Craig Melvin continues to embrace the ‘hard lessons’ as he prepares for massive moment outside of ‘TODAY’ show
TheGrio...
During a recent appearance on ‘The Pivot Podcast,’ Melvin reflected on his journey from South Carolina to network TV and becoming a familiar face in American homes.
Craig Melvin has often been the one asking the questions, whether on the “Today” set or in numerous arenas across the country. But on May 19, he’s stepping into a different role: commencement speaker.
Villanova University announced that the “TODAY” show co-anchor would serve as the commencement speaker for the Class of 2026. In addition to helping deliver one of the final speeches for graduates before they say goodbye to undergrad, Melvin will also receive the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, during the ceremony.
It’s another notch for Melvin, the Wofford College graduate who has taken his platform to new heights in recent years.
During a recent episode of “The Pivot Podcast,” Melvin sat down with Ryan Clark, Fred Taylor and Channing Crowder and opened up on his journey, how growing up in South Carolina helped mold him into the man he is today and how the pandemic opened his eyes to one of the toughest relationships he needed: the one with his father.
“I’m always skeptical of people who don’t go home as much or don’t really have that connection to their hometown,” Melvin told Taylor. “It’s made me everything I am, and everything I’m not.”
In 2020, Melvin wrote a book, “Pops: Learning to Be a Son and a Father,” and despite his professional success and establishing his own family, he knew something was missing with his dad.
“It was affecting me,” Melvin said. “I would still find myself angry, and it didn’t sit right with my spirit this relationship or lack thereof I had with my dad. By all accounts, we were estranged. We didn’t have much of a relationship. But when my son was born, I developed this bond with him and how magical that was. And I would go to therapy, I’m a firm believer in therapy. And my therapist for years was like, ‘You have to make peace with this relationship with your dad. Not for your dad, but for you.’”
Melvin revealed to the group that his father suffered from alcoholism and nearly had an accident that could have been tragic. After a family intervention, where siblings and relatives read impact letters in an attempt to help his father see his ways and how they were hurting the family, Melvin said it had such a profound effect on his dad that he left, drove to Georgia and never had a touch of alcohol again.
“We rallied around him,” Melvin said. “He and I were talking one time about addiction and redemption and recovery and he said, ‘Maybe you should write a book. One of the highlights of my life, to this day, was sitting in my basement recording hours of conversation with my father.”
He added, “My father was born in a federal prison in West Virginia. Because my grandmother was a badass, she ran numbers and liquor. And she had run it one too many times and she’d gotten locked up. So my father was born in prison; he didn’t know who his father was until he was a teenager. Part of what I came to understand about him and others, and this is one of life’s great frustrations … I tried to expect people to behave and perform in a way that I think they’re capable of behaving. Had I not done that? I don’t think I’m sitting here right now.”
Throughout the hour-long conversation, Melvin reflects on his journey from small beginnings in South Carolina to betting on himself and moving to Washington, D.C. But the lessons of home always circle back for Melvin, whether it’s rooting for Dawn Staley and her Gamecocks or his “Glass Half Full” podcast, which has led to major revelations from his guests, namely Regina Hall and Shaquille O’Neal.
It’s those lessons that have shaped him. And will likely shape the speech he delivers to those students entering a whole new world post-college.