going to be honest, don’t write a book.”
Her honesty includes everything from discussing her battles overcoming eating disorder as a young reporter, her intimacy with her first husband before their marriage, and her and one of her daughter’s later questioning of her first husband’s interest in Confederate Civil War re-enactments.
She also discusses some crazy dating relationships after her first husband died and names about every person whom she either did not like or she felt harassed her in some way in her work. She also goes into detail about her once-good relationship with former fellow host Matt Lauer and her attempts to connect with him after his firing for sexual harassment before their friendship fizzled.
Ms. Couric also mentions a little-known story regarding her and her first husband’s struggles with their first nanny, who, she said, became too attached to the family and was let go. The woman also later took some stories to the tabloids. It is about the only place in the book where Ms. Couric does not give the real name of the person.
And she gives a little insight into the crazy world of competing against rivals like Diane Sawyer and trying to come up with good interviews. She also mentions the mistakes she made, such as not covering a newsworthy topic or two when interviewing the now-late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg due in part to a personal relationship with her.
To me the book did not seem like a gossipy tell-all, but more an honest account at least slightly in the spirit of the candid and Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography of Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham.
I am far from the type of person who reads a book a week, or even every month or two, but perhaps due to my connection to the world of journalism and communications and as a longtime watcher of the “Today” show, I could not put it down. My only critique is that I did perhaps find one or two dates that did not seem right, such as when former colleague Ann Curry unceremoniously left her ‘Today” show host position in 2012.
But overall, the book is excellent. This writing style that to me took a little courage is simply the perspective of a woman who naturally communicated her thoughts and views in an open way, a manner that apparently existed even back at the University of Virginia.
Mr. Lewis said he did not realize or predict Ms. Couric was going to be a well-known broadcaster, but he was aware of her naturally endearing manner that would appeal to nationwide TV viewers decades later.
“All I can do is look at her and say she’s a cute gal and she was a lot of fun,” he said.
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Jcshearer2@comcast.net
Matt Lewis with Katie Couric