“Carlson was valedictorian of her high school class, is an accomplished violinist, holds a degree from Stanford University, and won the Miss America pageant in 1989. I had this conversation with her in the staff lunchroom at Fox News in New York City.”

Gretchen Carlson developed her journalism skills as a reporter at local stations for more than a decade in places like Richmond, Va., Cleveland, Ohio, Dallas, and Cincinnati before getting called up to the networks by CBS News in 2000. She moved to Fox News in 2006. She has a new book called Getting Real, due out next month. Carlson was valedictorian of her high school class, is an accomplished violinist, holds a degree from Stanford University, and won the Miss America pageant in 1989. I had this conversation with her in the staff lunchroom at Fox News in New York City.

Your grandfather was a Lutheran pastor of a church that grew into one of the first megachurches in the country. He was a huge influence in my life. Not only did he teach me perseverance—because he grew up on a dirt floor in southern Minnesota—he was the only child of five to go past the seventh grade. He dedicated his life to Christ early on, and he made sure that he figured out a way to get to college and then to the seminary.

The way he got to college, I understand, was on a football scholarship. He had never even played football, but he was helping the janitor at the church and the football coach saw him, and he was a big, strapping young boy. He said, “Have you ever played football before?” My grandfather said, “No.” He probably didn’t even know what it was. The coach said, “Well, you’re going to play on the high school football team now.” … He was able to play in high school, got a college scholarship to a small private Swedish college in Minnesota named Gustavus Adolphus, and then he went to seminary.

Read More