How Skip Bayless Changed Sports TV Forever (& Made A Lot of Enemies) | Full Episode | ALL THE SMOKE - All The Smoke

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Mm hmmm, mm hmm.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome back to all the smoke. Day two in our
new building.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
It's still pretty naked, but we just met with the
designer this morning to get some final touches.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
It's it's gonna come alive, trust me, Jack.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
I was really excited about this one because one, first
of all, I have a lot of respect for what
he's done to this space and and and the longevity's had.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
But also I've been outwardly.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
What's the riot word, I can use critical critical There
you go where we're going to work in the world,
soid I could tell you're already finishing my census. I've
been critical of of sometimes some of his critiques, but
you you know me, I'm someone that wants to learn
and have conversations about people that I may disagree.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
With or you know, stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
So before I picked my bone with you, mister Bayless, yes,
I want to really give you your flowers for what
you've been able to do. I really got a chance
to kind of study up on you and your journey
with your family and just kind of the way you
grinded to the absolute top of this business. If there
is a hall of fame for this I'm sure you
will be in it one day, but really just what

(01:32):
you've meant and the inspiration you've been to a lot
of people. You know, you gave Jack his first opportunity,
and we'll talk about that in a little bit, but
really just wanted to let you know, you know now
that you're officially kind of off TV, still in the game,
but off TV.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
That we really appreciated everything you've done in this space.

Speaker 4 (01:47):
Honored by everything you just said. Much respect for you
and the man to your right. I've been on TV
with both of you, and I'm looking forward to being
in your space yea of you, and I hand flowers
back to both of you, because you have blazed a
new trail and I'm in awe of it. And when

(02:10):
I first heard about it, I thought interesting because you
both have wisdom and edge that you brought from many
many years of playing on the edge, and you brought
it together here. It's a great pairing and you broke through,

(02:30):
both of you, and you're on the rise and rising
and you haven't seen the top yet. And you should
both be congratulated because as players, you both had to
fight your way up. That man went, where'd you go? Australia,
Dominican where else? Venezuela right just to get to the league,

(02:55):
and you did your G league time and then you
both broke through and league in different ways in different places,
and then you recreated here and this is more successful
than either of you ever were to me in the league,
no question. So congratulations, thanks you and fire away.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Let's get to get to the ship now.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
So obviously again, you know, you guys changed the dynamic
with Debate TV. But I felt like, kind of like
the last three years and where I kind of was outwardly,
you know, critiquing as you would critique, was I kind
of felt it went from critiquing the game, it went
poor play, shitty team to personal attacks and two people

(03:40):
in particular, I felt kind of it got personal at times.
Was with Russell Westbrook and Lebron James. From your experience
and understanding who you were, your role, how you really
found your niche and again as sail to the top
what At one point I felt like there was a
line again it was critiquing because I was the job,
and then I felt like the line kind of got
erase and it was more personal attacks. Can you kind

(04:03):
of address your thinking during that and reasoning or the
way you looked at it.

Speaker 4 (04:08):
Okay, we got to go one at a time, different
situations and circumstances for both of those players.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Do who want to.

Speaker 4 (04:17):
Start with Lebron? Whoever you would like to Okay, I
say what I see and I still believe to this moment,
Lebron has been the most overprotected superstar in the history
of the game. I have thrown him many, many, many
flowers when it's time to throw flowers. I have constantly consistently,

(04:39):
though nobody wants to hear me do this, but I've
said to this day, to this moment, he's still the
best passer in basketball on a nightly basis. As I
always say, I watch every dribble of every game. He
will take my breath away twice a game with a
pass he'll make where I'll say, that's just specials, that's
a gift. He's a generational passer of the basketball. And

(05:04):
I've said a thousand times sometimes to Batman he is
easily the greatest driver of the basketball I've ever seen,
because he's ambidextrous at six ' nine whatever we give
him now to sixty issue and obviously an explosive athlete
with the highest IQ in basketball. It's somewhere between him

(05:27):
and Magic with the highest IQ.

Speaker 5 (05:29):
Ever.

Speaker 4 (05:29):
To me, that's just me, and I know that's pretty subjective.
I frame all this with the positivity, and obviously what
he's done off the court is stellar. It's not a
l e. But in this day and age, it's close.
We know all the racial social justice what he just
did with Kamala, but highest marks. Okay, So now we

(05:52):
take this man who is the greatest score in the
history of this game, and let's start with this. By
his standards, he's a poor three point shooter, and by
his standards, he's a pathetic free throw shooter. At seventy
four percent for his career, Jordan was eighty four percent.

(06:14):
Magic Bird, they're ninety ish percent KD ninety percent. There
have been so many flame out moments for Lebron in
his career. And remember on TV, I was often thrown
up against Shannon Sharp, who loves Lebron like a brother,
I mean, like like a stalker, right, I mean it

(06:37):
got a little scary for me. Sometimes it was scared,
all right. But he's just proclaiming Lebron better than Jordan. Well,
I'm the biggest Jordan fan in.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
His I'm with you, I'm with you, I'm I'm with youy.

Speaker 4 (06:50):
Okay, Like I get goosebumps talking about Michael Jeffrey Jordan
because I got to know him. I was there in
Chicago in ninety eight for the Last Dance Season. Listen,
this man is. He's in another universe to me from
Lebron Bleeping James. So if you're gonna compare them, I'm
gonna say Jordan never had any epic fails and anything

(07:12):
he did in the playoffs, even when they lost, when
he didn't have Pip yet, he'd score sixty three in overtime.
But Boston and Larry Bird would say, I just saw
God in sneakers, you know, Like, Okay, all right, So
that's the framework of what I'm doing again. Do I
hate Lebron? I don't know Lebron. I'm actually happy I

(07:32):
don't because I'm afraid if I were around him very much.
I think he's a really good guy, a really nice guy,
sometimes nice to a fault. Because I was around Jordan
a lot, not a nice guy all the time. He
was a bad MF man and he wore it on
his sleeves and when it was time to be a
bad MF. He scared the hell out of the rest

(07:53):
of the league. I don't think Lebron scares the hell
out of the rest of the league because I think
they all really like him and he wants to he
liked to a fault.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
Can you give us your reason behind the Westbrook situation?

Speaker 4 (08:06):
So this runs deep for me, and there is some
personal here. I will admit I was with Kevin Durant
fan since he was at Texas. So I was on
a show called col Pizza in two thousand and four
in New York City. I start watching this kid from
DC and I say, this is something, man, this is

(08:27):
going to be revolutionary. He looks like he's seven feet
tall and he's long, and he can shoot the hell
out of it from mid range. I mean shoot the
hell out of it like he's shooting the little free throws,
you know, like it's just it's gimmes where nobody can
touch it because he's shooting it up so high that
you try to defend him, and hey, you can try.

(08:50):
What what are you six eighthies? Okay, so you can
go up as hard and as high as you go
right on time. You can time it perfectly. You can
get as hot, you can hit your apex of reach,
and if he goes up correctly, you got no shots. Yeah,
because it's over you. And he's too damn good at

(09:11):
what he does, and he works hard at it, and
he shoots a billion shots. He's just one of those guys.
He just loves to be in the gym. He's a
jim rat and he loves to practice fifteen feet fourteen feet,
thirteen feet, seventeen feet automatic. So I'm watching him at
Texas and he's already a man among boys, and he's
playing against some kids who are twenty years old, twenty one,

(09:34):
twenty two, and I'm saying, wait a second, this is
this is going to revolution shots. So I start saying
it on Cole Pizza. I'm on with Woody Page and
Jay Crawford. They are laughing at me on the air,
like stop it, it's way too soon. You're overreacting. Then
we had Bill cellphone coach at Kansas, obviously, and Jay Crawford,

(09:56):
our moderator, is interviewing him. It's not on with us,
it's just Jay and Bill. And Bill says, could I
take a left turn here? On paraphrase and I said it,
but he said, I just wanted you to tell Skip
he's right about Kevin Durant because we can't deal with him.
Kansas couldn't deal with Kevin Durant. Okay, So he winds
up in Seattle. But then, okay, I'm from Oklahoma City.

(10:17):
So they he plays a year in Seattle, but they
wind up in Okay. See, I never in my life
could have imagined my hometown would have any pro sport,
especially an NBA team of magnitude, because they land in
Oklahoma City and they got Katie and Russ and James.
Are you kidding me? You have three Hall of Famers

(10:40):
there and you got Surge.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (10:44):
It's like you got to deal with We had.

Speaker 5 (10:47):
To deal with it.

Speaker 4 (10:48):
Okay, So right away what happens is little brother starts
taking more shots than big brother. Russ starts taking more shots,
and UCLA got yourla guy. But I didn't see Russ
coming at UCLA. Stayed for two years, and I watched
him in the playoffs and the marsh Madness and finals,
the NCAA Finals or the Final four, and I could

(11:12):
I don't know if you did, but I couldn't see it.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
Coming.

Speaker 4 (11:14):
I didn't see this coming, right, could go back and
look at what he is averaging, like six or seven
points just coming off the bench. I could. He didn't
even catch my eye. Right, It's Kevin Love and Collinson
and you know, like it is a good team. Okay,
So night after night I'm watching my Oklahoma City Thunder

(11:37):
and Russell Westbrook is taking more shots. I just go
back and show you the numbers. He's taking more shots
than Kevin Durant. I know Kevin's the most efficient scorer
we've ever seen, but still I'm saying that's that's not right.
And so I start to criticize Russ for taking more shots.
This is now I'm on first take. And Kevin didn't

(11:59):
like it because it was bad for their unity, for
their their their camaraderie, for their chemistry.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
Because right, okay, it was bad for the team everybody.

Speaker 6 (12:12):
Okay, if Russ and Katie on the team, Katie should
be taking more shots.

Speaker 5 (12:15):
That ain't No shot of Russ is just.

Speaker 4 (12:18):
So kat When when evening before a game, he calls
over the reporter from the Oklahoma who covers the team,
and he says, I got something for it, and he
blasts me and they put it in the Oklahoma and
then I have to go on TV the next day
and defend myself because Kevin said Skip doesn't no ship
about basketball, and I'm like, yeah, I do, I actually do.

(12:41):
And what I'm saying is completely true and fair. Kevin,
I'm your I'm your biggest fan. How can you do
this to me? Well? I didn't matter to Kevin, but
Russ really really mattered to Kevin.

Speaker 5 (12:53):
Want no division in the locker room.

Speaker 4 (12:54):
Okay, So God bless him because you would have done that.
You would have done that because in the end, all
that matters is that basketball. And remember, Kevin chose to
leave Russ. And I was told by somebody very close
to Kevin Durant the main reason he left OKC going
into his tenth year. That was ten years. That's a

(13:15):
long time he left because this was the quote I
was told. He finally decided he'd never win with Russ
as his primary decision maker because Russ is dribbling the
ball up to court, and it's like Russ gets to
choose every time near you, near you, because Kevin's usually

(13:35):
just over there like can I have it? No, I'm
going solo, And sometimes you get to the rim and
slam it and you say, my god, that was spectacular.
And sometimes the ball is flying into the ninth row
and you're saying, poor Kevin Durant. And he finally said,
you know what, you can shame me all you want
to shame me. I'm going with those guys because I'm

(13:56):
gonna go get me a ring. And did he not
do that? Did he not rise and shine in two
straight finals and take the finals over? I loved it
because they knew Steph and Clay and Draymond and Steve
Kerr knew full well they were not going to beat
Lebron and whoever was left with him we didn't know
about Kyrie at that point, or Kevin loved but but

(14:19):
there was no way that they were going to beat
Lebron without Kevin. And Kevin tilted the playing field.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
Man.

Speaker 4 (14:26):
He just like like, now there, he's too good. It's
not that STEP's too good or play's too good. Kevin,
that guy you you tried to guard and did a
very You did the best job on him. Seriously, I've
ever seen anybody do over what was it six games? Okay,
because because he's just gonna wear you out mentally, and
physically because you can give all you want, but that

(14:47):
that's the best I've ever seen anybody do on him
because nobody can deal with it.

Speaker 5 (14:51):
Nobody.

Speaker 6 (14:52):
I agree with you on some certain things too, about
Lebron and clutch moments and the rust situation. But you know,
I I don't see I can see how some people
take it personal.

Speaker 5 (15:02):
Me.

Speaker 6 (15:03):
I'm I think I'm Russ's biggest fan. I talk about
Russe Moore than everybody. Yeah, and you know I'm how
I'm braun too. But sometimes people got to understand not
to twist what they easily twist your words, but if
they just look at the play and talk about the game,
A lot of things you're saying are true. Yeah, I
think you say about them are true because when you're
talking about the game, you're not making it personal. When

(15:23):
it's about the game, you watch the game. A lot
of players feel the same way. We think Broun should
take over some times in games, Like I remember one
game he passed it to Kyle Koba. He did for
three you know what I'm saying, And I got the
same thing, like, you got to take that shot. It's
not a personal shot at him. But me, if I
was on that team, I would have told him, Bro,
take that shot. I don't care if I'm open. You
got to take that shot. So that stuff you do
be saying just for your for your side, I agree with,

(15:45):
because as a basketball player, you won't throw stars to
make those plays.

Speaker 3 (15:48):
Okay, do you have a photographic memory? You just fucking
love it that much, you study it that much. You
were giving the night Friday Night Game three. I'm just
like clock you said, do you remember something like fuck?

Speaker 2 (16:02):
No, I don't remember that. I mean, Jesus, I love it.
I mean that's a happen.

Speaker 5 (16:12):
Question.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
I mean, obviously being in this space for such a
long time, when did you realize that your word really
started to carry weight?

Speaker 3 (16:19):
And it really kind of whether it was a positive
or a negative, it really kind of had people talking
at what point in your.

Speaker 4 (16:26):
Career I take what I do like crazy, Seriously, I'm
obsessed with it to this moment, I'm more obsessed than ever,
as I just demonstrated. But off camera, I don't think
like that, like I'm important or my words carry weight.
I don't know. It started in two thousand and four

(16:46):
coll Pizza, when I would be shocked when Bill self
would take a detour on Live National TV and say, Hey,
Skip was right about Kevin Durant. And I'm thinking Bill
self knew that I said that about it Kevin. That's
interesting because I actually covered Bill when he was a
coach at Illinois way back when. And I know him

(17:07):
a little bit, but he's really good at what he does.
I know they've had some issues and whatnot, but he's
just really good. So if he said that he knows basketball,
and he knows that I know basketball, so so that
that had gravity to me. That that had foundation to
me where I said, Okay, people are listening watching taking

(17:28):
me more seriously than I take myself because I'm just
spilling because I'm a fan. Nobody loves the game you
played more than I do. Nobody trust me on this.
I just spill it every night. I like to night.
I already looked at the schedule. I'm gonna watch. I
like the thunder Way more than I like the Westbrook

(17:48):
Durant Hard and thunder They were hard to love for me,
just because Russ and then James and it was just different. Hey,
this thing what they got going right now?

Speaker 2 (17:58):
Hey?

Speaker 3 (17:59):
And if they got an unprotected pick next Clippers unprotected.

Speaker 4 (18:04):
Yes, yes they do. And I have been so hard
over the last twenty years on white American centers being
taken in the lottery. Anybody seven foot and above who's
white and American. I can just show you chapter and verse.
They're disasters. You know what they're You know why, because

(18:28):
they're classic, they're classic stiffs. They're just all they got.
All they got is that they're seven foot one. That's
all they got. But they can't play basketball. I can
do a whole long list of but the one I
got I just did on my podcast this week. You
remember Meyers Leonard? Okay, all right, so you cross his path?

(18:48):
Okay you did, Yeah, okay. That was the one where
I got in trouble at ESPN for saying on Draft Day,
because the rumors were he was going to go late lottery.
I said, no, bad idea, really bad idea, and I
used on the air because he's white America. Now is
the eurocenters, you know, joker. And we can just go

(19:09):
on back to Valencuns and all the way back to
Sabonus's dad and all those. So the point is that
the white American sinners have been disasters until I saw
this video to what two years ago, this kid up
in Minneapolis whose father played at Minnesota and was probably

(19:30):
a white stiff at Minnesota. But this kid named Hongred
he could jump, like quick jump, and he was long
and like bean pole skinny, but he could run. I
mean he could run. And his shot is textbook pure stroke,
like like pretty stroke, Like you couldn't teach your kid

(19:52):
to shoot it much better than he strokes it from
three and he shoots it like he means it with conviction.
I'm saying, hey, that kid can play. And the thunder
wind up with him and listen, he's off to a
ripple start this year because he went to Joker on
opening nine and busted his We did a number on with.

Speaker 3 (20:15):
You know, I mean as great as Wimby is and
obviously we don't know the future, but we had a
debate with Kendrick Parkings and can you possibly see Chet
being just as good, if not better than Wemby And
obviously they both have long, great careers, long toast, but.

Speaker 4 (20:31):
Chat out played Wimby the other night and then Wimby
plays at Utah last night and they haven't won a game,
and marking and didn't play and Wimby puts up fives
where he's got five steals and five blocks. Well obviously, well,
I mean, and yet you know I'm gonna do this
with you, just real quick, because you know I've long

(20:52):
been a Spurs fan back to George Gerbin because his
finger rolls and all his magic at the basket. It
just I was mesmerized by the iceman. But I can't
wrap my arms around Pop. I just can't. You had
your issues. He's just like Belichick to me. With Brady,

(21:14):
I think Pop was in large part a product of
Tim bleeping dunking, because Timmy was such a great locker
room leader like Brady was. That Pop could be old
school tough, you know, hard ass and all that, like Belichick.
But Tim would tell everybody it's cool, it's cool, just
just tune it out or whatever. We're gonna win a

(21:37):
whole bunch of games. And obviously Edmina and Tony, but
once remember Pop used to say, when Timmy walks out
that door, I will be right behind him. Well guess what,
ladies and gentlemen. That was eight years ago, and Pop
signed for another three years. Because that was bullshit, that's
what that was. And people swallowed that bullshit from Pop,

(21:57):
and ever since Timmy walked out that door, show me
what Pop has done. Do you see the goat coach?
Because I don't see it. And with Wimby last year,
he ran away with the blocks. Lead crushed chet and
blocks last year, and he was obviously by the end
of year, he was extraordinary. And they only won twenty
two games, and they're not off to a great start

(22:19):
this year. And you say, Chess got a better team,
Sure he does. I mean they're just loaded, They're like
ten deep. But the Spurs have some talent on that team,
and I don't see it reach any fruition. And I'm
wondering how long is the honeymoon for Pop?

Speaker 6 (22:35):
Well, right, what I will say about that is if
you look at the coaching staff, and I was there
with Mike Brown and coach Budd, they both went off
to have great careers and great coaches in anybate to
this day. Okay, So I would say Pop is not
a great basketball coach. Good he's with you. He's a
great leader of men, all right, Because for me, you're
gonna take some heat for that shit. But that's fine,

(22:57):
that's okay, that's fine because because he had great coaches
up under him. I think Papa is a great leader
of men. You know what I'm saying, putting guys in
the right position a perfect example. I would say this.
If I didn't go to San Antonio or the beginning
of my career, I wouldn't learn how to be a professional.
I wouldn't learn how to be approciate that I woult
to learn how to prepare.

Speaker 5 (23:13):
And that's what Pop does.

Speaker 6 (23:15):
He brings He makes everybody buy into a championship ideal,
what should happen, what a championship, a team and organizations
should look like.

Speaker 5 (23:22):
And he brings the right pieces around.

Speaker 6 (23:25):
That's why he had Mike Brown is white, he had
but News, why had PJ, Carlossimo, all these guys. He
even brought Sam Presty, and Sam Presty is doing it okay. See,
So he's good at bringing the right people around there
and leading men together.

Speaker 4 (23:37):
To be you afraid of him, not at all.

Speaker 5 (23:39):
I'm not afraid of nothing. But God, I was not.

Speaker 4 (23:42):
Afraid of him because most guys.

Speaker 6 (23:44):
And I challenged him a lot. I challenged him a
lot because a lot of the things he was doing.
It wasn't because I wasn't a good basketball player. He
was trying to He was trying to make me a
mature man, right, being in games and mad because I
didn't get the ball or something like that, and arguing
with my teammate that wasn't that wasn't the winning way
in San Antonio. So he was trying to raise me
as a man. I didn't understand that at the time. Okay,

(24:05):
I thought he was just being just picking on me.

Speaker 4 (24:07):
But you fired back at him enough times he finally
said that's enough.

Speaker 5 (24:10):
I had enough.

Speaker 6 (24:11):
Yeah, yeah, we actually you know, he didn't give me
my big contract ifter won the championship.

Speaker 5 (24:15):
That was his way of saying, I'm in control. You
know what I'm saying.

Speaker 6 (24:18):
So things like that that'll bother you with pop. But
as a leader, I don't think you're gonna find a
better leader.

Speaker 4 (24:24):
I appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
R C.

Speaker 4 (24:27):
Buford. You played around and under him as the GM
of that team. Yep, I'm gonna remind everybody r C.
Buford did not play basketball. He was a walk on
college football player at Oklahoma State, and he talked Larry
Brown at Kansas and did letting him be a Gopher
on their basketball staff. I don't even know how that started,
but it did, and that led to one thing after another,

(24:51):
and he winds up in San Antonio, and you can
make a case he was the greatest builder of a
dynasty we've ever seen. Because it's pretty easy to take
Tim Duncan, but it wasn't easy to take Tony Parker
at the end of the first round. And it was
definitely not easy to steal My nugenobally at the bottom
of the draft, right, And it was not easy to
go steal Kawhi Leonard from Indiana for George Hill. Remember

(25:16):
it was basically that was the trade was George Hill
and the seventeenth pick, and you get Kawhi. Really, you
got Kawhi Leonard. That's how you build a diocese. So
was pop not blessed to have R. C. Buford?

Speaker 2 (25:30):
Right?

Speaker 4 (25:31):
Okay, so it all came together. But ever since Timmy
walked out that door, I'm not seeing a whole lot
from him. I'm not seeing special where There'll be a
night I'll be watching Wemby and I'll say, you know what,
they got something cooking here, you know, because strategically they
know how to play defense or whatever. I don't see
any defensive commitment. And Wemby is still taking way too

(25:52):
many threes. He's shooting twenty three percent from three and
he's got a beautiful stroke. But it's just like to say,
work seven and four seven four. I don't want him
just standing out there all the time taking eight threes
a game. He took thirteen last night at Utah and
made four of them where to go?

Speaker 6 (26:09):
But what a lot of what pop Black Tim Duncan
picked up on, like you said, Yeah, you know what
I'm saying, a lot of stuff Like they worked hand
in hand, so you know he's It's definitely everybody knew
it wasn't gonna be the same once Tim walk out
that door.

Speaker 5 (26:22):
We all knew that.

Speaker 4 (26:23):
You were in that locker room with him. Was he
not as as powerful a quiet force as there ever was?

Speaker 5 (26:30):
By far? By far?

Speaker 4 (26:32):
He ran there say a whole lot you just knew, yep.

Speaker 2 (26:35):
And he said that tone that you had, that he
demanded that respect, you know what I mean.

Speaker 6 (26:39):
And I think that's why they had so much success,
because if you got that respect at the top, it's
gonna trinkle down and everybody's gonna buy in. I've been
to a lot on his organizations where you never know
who the owner is one and and everybody's not buying in.

Speaker 5 (26:52):
You got coaches with their own way of doing things.

Speaker 6 (26:54):
You got coaches talking behind each other back That don't
happen in San Antono.

Speaker 5 (26:57):
Everybody's buying in on the same page. That's done the
way you have that much success.

Speaker 4 (27:01):
You said it, I didn't. You said not a great
basketball coach.

Speaker 5 (27:05):
Right, No, he's a great leader at though.

Speaker 6 (27:08):
Bringing, but he's not a great basketball coach's leader because
he might he comes from a military background. In my
right or wrong, I've comes fromm so that alone. Being
able to put people in the right place and to
lead guys in the like, that's not easy, as you think.

Speaker 5 (27:21):
He's not an accent. That's why he had.

Speaker 6 (27:22):
But that's why you see the coach that leave from
him or email you done. All these coaches that leave
him become great coaches on their own because there were
great coaches under him.

Speaker 5 (27:31):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 6 (27:31):
He was just leading them and putting them in the
right positions. It's a good quality to have as Yeah,
he's a great leader.

Speaker 4 (27:37):
Probably who was the strongest coach you played for, the
most powerful force in the locker room. Somebody you really
looked up.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
To, Bill Jackson really quiet though quietly.

Speaker 3 (27:49):
But I only got a year of him, and I
got the end the end of his rule, which year
was ten or eleven eleven, where he announc he had
cancer and he was going to step away from the game.
But the aura of his in his presence was strong.

Speaker 2 (28:04):
You know what I mean. And I came in the
year they had just.

Speaker 3 (28:07):
One tune we were going for a three p and
that you know, hurt myself and towards the end of
the playoffs. But the trust he instilled in you, if
you put you out there, he trust you. He's not
going to be a coach. I mean, we know he's
not up there screaming and doing all kinds of shit.
When he puts the guys out there, he trusts him
and he allows you to play through mistakes and make mistakes.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
He wants you to figure it out on.

Speaker 4 (28:23):
The court and a time out.

Speaker 3 (28:25):
Yeah yeah, so I really, really, you know, and I
got a chance to play for you know, a lot
of good coaches, but I think Phil is the one
that jumps to the top as far as because.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
I'm really mental too, you know, I love the mental
side of it.

Speaker 5 (28:38):
Yeah. Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (28:39):
When I tore my knee, he was calling me after
the games like would you see out there? And I'm like,
what the fuck? Who is this again?

Speaker 2 (28:44):
Is my coach? Ex give me what I saw with
Cobe and Big Drew? And so yeah, it was interesting.

Speaker 4 (28:49):
Because he respected your acumen, you view your knowledge your eyes.
So did you ever challenge him?

Speaker 5 (28:59):
I didn't need.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
There was no need to. All right, the interview.

Speaker 3 (29:02):
Ski, I'll just say no, I'll say the reason why
I never there was. There was never need because the
way he talked to Cod set the tone. He wasn't
going for cold ship, and Cod wasn't going for his ship.
But the fact that he could say that the Cod
made everyone else's like, well shit, if he's gonna say
that the cold with the fun that we had in
a book before the before Yeah, but in person and

(29:25):
way him and Ronalds used to go at each other.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
Oh my god, they were talking real ship.

Speaker 3 (29:30):
Ron started talking about Phil's feet one time, how fucked
up they were, and that we lost oay, well.

Speaker 6 (29:37):
Two thousand and seven, what what did you see in
Steven ad to give.

Speaker 5 (29:41):
Him a shot?

Speaker 4 (29:42):
Okay, we go way back before that Okay, first time
I laid eyes on Stephen A. Smith was at the
United Center, the house that Michael built nineteen ninety eight.
I'm at the Chicago Tribune covering the Bulls. Philly was
in town. Steve and I was covering Larry Brown's team

(30:02):
at that point, I think it was covering the sixers
for the Philadelphia Choir. And he came in the media
room before the game and he was suited and booted,
coat and tie. Sports writers didn't wear coats and ties.
And I was impressed because he was trying to send
a message. I'm legit. I take this very seriously. I'm

(30:23):
I'm here to do a job, and I'm dressing appropriately.
He later told me that Larry Brown was the one
who suggested, well, why don't you do because I'm gonna
wear a coat and tie, you should wear one too.
And Steve and I didn't have coats and ties, and Larry,
I think, hooked him up at a mall, at a
shop and a mall where he had some discount or
something so that Steven A could go buy enough suits

(30:45):
to last through a road trip. So that impressed me.
Then probably two thousand, we're here in La now, but
there was a network pre fs one on that same
Fox lot not too far from here called Fox Sports Net,
and Jim Rome had an afternoon show, a TV show

(31:08):
called The Last Word, And I don't know how this happened,
but faithfully we got paired on a show with Jim
as the wingman. So Jim would sit in the middle,
Steven over here, I'm over here. He would Jim would
throw up a topic and we'd start going at it,
and right away I just liked him, and we clicked

(31:31):
and connected off camera because he started to a respect
me and be trust me in ways that me coming
from Oklahoma City and him coming from Queens was a
billion to one shot. But we just clicked and we
were both We had newspaper hearts, sportswriter hearts, so we'd

(31:55):
come from the same business, and he respected my ability
to write, and I definitely respected his bill the report,
And all of a sudden, Jim Rowl was saying, it's
like watching a tennis match where he's just his head's just.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
On a swivel.

Speaker 4 (32:08):
Boom boom boom, and Steven A would let me go
hard at him. And he's got a huge ego, bigger
than my ego, which I love about him because that's
who he is and what he is that makes him
Steven A. Smith. I love that he called himself Stephen A. Smith.
That was just a cool name to me because Steve Smith,
you know, it's not that great. We know some Steve

(32:30):
Smith and it's okay, but but you're not gonna be
quite as big unless you're Steven A Smith.

Speaker 5 (32:35):
Right.

Speaker 4 (32:35):
Smart branding, It was brilliant branding. But I could go
hard at him in ways that there's no way he's
going to let anybody else go at him on camera
on air because he knew in the end I still
had his back, and we can go hard about a
basketball topic because that was his forte. I'm football, basketball, whatever,

(32:56):
but it's mostly basketball, and it would be explosively great
to watch and we both knew it. And it wasn't
like it was contrived.

Speaker 5 (33:07):
It was real.

Speaker 4 (33:08):
It was natural. We just naturally disagreed on just about everything.
So Jim got a contract snafu and left, and they
wanted us to replace Jim with the show PTI had
just launched. It was maybe three or four months old,
obviously on ESPN, so they wanted a PTI esque show

(33:29):
with Edge. That's how they proposed us with Edge, and
a producer is still a close friend of mine and
Steve and A's name John Johnston, came up with the
title sports in black and White. Right, this is two
thousand and two, so we're way ahead of our sort
of time. And we did a pilot and we did

(33:50):
it sort of PTI edo, Yeah, just the two of
us going back and forth with a guest that we
brought in just for the pilot, ray Man Sini, the boxer.
George ran the network came flying out of the control
room when we finished and said I could put this
on the air tonight. Okay, so we're starting to talk
to John about moving to LA and we're going to

(34:12):
launch this. This is a long time ago. This is
twenty two years ago, so this would have changed history
and it ran up the flagpole to the top. And
I'm not going to name names, but somebody way upstairs
said no to Steven A because he was just too
edgy for them at that point. And I'm like, he's
not edgy, it's just he's a showman. He's people don't

(34:36):
take it that seriously. That like they're not going to
overreact to it. That they'll love it, because that's what
you want. You want this kind of edge. I'm edgier
than he is to all the questions you asked me,
because stephen A doesn't take it quite as seriously as
I do. But we're a great click Okay, So I'm
so we got left at the altar on that one.

(34:56):
So when I got to espn Old Pizza, we started
to overlap he was doing quite frankly. We're both based
in New York, so we would be on each other's shows.
And then his plug got pulled and then they took
us up to Bristol and rebranded us First Take. We
had about a three or four year run where steven

(35:17):
A got pushed out the back door in Bristol. I mean,
they did not renew him, and I don't know, you'd
have to ask him the real backstory. But he came
out here to Fox Sports Radio and he was here
for two years. And you can ask my wife about this.
He would call me every day and say can you

(35:38):
get me back on the Worldwide Leader? And I would
beat on every door in that building. You can ask
them all. If I didn't just keep saying what are
we doing? This is ridiculous. He's gifted, he's a force.
We got to get him back here. And finally, I
think it took two years. They imposed their will on him,

(36:00):
you know, because he was too full of himself, I guess,
and made him sort of crawl back, if you will,
and they let him ease back in on New York
Radio and writing for New York ESPN dot com. I
was just ashamed of it, but I kept fighting because
then I was going solo on first take. With the
rotation of guest debaters. We had all kinds of people

(36:22):
coming in, Jameel Hill, Michael Smith and two live stews,
and Chris Bruceard was in the mix, and we had
all kinds of different people coming in. And we had
a run in the t Bow season, which was twenty eleven,
where we just were just raiding through the roof. But
at the end of that season, I told Jamie Horowitz,

(36:43):
who was our showrunner, they would let us have Stephen
A once a week for one segment at the top
of the second hour, and that was it, because he
was still being punished or whatever, and I said, just
get me him. The rotation's fine, and our ratings were great,
but I need him daily where I could wake up

(37:03):
thinking I got him, because that's where you don't lose
any sleep because I got a you know, a new
opponent so to speak. The next day, I wonder how
he's going to be. I wonder what this is going
to be. We got a whole new dynamic tomorrow, wonder
how that's going to work. I wanted to be able
to sleep peacefully because I had my man back. So
to your question, that that's how we fought through that

(37:27):
and finally got him back full time. And the rest
is his year.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
What year did you guys reconnect and finally back full time?

Speaker 4 (37:34):
Twenty eleven he became at the very end. It was
like we were I went to the super Bowl. It
was the Brady. It was in Indianapolis, the Brady Giant
second Super Bowl, So it was right in that week.
That was the first time he came back on full
time and we launched, re relaunched.

Speaker 6 (37:55):
Even I said this, Who knows why I'd be if
Skip didn't put me on first take.

Speaker 2 (38:00):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (38:00):
I just still I look back at that time you
push him out the back door. No, seriously, like it's
it's the dumbest thing. ESPN has ever done in the
history of ESPN. I know some dumb things have happened
that was dumb.

Speaker 2 (38:13):
They making up for it. Now they taking care of
him now.

Speaker 4 (38:15):
Okay, well good, he deserves it. He's worth every penny of.

Speaker 5 (38:21):
Money. Right, He's good.

Speaker 6 (38:23):
Friends, What do you have to say about people feel
like first take debate and how take format was bad
for sports media.

Speaker 4 (38:30):
I don't have any respect for that. As steven A
would say, they can all kick rocks. Okay, so I
know we spawned a million imitators, but I already explained
to you what we had. You want to talk about
rare chemistry. I can't make it up, coach it. I

(38:51):
can't teach it. I can say thank you God for it.
And that's all I can say, thank you God because
we connected and they all tried and failed. Whatever. Because
if you don't know how to do it, or you
don't have any rapport with your debate partner, it will
flop miserably and it'll be hard to watch, and it

(39:12):
will be contrived and tricked up, and you have to
have natural disagreement or it won't work. Because I'm not
sure stephen A really really disagreed with a lot of
what I said. He just it just pissed him off
that I was saying, you know, we're just It was
just as he would say, you get on my last nerve,

(39:35):
you know, and I would get on his last nerve
and we'd be off to the races. He as opposed
to Shannon. It was very different than Shannon. Our chemistry
because stephen A would always say you go first, you
go first, because he wants to do this. Yeah, He'll
be character back and listen to me because he knows

(39:57):
I'm going to prep harder than him. I got the
photograph memory. So he's like, just spew, just go ahead
and just just regurgitate all over the table, you know,
just vomit everywhere, throw all your stuff out. And he
would sit back, classically greatest gift to Gab I ever experienced,
arms folded and say wait a secon, did you just

(40:20):
say so and so and so and so? And I'd say, yeah,
I did, what of it?

Speaker 2 (40:26):
And oh we go.

Speaker 4 (40:28):
But but he would pick a little like part C
of my ABC argument and jump all over it. And
the control room is saying, what the hell are they doing?
Because we've left the topic way behind and we're going
way over here and magic is happening. Okay, I can't.
I can't teach your coach.

Speaker 3 (40:48):
That you were able to catch lightning in a bottle
twice the magic ew and Shannon had. How did how
did that partnership beautiful come apart or come together?

Speaker 4 (40:58):
On Undisputed I needed a new partner, and faithfully and fortunately,
near the end of my run with steven A, there
was a week in which Stephen I had to go
do something somewhere. He was always gallivant and all around
the country doing whatever he did, being steven A Smith.
And we tried Shannon Sharp, I think for three days,

(41:20):
and I really liked him in a very different way
than I loved steven A. But I liked our click
and it was a whole different dynamic because he's out
a year mold. Obviously he's in the Hall of Fame.
So now we had ex player. We didn't have journalist journalists.
We have X player journalists. We both are fitness obsessed,
so we had that in common, and he right away

(41:42):
respected me because I'm like a workout addict.

Speaker 2 (41:46):
I just like it.

Speaker 4 (41:47):
I'm sorry, I apologize for it. I'm crazed, but I
just do it because I like it, and so does See.
And he used to say to me, we're way more
alike than people think, and I believe that's true. I'm
coming out here because Jamie Horowitz, do you guys know? Okay,
So Jamie's here and they're struggling and they're going to
try to relaunch this FS one and Jamie's point to

(42:10):
me was, I just need you to come here or
we're not gonna make it. And he had given me
a start. Remember when we first went up to Bristol,
when it was still kind of cold pizza ish. We
had four segments a show, but it was still that
show they tried to launch in New York in two
thousand and four, which was a bad idea, but it
was the idea of kind of a GMA Good Morning

(42:31):
America of sports, where it's loosely based on sports, but
we'll have these four debate segments to spice it up
and bring back the sports fans. And what we found
and when we got to Bristol was the only thing
that rated, and the whole show where we'd have four
spikes of show, because that's all anybody cared about was
the debate. They didn't care about the pat segments and
the ballpark food segments and the cigar segments and all

(42:55):
those segments. Nobody cared about that. Jamie was the one
who took over a year before steven A joined full time.
And Jamie said, how with all this, I'm gonna blow
out what's left to cole Pizza and we're gonna go
all debate for two It's a two hour show, obviously there,
We're gonna go all debate for two full hours. And

(43:17):
a lot of people in the hallways stopped me and said,
this is career suicide for you and for Jamie. It'll
never work. And the rest is history. So Jamie then
came round about he went to the Today Show then
he wound up here. So I felt like he gave
me that show. He blew it out and sort of
rebuilt it around me in the two hours of full
time debate. So it was up to us to select

(43:41):
should we do a rotation like we did in the beginning.
We thought about it, and I pushed hard for Shannon
because he works hard, he prepares hard, and he shows
up for work on time and love to compete with me. Well,
I can't make that up. Maybe it's not as many
magial is the steven A kind of chemistry. But from

(44:03):
day one it flew and it took off. And to
your point, I appreciate that I got blessed twice because
we took off.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
Yeah, I don't.

Speaker 3 (44:12):
I mean, I don't know the numbers at the time
would first Take and undisputed, But I would say from
just a fan perspective, you guys were right there, if
not above. Like I said, I don't know the numbers,
but the chemistry you and Shannon had kind of overshadowed
whatever stephen A was doing on ESPN.

Speaker 4 (44:29):
We'll remind you. When I left, First Take was still
on ESPN two, which has maybe a fifth of the
eyeballs that regular ESPN has, And as soon as we
launched here took a month, they moved from it. They
moved the show up to the big eyeballs to protect

(44:50):
it because we were going to catch it and pass it.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
Absolutely obviously great chemistry and Shannon had a great run.
Any regrets on how that partnership ended. Yeah, for the show,
and then he regrets on how the relationship.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
Ended, And what did you think about the character, the
Uncle Shay Shake character.

Speaker 6 (45:08):
He didn't come on he didn't come on the show
doing that with the black and mind the do ragging
Hennis and all that stuff.

Speaker 4 (45:13):
When he first started it.

Speaker 6 (45:14):
Yeah, he didn't come on with that at first when
he first got on the show. So when all that
came about, what you think about that too.

Speaker 4 (45:19):
Okay, it's better for you guys to respond to that
than me. But I was still very close with stephen
A at that point. He did not love it, no, yeah, okay, and.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
I deft you nobody did.

Speaker 4 (45:33):
But you know what you talk about branding, You talk
about steven A Smith to be uncle was big for
Uncle Shannon, and out of that which which he I
think it went away. I don't. I don't remember him
doing it much over the last couple of years. I
don't think he ever did it. But whatever UNC stayed,

(45:53):
Shaya stayed, so it ended up being positive for him.
It made me pretty uncomfortable from my seat. But look, yeah,
you ask about regret, I just have one huge regret.
We weren't nearly as close as steven A and I

(46:16):
were close, but I just wanted us to finish together
on time, because over the last year or so, I
would watch what you guys have done here. I would
watch what happens to me on Twitter now x I
would watch what happens to my videos, and I'd say,
the audience is starting to erode on lenear what they

(46:40):
call linear or TV shows. It's here. You guys were
ahead of that curve and then right on time on
that curve, and now I want to chase you guys.
You know I want to do this because I saw
it for about a year. But I wanted Shannon and
I because I saw his podcast was starting to take
hold when he was at Fox. I wanted us to

(47:03):
finish together. And I don't know, as God is my witness,
I'm not exactly sure what happened upstairs, but it fell
all apart and he got pushed out, and I was
blindsided and dumbfounded by that, and I don't like it
to this day. And I'm not a regrets type. I
don't look back and say, oh, if only, But that

(47:24):
was one where it was just wrong. I didn't That's
not how I envisioned because our contracts were concurrent, so
I knew when mine was up, I wanted to go
my separate way, but I wanted us to end the
way it should have ended, because man, we had seven
really good years we had on just pure ratings, we

(47:46):
had about five through the roof years, and that matters
to me. You guys like like you guys, I don't
know if you ever have any spats or anything, or
you disagree on things or whatever, but you're link for
life now.

Speaker 5 (48:01):
Their respect doesn't change though respect.

Speaker 4 (48:05):
But you're linked for life because you've been in this
foxhole together and you've had all kinds of guests on here,
and yet calm only here. It's big and you will
look back. I don't God only knows where it's going
to take all of us in the next twenty years.
But twenty years, if God is good and you're still moving,
you'll look back if you're not doing this anymore, and

(48:27):
you'll have a deep connection and a deep connection. Okay,
That's how I feel about steven A and Shannon. We
went to I don't want to say war. We went
to battle together every day. And listen, Shannon, you're showed
up for work man. He he came. He's extremely competitive
and I am crazy competitive, and so we went at

(48:49):
it in different authentic ways than steven A and I did.
Because steven A he takes it seriously but their showmanship
involved with Steven A that is fun to watch with Shannon,
and I trust me, it got seriously you sat out there.

Speaker 6 (49:07):
I've watched you prepare for a show, Skip and my
boy say, right there, it is intense watching skill prepared
for a show, Like it's just as intense to get
ready for a basketball game.

Speaker 5 (49:16):
Bro, it's the super intense.

Speaker 4 (49:18):
Well that's my basketball?

Speaker 5 (49:19):
Was it? Thank you?

Speaker 2 (49:21):
Did it ever? Because like I said, sometimes you got
into some heated debates with did it ever feel personal?
Did you ever knalk away from the desk? And like,
damn that hurt a little bit? And yeah, maybe I
shouldn't have said that.

Speaker 4 (49:31):
I told him from day one. Yeah, I prep hard,
I'm intense, I'm over intense. But as soon as that
little red light goes off, I let it go, man,
and I never take it home. And if if you do,
you tell me about it and let's sort it out.
And we had some sit down so where we would
sort things out. But he knew early on I always

(49:55):
had his back and that there's no need to like
I was to say on first take, my slogan was
no punch is pulled, but none thrown. You can't get
to the point where you want to throw come on you,
you know, like then nobody wants to watch that, but
they like genuine heat. And Shannon and I produced genuine heat,

(50:18):
and I truly love him for that. Like those are
magical moments to me where I look back. We got
into one time about Tom Brady. I didn't even know
where it went. It just flew off the handle. And
we did have to have a sit down after that one,
and we hugged, you know, like it's it's okay.

Speaker 2 (50:35):
But I think.

Speaker 4 (50:38):
Yes because one because because now we're getting to punch
is thrown right, like okay. And by the way, if
he threw one punch at me, that'd be the end
of me.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 4 (50:54):
So I'm still not sure how it went there because
this stuff is so unscripted. You you're in the middle
of it, like there's there's kind of a quasi plan,
you know, we kind of know what the top the
topical question is, but then it just goes off over here.
You guys just riff off each other. I don't know,
you can't half the stuff that's happened so far in

(51:16):
the show. You couldn't have planned, right because we're just
vibing off each other, and with Shannon, I'm vibing and
it's going here. And you asked me, is it personal
between you and Lebron or Westbrook? After a while, I'm thinking,
is it personal between Shannon and Brady? Because he just
hated Tom Brady to me? And it got vitriolic, you

(51:40):
know where it started to get nasty angry on the air.
And I'm saying and I like, b I don't know Bray,
I never met him before, but he's really good, you know,
like he was. He was really good at what he did.
I think it drove Shannon crazy. He's playing a position
it's not even like a football position, you know, like
it's they protect him. So so all these guys, they're
playing football, and you can really get hurt doing all

(52:02):
these other things except kicker or punter. But all these
guys are doing this, and they're running into each other
the way humans should never run into each other. And
here's this guy called the quarterback and all the rules
protect him. He can slide if he wants to, and
nobody can touch him. And Tom Brady's just standing back there,
patent the football, just throwing deadly accurate passes and just

(52:26):
surgically carving people up at won him seven super bowl
I think he should have won eight super Bowls out
of the t and he played in Shannon's in the
Hall of Fame, obviously, and I think there was some
resentment of how can he be this great because he's
not all that athletic and he can't run a lick right.
He can just speed read, process, poison under fire. He

(52:49):
took some shots. He would get hit occasionally, but in
the end, it's like Wayne Gretzky and hockey. He's just
playing this game above everybody else, and it's all finesse. Ah,
you know, he's he's just operating on a higher plane
than all these hockey goons down here running into each other.
So was Brady, Well, I'm defending Brady, and Shannon went crazy,

(53:12):
and then at some point he's suggesting he's as good
as Tom Brady, or was as good as Tom Brady
at that point still.

Speaker 5 (53:20):
Was He did not say that.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
Huh.

Speaker 5 (53:22):
He did not say, well he did.

Speaker 4 (53:24):
That's how I interpreted.

Speaker 6 (53:26):
Oh yeah, I would have been mad to put your
glasses back on you say some like that.

Speaker 4 (53:30):
Okay, I'm like Shannon, and I told him on the air.
I said, this guy's in another echelon from everybody else
who ever played, There's never been anything like this guy
what he achieved. And Shannon said, I'm in the hall.
I said, I got it. And then he's really mad
and he takes his class off. Okay, what are we
gonna do?

Speaker 2 (53:50):
Fight?

Speaker 4 (53:51):
Because now you got me. You know I can't win
that one. But let's just cease and desist and let's
go on to the next topic. Because that's what that's
as close as we ever got to eruption explosions.

Speaker 6 (54:04):
If you do an our cardio every day, you got
you got good footwell you can move, Shannon hips bad.
He can't move. He just top heavy. But have you
ever seen he just topped. He can't move, He just
top head our cardio.

Speaker 5 (54:20):
He can move. You can stick and move.

Speaker 4 (54:22):
Okay, he couldn't catch me. I know he couldn't catch
But that m F is strong, rich, he's a big,
big boy and works hard at being a big boy,
and it's just hard to Okay, I can't compete with that.

(54:43):
But it's funny. Right before we launched, he would send
me videos. He sent me a video of him and
spin class. So he's on the bike, just just killing it,
you know, and just dripping, I mean like dripping wet
and caption is I'm gonna kick your ass like he's
telling me, I'm going to kick your ass. And I

(55:04):
showed my wife, Ernstine, I said, I do this every day.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
Nothing what really, I'm not.

Speaker 4 (55:13):
I'm not at all intimidated by that. So I laughed
when I saw him. You're not gonna get me that one.
Get me on TV. You got me. You can't give
me that one.

Speaker 2 (55:22):
There you go.

Speaker 4 (55:22):
So I don't know I could. Maybe I could land
a little jab here or something.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
Don't let Jack get you. Let's go back early bringing,
early up bringing Oklahoma City. Yeah, I'm the dad owned
and ran a barbecue spot. Yeah, you're a big barbecue guy.

Speaker 5 (55:46):
The Hickory House.

Speaker 4 (55:47):
Never ate it after I was forced to all the
way through high school, never touched it. After that, I
had my feel and I can't even look at ribs anymore.
And I got nothing against them, but I grew up
on them, seriously up on them. I got forced to
work in that little hole in the wall barbecue place
on the south side of Oakland City, which is the
wrong side of town. It's tough side every summer, every

(56:12):
Christmas break, every spring break, no questions asked. I'm working
at the restaurant. I hated the restaurant. I have a
brother two years younger who loved the restaurant, and he
became a big chef in the restaurant tour in Chicago
and won the James Beard Award for Best Restaurant in
America and Best Chef in America Obama. It's his favorite

(56:33):
restaurant in Chicago called Topolobampo Room. So my brother literally
ate it up being in the restaurant, and I despised
it because I was sports obsessed, and nobody in my
family liked sports, so they couldn't understand why I wanted
to play football, basketball, baseball. And my father, who never
liked me and was a hardcore alcoholic, said you're going

(56:57):
to learn this so you'll have something to do with
your life. And so I'm forced to do crap I
don't like, which is preparation work, cutting up green peppers
to put in a potato salad, and then every lunch
and dinner rush I had to clean off the tables.

Speaker 2 (57:12):
Busboy.

Speaker 4 (57:13):
It's some nasty business when you're cleaning up after people
because everybody smoked, so it's just smoking ashes and butts
and it's disgusting. And if you do that for a
two hour lunch and then he says, take your lunch,
you're not going to be real keen on eating anything,
trust me, you know, especially barbecue. So after a while,

(57:37):
and they did a good job, and they did it
would come and go. Sometimes we'd have a little money,
and sometimes we'd be busted because that's the restaurant business.
But that was my life.

Speaker 6 (57:47):
You still talking about your dad being an alcoholic. Complicated
relationship with your mother with an alcoholic. Can you talk
about that a little bit.

Speaker 4 (57:54):
They both had alcohol issues very differently. My father was
a functional alcoholic. He could wake up in the morning.
I saw this every morning. He would march to the
kitchen and he would pour himself a vodka and orange
juice and just gulp it. And then when we were
coming home, if I worked the lunch and dinner, I'd

(58:18):
have to ride home with him. I had no choice.
I don't know, you know, nobody wore seat belts. I
don't know how we made it. But functional alcoholic. He
would also take always take a big cup, just a
soft cup fill it with half Coca cola, and then
we'd go to the car and he'd pull the vodka
from under the seat and fill it is a big

(58:39):
gold and he's drinking this via a straw all the
way home. And I'm not even thinking. I don't know
enough to know you're driving drunk. But he's said to
be able to function norm Mom slowly fell to the
bottom of the bottle, but she was a fall down
drunk where when she got drunk, she got silly, sappy, lovy, crazy,

(59:04):
can't function drunk. And so I'm the oldest and I'm
dealing with two of them. He left when I was sixteen,
ran off with the woman three doors down who is
my mom's best friend. They eloped to Tulsa, up the
road from Oklahoma City, and I was kind of left
running the household. But it was just tough on me
because I was the first coming up in it. You

(59:26):
have to figure it out, you guys know what You
have to figure it out.

Speaker 2 (59:30):
You have to figure it out.

Speaker 4 (59:33):
You know, how do you do this? How do you survive?
How do you do this? Because I got no guidance.
The other the good part was I had no rules,
I had no curfew. I had no guidance. I could
do anything I wanted. And the weird part was when
I turned fourteen, my mother made my father buy me
a motorcycle. And they weren't expensive. It's a ONN to ninety,

(59:55):
their tiniest, like a sewing machine engine, and it'd go
like forty miles an hour. But she just said, I
don't want to take him anywhere anymore. He wants to
go to all these practices and all this stuff. Just
kidd even just get him out of my hair. Just
give him the motorcycle. So I go down on my
fourteenth birthday. I aced the test, made a hundred on
the written test, and he takes me right to the

(01:00:17):
Honda shop and I'm off to the races. And it's
December the fourth and it's cold. I got a church
league basketball game and I literally strapped onto the banana
seat my back, my basketball bag and it's freezing cold,
and I'm going to First Christian Church to the gym
to play basketball. And I was free man. And so

(01:00:37):
that was fun where I could do whatever I wanted.
But the problem with it is you can't trust anybody
at home. That's the problem.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
Yeah, somewhat similar.

Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
I bring my parents were functioning drug addicts, and I
saw a lot of abuse and violence, and times where
we had no money, and times we fell.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
Out we had a little bit of money.

Speaker 4 (01:00:55):
What your dad do.

Speaker 2 (01:00:57):
My dad was a.

Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
Butcher by day and sold drugs by night, and my
mom was to stay at home mom.

Speaker 4 (01:01:01):
That did he do well selling?

Speaker 5 (01:01:04):
He did?

Speaker 3 (01:01:04):
He did well enough to make ends me. I wouldn't
say well, but well enough. But you know my mom
that was I was born in the eighties. That was
a cocaine phase and era and a lot of different things.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
So I just saw a lot at a young age.

Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
Where were you in the I'm the oldest of three
insane Yeah, until three years ago I found out I
have two older brothers.

Speaker 6 (01:01:24):
Everybody in the eighties, everybody was doing nobody.

Speaker 3 (01:01:31):
But I say all that to say, I mean, I
read when I was going through your stuff that you know,
and I was wondering if that was the reason you're
tough upbringing? Was that the reason why you chose not
to have children? But me, before you answered, on the
flip side, I think I saw a lot. My mom
was super mom, and my dad and my relationship are
great now. My mom passed in those seven and I
felt like when I lost my mom, I gained the

(01:01:51):
dad and now we're great and.

Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
He's a great grandpa grand key. He did start. It's
in his DNA wrestler.

Speaker 3 (01:02:00):
I never fucked with heavy drugs, but I saw that
to say, like, I saw a lot of not what
to do for my dad. My dad had Now that
we're closer, and he told me his upbringing and I
understand he didn't know how to love, was no examples
of loving. I wanted to beat the greatest father ever
because I didn't feel like I had a dad there.
Although he was there every single day, I just didn't

(01:02:20):
feel like I had that connection with him. What was
your reason for choosing not to have children?

Speaker 4 (01:02:26):
I didn't want to turn into him, and I was
afraid I would because I got his genetics. And he
tried rehab twice because he was a veteran of the
Air Force, so he went to VA Hospital to meet
with psychiatrists twice, and the first time, female psychiatrists asked
me as the oldest, do you drink alcohol? I was
thirteen ish maybe no, no, because he had forced me

(01:02:51):
to drink alcohol when I was like four, five and six,
when they would throw parties at home for their little clique,
and their party trick was to get their oldest son
to come in and they would give them and give
me hard something bourbon, you know, because it's just bitter.
I mean, it's it's foul. It's like castor oil taste
to me. So I would sip it and spit it

(01:03:11):
out and they would all laugh. It didn't bother me
at all, but it actually saved me because I'm thinking,
what do you want that for? You put that in
your mouth. That's disgusting. So she said to me that day,
you're doubly predisposed. You've got double alcohol genes in you,
alcoholic gens, so you better be careful. You better not start.

(01:03:34):
So you say, why do you do an hour cardio?
Because I've channeled all that today, Whatever that obsession, compulsory behavior, obsessive, compulsively,
it all goes into this, so at least it's a
positive addiction. Or I'm probably I could go right down
your dad's path, in my mom's.

Speaker 3 (01:03:52):
Path, how instrumental as someone myself again, and we all
probably had our own versions of childhood trauma. At my
age of forty four, now you know, seek counseling, and
my fiance is very instrumental on me kind of unpacking
my childhood and learning how to not be a man

(01:04:12):
because I feel like I've been a man for a
long time.

Speaker 2 (01:04:14):
Just deal with shit different.

Speaker 3 (01:04:15):
Yeah, if you don't mind me asking how you know
obviously instrumental.

Speaker 2 (01:04:19):
Has your wife been in that process for you?

Speaker 3 (01:04:21):
And do you seek outside help to kind of deal
with some of the older shit or what is your
way of kind of dealing with it?

Speaker 4 (01:04:28):
Sometimes she says, maybe you should, maybe you should. I don't.
I feel like I'm good with it, but I've worked
through it. I have to point this out and you
guys can laugh at me if you want. But my
saving grace in my life, what centered me and saved me,
was a black woman named Katie Bell Henderson. And the

(01:04:51):
reason I hate to bring it up is because you
guys probably dismiss it as, oh, it's like the help
or it's plantation mentality. Trust me, wasn't. She worked for
my grandmother, who was not a wealthy woman, but she
traveled for her work. So Katie Bell ran her household
for by day because she wasn't there a lot. So

(01:05:12):
because my home life was such a wreck. I got
left at my grandmother's a whole lot more than I
wanted to get left at my grandmother's. And because of that.
Katie Bell Henderson a black woman born in near Birmingham, Alabama,
but raised on the South side of Chicago. So she
was Chicago tough. She she wasn't deep South. She was

(01:05:35):
she was more Chicago and you know Chicago, both of
you do, okay. So she saw what was happening, and
she was she was my mother, you know, she just
took over and what like five six, seven, eight, nine, ten,

(01:05:55):
all in there in my formative form comp year right
in there, it's Katie Bell taking over my life. She's
my role model, she's my guidance counselor. And she was
hard on me. She was not afraid. It wasn't like
she's playing like the old black lady, you know, like

(01:06:18):
that's that's not how it was. She would take me
by the shoulders and shake me. She taught me the
word hypocrite when I was seven years old, which I
did not know. She said, you're being a hypocrite. Shake me.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
No.

Speaker 4 (01:06:30):
She would tell me the evils of alcohol. You can't
start just don't look. Look what scar was all through
my family and from extended family. Don't start just don't, don't.
And she taught me right and wrong, and I have
good right and wrong in me. I have decent character.
And it all came from that woman. I'm telling you,
as God is my witness, I would not be the same.

(01:06:53):
I would not be stable without what she brought into
my life when it really mattered, and it also helped me.
She had a granddaughter named Audrey who would come every
summer and stay with her for three months of the
summer from Chicago. So I got left over there. And
so now I'm six seven and eight and I'm making
up games in the backyard with Audrey, my age from

(01:07:17):
the South side of Chicago. You want to talk about education,
because Oklahoma City was still segregated, but it's not deep South.
It doesn't feel like like wrong band, you know, like
it's that's not the sort of the mood of the city.
And so for me, even though it was segregated, I
got to interact with this black girl from Chicago. This

(01:07:38):
is gold Man because I'm getting it, I'm feeling it.
And the main thing Katie Bill taught me was we're
all the same, We're pieces of God, every one of us.
You're that color, you're that color, I'm this color. Okay,
pieces of God. And if he was okay, yeah, okay, okay,

(01:08:01):
it's okay, yeah, all right. So the final piece to
my puzzle was my wife, Earnsteine, sitting across from us.
Five years ago. She had a what are you call it?
A shaman mystic uh okay named Joseph, a black man

(01:08:23):
from New Orleans living in New York City that she
had connected with, and he really enlightened her over the phone.
He could see things in her life that she was
blown away by. So she said, just try it. I said,
I don't buy it. I'm not I'm not there. She said,
just just open your mind up a little bit. This

(01:08:44):
isn't like therapy. Just just see what he has to
say about your life and times. Maybe he'll give you
just a tidbit that that will really open you up somehow.
So I get on with Joseph. I don't know, it's
kind of awkward. How do we start?

Speaker 5 (01:08:58):
What do we do?

Speaker 4 (01:08:59):
He's says, well, tell me what you want to know
from me? I said, really nothing. So we're just going
back and forth and it's not it's not cool. And
all of a sudden, Joseph says, and there's no way
he could know any of this. He says, somebody wants
to join us, and I'm like, stop, you know somebody
wants to join us. And he said, yeah, it's a woman.

(01:09:20):
And my first flash is it's my mom. If you're
buying into this what we're doing, and I don't. I
don't want to communicate with my mom.

Speaker 2 (01:09:29):
I'm good.

Speaker 4 (01:09:29):
I put that dressed into bed. God bless her, you know,
like I made peace with that. I don't need to
redo all that. And he says, it's a black woman.
And I'm like what, because I you know, we lost
Katy Bill when I was in college, so it's been
a long time, you know since I really thought. I mean,

(01:09:51):
she's in my heart, but I don't think about her
on a daily basis. I said, Katie Bill. He says, yeah,
it's Katie Bell. And she wants you to know how
proud she is of you. That's a God's true. She
wants you to know how proud she is of you. Well,
I just I got tears in my eyes because of

(01:10:12):
all the things that have ever happened in my whole life.
Nothing from my father, my mother, even from Ernestine, my wife,
nothing could mean as much as me being told whether
you buy this or not, But but it rang true
at the moment, she wants you to know how proud
she is of you. And I don't think Joseph could
have had any idea because my wife barely knows about

(01:10:35):
Katie Bell and all the details of it, so it's
not like she could prep him tee him up for this.
That was the spirits, Yeah, it was. It was spiritual.
It came from somewhere else, so that when you say,
do I need therapy? I got Katie Bell in my heart.
And you can laugh if you want, but that's the
God's true.

Speaker 3 (01:10:55):
Thank you for sharing that. I mean, obviously that was
very personal. I appreciate you opening up and sharing that
with us.

Speaker 6 (01:11:00):
After college, you quickly became a star journalist Dallas Morning
News columnists the twenty six years old What are your
best memories of covering the game as a younger man.

Speaker 4 (01:11:09):
I had so many good ones. I've been so blessed. Well,
you and I share something, mister Jackson, a misguided love
for the Dallas Cowboys.

Speaker 6 (01:11:20):
Yes, and it's not misgott it, you know, you know
it's very misguid It's not misguided.

Speaker 5 (01:11:26):
We want a championship more recent than y'all.

Speaker 2 (01:11:28):
But we've been there enough. We sniffed it.

Speaker 5 (01:11:30):
Y'all been there, but y'all lost.

Speaker 2 (01:11:32):
Y'all have we kind of losses? Now?

Speaker 5 (01:11:34):
Are we doing that again? Yeah, we want a championship
more recent than y'all.

Speaker 2 (01:11:40):
Factor fiction facts, but y'all still suck. But go ahead, skip.
It's not about I don't like the facts though.

Speaker 5 (01:11:45):
They don't like the facts though.

Speaker 4 (01:11:47):
Hey, I'm being interviewed here.

Speaker 2 (01:11:50):
Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:11:54):
It was like a god thing. I wind up as
the lead columnist at the Dallas Morning News right on
time for what was actually the beginning of the end
of the Landry Dynasty, and I got to live inside it.
I got to know Roger Staubach really well. And those
teams had huge star power with Tony dor Set, Charlie

(01:12:19):
Waters and Cliff Harris. I don't know, if it goes
back a little before your time, you're kind of being
molded as a cowboy die hard. I went to my
first game when I was ten. My uncle in Dallas
took me to the old cotton bowlt to see the
Cowboys play a team that was my favorite team at
the time because it was the only team we could
get on television in Oklahoma City was the then Saint

(01:12:41):
Louis Cardinals. They were a high flying offensive juggernaut, and
so I wanted to see them play this Cowboy expansion team.
And of course I sit in my seat and within
five minutes I'm looking down at those stars. They had
them on the helmet and on the shoulder pads, and
I'm saying, love, I want me some of that, right,
And then you're just You're lost.

Speaker 6 (01:13:02):
You who's the first player you fell in love? First
Cowboy player that you attached the Cowboys to like you
fell in love with?

Speaker 5 (01:13:07):
Mine?

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
Was Bill Bates? Really?

Speaker 4 (01:13:09):
Yes, interesting, I knew him.

Speaker 6 (01:13:11):
He was an animal. Well, he's just crazy lying down
the field. Yeah, that was my guy. Bill Bates is
my guy.

Speaker 4 (01:13:17):
Okay, Well Starbach was my guy. Yeah, just because listen,
I know he's before most of the times of the
people who are watching our show right now, But Roger
Stabach was it. He was beyond Aikman, beyond Don Meredith.
He was the ultimate competitor. And speaking of basketball, later

(01:13:38):
after he retired back in my twenties. I played with
and against him a lot of basketball, and he was
completely psycho as a basketball really like like crazy, like
scary crazy, like a good crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:13:53):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:13:56):
He wasn't good, he was just.

Speaker 4 (01:13:57):
I had a friend. You won't know this guy named
pat Too May. He's a great writer. Played for the
Cowboys as a defensive end. He was really good. It's
before your time, but he was. He was a good
basketball player and he's six six. So we used to
play Roger two on two with a guy from his work.
He just easing into his real estate career at that point,

(01:14:18):
and one day we just beat the hell out of
him because Patil comes set picks for me and Roger
couldn't get to the pick because he's a mountain of
a man, and I would just get off the pick
and make shots. And it was driving Roger crazy. So
he rescheduled another game against us and brought Cliff Harris.
Do you remember Cliff Harris. It's again before your time,
but he was Bill Bates before Bill Bates, and he
was certifiably crazy. They called him Crash because he had

(01:14:41):
no scruples, you know, like he didn't care about his body.
So Roger brought Cliff Harris to guard me, which is
hitting a NAT with a sledgehammer, right, And that's what happened,
you know. It was sledgehammer on NAT. But that was
Roger because he's not going to lose to the sports writer,
the sports car. He's just not going to do it.
He's gonna take me. Cliff's gonna take me out. Okay,

(01:15:03):
So he was. I was in awe of him, but
I had the blessing of just getting to know him
in those teams. So even before that, I was at
the La Times out here right out of college, and
I was in the middle of stuff right and left
that The Steve Garvey Dodgers were huge at that point
with Ron Say and David Lopes, and they didn't like

(01:15:25):
Steve Garvey and they didn't like his wife. So I
got that they came to me and wanted me to
write the story. So I was always in the middle
of Like, controversy found me a lot in my writing career,
and I don't know why, but I didn't run from it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:39):
I tackle favorite team to cover, most favorite team to cover.

Speaker 4 (01:15:43):
Of all time, Yes, ninety eight Bulls. I mean last
Dance I'm dancing, man, I'm there. Michael liked me, and
he didn't like many in the media. But I don't
know why. I think he liked me because I was
my own guy and I didn't care what anybody thought.
And he got a kick out of me. And and

(01:16:05):
he opened to me and would call me if I
left him a message, he would call me back. And
listen that championship run with that team, watching that stuff
unfold because they went against Reggie's Pacers and it was
a battle of royal man. It was seven games with
controversy just spilling right and left because Phil would get

(01:16:28):
into it with the referees and and it got that
Reggie and company. They forced it all the way to
game seven. Chris Mallen was on that team and the
Davis's and yeah they were they were legit now and
Reggie was obviously a legit shooter. Score and they got
it to game seven and then Michael said it no,

(01:16:49):
not in my house. So that was the end of that.
But that's my favorite team by far.

Speaker 6 (01:16:53):
Which player was your best interview?

Speaker 4 (01:16:55):
You know, I've been thinking about this because the World
Series just ended. Reggie Jackson, do you know, do you
do you have a field.

Speaker 2 (01:17:06):
I just got to have to pack you off.

Speaker 3 (01:17:08):
I just got a chance to play in his celebrity
softball game Inland.

Speaker 2 (01:17:11):
It was the last game in the coliseum.

Speaker 5 (01:17:15):
At the baseball game he played.

Speaker 3 (01:17:16):
Yeah, yeah, did you incredible his energy or the passion
he still speaks with like he was really cool.

Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
Game is now, so let's go golf. Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:17:25):
Really you should take him up.

Speaker 2 (01:17:27):
Definitely, definitely done in county now really?

Speaker 1 (01:17:31):
Wow?

Speaker 5 (01:17:31):
Yep?

Speaker 2 (01:17:32):
Okay, So last name.

Speaker 4 (01:17:34):
He was coming off a game six at Yankee Stadium
in which he had hit three straight runs on three
straight pitches. Never see anything like that. They're in Fort
Lauderdale for spring training. The LA Times assigned me to
do a big sit down if I could get him
to sit down. And I'm a nobody kid reporter on

(01:17:57):
twenty four four probably and I caught him as he
was entering on a Sunday morning before an afternoon game
in Fort Lauderdamn. You know what it was in Baltimore.
I mean it was Baltimore's in Miami because the Balti
the Oriols were in Miami, so it was at their ballpark,
the old Municipal State in Miami, anyway, I caught him,
introduced myself, and he couldn't have been nicer than me.

(01:18:19):
And I don't know why, because he was big. He
was because baseball was way bigger than it is now.
So he was NFL, NBA stature. He was lift off.
You know, he was the biggest name in sports because
he was always into it with Billy Martin, and he said,

(01:18:41):
let's do this, and he sat down in his locker
and I just caught him. You know how, we're all
in moods, and I caught him in a good mood,
and he just gushed to me and that man is
brilliant about sports life, what's really happening. And I was
just mesmerized, but I got law. I was just taking

(01:19:04):
notes and I would get lost in what he was
saying because it was so pure to me and it
was so enlightening. And then I would see him occasionally
because I was in in Dallas and he would come
to play the Rangers at Arlington Stadium and he would
always remember my name, and so he's my that's my guy.

(01:19:25):
We had him on Undisputed at least one time, and
I'm in all of his presence, just his all.

Speaker 2 (01:19:32):
You can feel it right?

Speaker 4 (01:19:35):
You want to talk about a powerful human being God
to watch him swing and unleash.

Speaker 6 (01:19:41):
The game we played in I think a Rod asked
me a question of what he went through when he
was playing.

Speaker 2 (01:19:46):
That went viral and.

Speaker 6 (01:19:47):
Broke down, really really broke down and broke it what
he went through as a player.

Speaker 3 (01:19:51):
Yeah, we played at some charity softball game in Alabama
at the first ballpark.

Speaker 2 (01:19:55):
What was it called, damn it Birmanham in Birmingham, Yeah, burmah.

Speaker 4 (01:20:00):
I watched it.

Speaker 3 (01:20:00):
Yeah, you had a quote saying I made some money
on TV. Now it's time to make my mark. You've
obviously transitioned off a very successful linear journalistic career. Yep,
you're transferring over into this new form of sports media.

Speaker 2 (01:20:14):
I guess it is. It's the new wave. What do
you expect? How you liking it? And have you kind
of found your footing yet?

Speaker 4 (01:20:21):
I am more excited than I've ever been because I'm
challenged like I've never been. You guys know this landscape
way better than I do. And I'm serious, I'm like
chasing you guys now. But I needed this. I wanted this.
I know I can do it. We're taking baby steps
we're developing three other shows than my current podcast, which

(01:20:43):
is solo podcast. Never even had a guest on it,
but but we've got three in the works and we're
expanding and we're excited. So it's a brave, new world
and frontier again. I'm learning from you guys. I'm watching
closely how you do it. It's been educational to see

(01:21:05):
what scope you have here and how your crew operates,
and how this show operates. I'm learning and I'm starting fresh,
and I like it that I'm against all odds because
that's when I'm at my best.

Speaker 2 (01:21:18):
I like that. Where do you think you know? I
always feel like you know, in this space, there's been.

Speaker 3 (01:21:23):
A huge shift. Athletes voices are more present than ever.
Where do you feel the ESPNS and Fox kind of
sit in this new era? I always feel like they'll
be there, but if they're not, necessarily you have to
be there now to be heard or be seen. Where
do you kind of feel like traditional or I hate

(01:21:44):
to say old school, but almost old school ish media
sits compared to this new wave of digital media.

Speaker 4 (01:21:50):
I think you answered your question as you asked it,
because you guys' voices are much more powerful, Your platforms
are more powerful and than they used to be, and
it's everywhere because of digital so your voices can resonate

(01:22:10):
and echo louder than they they used to. And it's
a beautiful thing to watch. But is there still room
for people who didn't play, who also have a different
perspective on it? Sure there is, so Do I think
studio shows will go completely away? I hope not. I'm
kno going on would for our friends in the business,

(01:22:32):
But this is the new way and this is where
you have to go if you're going to survive in
this business.

Speaker 5 (01:22:41):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:22:43):
Just the other night we saw a huge meltdown by
Dylan's Yankees. In the fifth inning, they gave the Dodgers
six outset inning, and yeah, and gave them the World Series.
Just thoughts on that series. I really thought Yankees had
a sloppy season. I feel like, very talented, but I
think they're you know, they're sloppiness caught up to him.
But I really felt like there's a lot of great
baseball in this actual World Series.

Speaker 4 (01:23:04):
Okay, but the worst World Series ever. Yes, I haven't
gotten over the fifth inning of what became a close
out game that I did not see coming because it's
five to nothing. Judge has found his stroke, He's escaped
his slump. It looked like he was back. It looked

(01:23:28):
like they were back. Stanton was back, Soto was back,
and it felt like they were taking charge. And so
I couldn't wait for We're taking the front. But what
was going to be tonight a Friday night game six?
Because it was going to get really interesting, especially if

(01:23:49):
somehow the Yankees could maintain the momentum and get it
to a game seven, then we could talk all time classic.
And it's five to nothing, and it felt like fifty
to nothing to me because Garrett Cales looked invincible to me.
He looked untouchable to me, and he was so poised
and so in command and control that I'm saying he

(01:24:13):
might just go nine and just shut them out and
do something that we hadn't seen since the days of
my all time favorite baseball player, Bob Gibson and my
old Saint Louis Cardinals, who would just shut you out
in two hours and two minutes and you'd beat the
next game.

Speaker 2 (01:24:28):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:24:29):
It's what we used to call a can of corn
fly ball. It's as routine as it gets to Aaron
judge and he just muffs it because he took his
eye off it for a split second. But it's something
little kids don't do when they're seven or eight years old.
It's just you just can't do that at that moment.
But that now the floodgates still haven't opened yet. Then

(01:24:51):
it's a pretty routine ground ball to Vulpie and it's
a pre routine force out at third, and he just
he gets a little too fine with it, just dirt balls,
and it's it's like a ten foot throw. It felt like,
you know, okay, but you're still you're still okay. And
it's ground ball to first and Garret Cole just loses

(01:25:14):
his mind for a second and he doesn't cover first.
And now the floodgates have opened because you've done the
three things in one inning that I didn't think you
were capable of doing one thing in one inning, and
you've tripled it. You've gone triple jeopardy to the point
that that you could just see the body language of

(01:25:35):
the Dodgers like, we're gonna give us this seriously, And
the floodgates open into the Yankees credit. They fought back
and took the lead again. But you just knew what
was coming.

Speaker 3 (01:25:47):
That was coming, Okay, after every year they made I
was telling Dylan, the baseball guys don't like this, Dylan,
the baseball gods don't.

Speaker 2 (01:25:53):
They just don't.

Speaker 3 (01:25:56):
Baseball gods still hot topic, obviously, coming off what from
the outside looking in was a very successful season for
the WNBA, with the growth of the game and the
young stars coming in the game. But when you look
at the numbers, the league lost over forty million dollars.
Do you see light at the end of the tunnel,

(01:26:16):
and you, obviously because you were around, do you see
any similarities to where the w is at this point
and where the NBA was in their twenty seventh or
twenty eighth year.

Speaker 4 (01:26:24):
I'm trying to step back from it and comprehend what
just happened to this league. I wasn't a big Caitlin
Clark fan when she was at Iowa, so I got
into it a little more in the final four, and
certainly the final game, I found myself captivated watching her,

(01:26:45):
and I don't obviously she brought a lot more white
people back to watch the game, but it seemed to
all swirl around her whatever new popularity Like, I'm not sure,
she saved it, but she changed the game and I
still can't quite explain why, because I thought she was

(01:27:10):
just a three point shooter and I didn't see this
at Iowa. But but she's a Lebron asked, passer of
the basketball. Yes, okay, so I didn't see that coming.
And she led the league by far and assists. But
she shattered, I mean, like obliterated the all time turnover
record and it wasn't She did it by like seventy

(01:27:31):
five turnovers. Because she will try anything at any moment,
thread the needle where there's seventeen hands in between and
you're not going to get the basketball through, and she
tries to get it through. But every once in a while,
she'll throw some lead pass like Wes Unseld used to.
You know, Kevin loves good at it. But she'll throw
some lead passes just it's a touchdown, you know, where

(01:27:52):
she'll hit somebody right in the hands for a lamp.
You say, pooh, that's that's Lebron asked. She has an
effortless distance stroke from the logo, where was she jump
shoots and a lot of the women before it weren't jumped.
They're set shooters. They're like feet on the floor shooters,
but she can actually leave her feet and hold the
post and flick a wrist and get it that. As

(01:28:14):
you guys know, it's a long shoasy man. It's not
that easy to get the ball to the basket. And
she'll make an occasional logo shot where I'll say, huh,
that is obviously steph like. Yet she's not a very
good consistent three point shooter because her percentage was like
thirty three percent. It was way down the list of

(01:28:35):
three point shooters. Plus she's high volume, low make. And
yet she completely changed the way that team plays basketball.
And I got addicted to watching that team, not just
because of her, because all of them, because it worked.
Now they've fired their coach because they are going to
bring in a better coach. They think they're going to
get the Connecticut coach. I guess. So my answer to

(01:28:55):
all that, it's a great question. But all I know
is I started watching because I was mesmerized by how
great she was and how bad she was all at
the same time, and it was captivating to my eyes.
I don't know, so she became it. She's not very strong.
She needs to get a lot stronger, and they're taking
the ball away from her. But help me out, would

(01:29:16):
you watch her?

Speaker 2 (01:29:17):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:29:17):
Absolutely, I really I enjoyed the W as a whole,
and we're working on kind of a little bit of
a passion piece kind of comparing where the W is
now compared to the NBA was then, you know, and
almost comparing, not because we still have to see what
these women are going to do, but kind of how
Magic and Bird brought some life to the game. How

(01:29:38):
Caitlyn and Angel brought some game life to the game.
How there's a Juju and mj were coming down the
pipeline with new breath, crash air in the game. There's
you know, there's a gain full of similarities to where
they are and in their respective times. Yeah, quick hitters, man,
this has been amazing. First thing to come to mind.
Let us know your this is gonna get spicy. Top

(01:29:59):
t in NBA players of all time.

Speaker 4 (01:30:02):
Of all time, all the time, she warned me, And
I would have brought my list in my man Tyler's
over here, maybe he could help me. Yeah, okay, so
I think we all can agree on the number one
name on that list. Jeffrey, Yes, thank you, Jeffrey and
I've got Magic two, and now I wish I had

(01:30:24):
my list. I think I had Shack three, Kream four,
Duncan five, Bill Russell, Kobe seventh, Larry eighth, and lebron
Is ninth. Okay in Wilts, Thank you, Tyler.

Speaker 3 (01:30:40):
Any Larry Bird stories can you give us one? I'm
a huge fan of Larry Bird.

Speaker 4 (01:30:44):
Two quick ones. So I'm at the Final Four, nineteen
seventy nine, Salt Lake City. Gil Brandt then the Cowboys
GM would always run a hospitality suite for the college
basketball coaches under the auspices of he's trying to find
the next Steven Jackson who can be a tight end

(01:31:06):
for him that can sort of transfer height speed over
into football. Allegedly, I think he just wanted to be
a power broker. But he would have all the best
coaches come through the suite because they weren't all participating
in the Final Four. So on Sunday, ahead of the
Monday night game, which is going to be Bird Magic,

(01:31:28):
Indiana State Michigan State, I'm in the hospitality suite and
Gil pulls me aside and he said, listen, I've talked
to all the best coaches. Dean Smith, the Bobby Knights.
They don't believe Larry Bird can play at the next level.
I said, seriously, because I hadn't been able to see.
I saw him in the semi final, but it wasn't enough.
I think they played de Paul Mark acguire, who I

(01:31:49):
got to know in Dallas, and he said, yeah, the
quote I keep hearing is Larry Bird is too slow
footed to make it in the NBA. So I wrote
a piece for Monday Warnings, Dallas Morning News newspaper, in
which I said that there are coaches here who don't
believe Larry Bird can play. I didn't say it, but

(01:32:09):
I said there are those here because I don't think
he was making that up or exaggerating that they lose
obviously to Magic and Gregory Kelser, who they were just
too good for what Larry had in the United State.
And uh, that was real, like really really wrong, because
he could really really play for a thousand other reasons

(01:32:31):
than slow feed because anticipating steals, he got his hands
on a lot of basketballs defensively where slow feet didn't
really come into play. And obviously he's shooting him back
behind his head and it's like Kevin Durant you just
he's sixty nine. You're not gonna be able to bother
that shot a whole lot. And he was just deadly,
especially when it mattered the most, and a great passer.

(01:32:54):
So I'm in Dallas at Reunion Arena. I don't know
if you ever played at old Reunion's probably before your time.
But he came for to play and was at a
shoot around, and I just went up to him and
apologized to him, and said he didn't care who I
was or what I was, but I just apologized to him.

Speaker 2 (01:33:12):
So then we.

Speaker 4 (01:33:13):
Fast forward to the eighty six All Star Games played
in Dallas, and it's the one in which he's in
the three point contest where he shoots the last one
and puts his finger up in the air while it's
in the air, I got you, okay, And I'm told
from a Mavericks insider who was in the locker room.

(01:33:33):
I remember this is nineteen eighty six. There's only one
human who could get away with this. But do you
know this story about what he said to his opponents?
I heard a little bit before it, Okay. So he
walks into the locker room and it's only how many
guys are in the three point eight and all the

(01:33:55):
rest of them are not white. And Larry Bird says
to them, this is what I was told, which one
of you?

Speaker 3 (01:34:06):
And you knows huh no, oh, no word word the earliest.

Speaker 4 (01:34:13):
Word in the history of the human language abolished is
going is going to finish?

Speaker 5 (01:34:20):
Second?

Speaker 4 (01:34:20):
Which one of you is going to finish?

Speaker 2 (01:34:23):
Seconds?

Speaker 4 (01:34:26):
They say, Okay, there's only one human and this is
nineteen eighty six. Who could get away with that?

Speaker 2 (01:34:33):
To me?

Speaker 4 (01:34:34):
And it's that guy, That's what I was saying. But
it's that guy. And they already knew what he was
because he's winning championships and MVPs. So I assume I
think it's Craig Hodges was the best of his opponents,
and they're probably just.

Speaker 2 (01:34:48):
Like, damn you.

Speaker 6 (01:34:50):
Okay, fuck you too, ye yeah, I mean to Bird's
created he used to get white, I mean get mad
when white guy's gardener said that was the insult. Nobody
can Okay, eight mile race, you broun tyreek Hill and
Mookie Betts, who wins?

Speaker 4 (01:35:08):
Who are the you bron bron.

Speaker 5 (01:35:11):
You braun tyreek Hill and Mookie Betts hate.

Speaker 2 (01:35:14):
That's a hell of a question, my race.

Speaker 4 (01:35:16):
I'm going with you I think I might beat him
by a mile.

Speaker 2 (01:35:20):
Yeah, I'm going to skip.

Speaker 4 (01:35:21):
Well, I mean when if any of those humans they
three miles, it's what I do every day, it wouldn't
be fair. And it says nothing about me athletically whatsoever,
except I'm in really good shape. Yeah yeah, but athletically
it says zero. But they would have no chance. And

(01:35:46):
if any of them, I would like to do it.
If any of the if they're listening watching, now, let's go,
I'll be there and bring your wallet hardly and skip.

Speaker 2 (01:35:57):
What makes Skip Bayless happy?

Speaker 4 (01:36:00):
My wife does make me very happy, yes, I must admit.
And my dog Hazel makes me very happy as she
knows Maltese. Is she ate now eight? Then she's eight.
But those two keep me right, that they keep me upright.
They they make me very happy. Tonight is date night

(01:36:26):
and I'm looking forward to it. And I can say
this about my wife, God's truth. Not once in my
life with her, and we started in five, we got
married in sixteen, but so five we're almost twenty years together.
There's never been one moment with her I've been bored,
not one moment. I do play golf, but I don't

(01:36:48):
play cards. With the guys on Wednesday night. I don't
go out with the guys on Friday night. I just
want to be with her. I'm obsessed with what I
do and it makes me very happy. Because it's Saturday,
is fine, But I only look forward to the time
with her because every second I have not doing this

(01:37:09):
thing this microphone is dedicated to her and too Hazel,
and so she does make me very happy, whether she
believes it or not, and half the time she doesn't.
Again for day night, no Oaklhoma City's at Portland watching.
We're going to watch the come.

Speaker 5 (01:37:30):
On Top three Jordan's to wear.

Speaker 2 (01:37:37):
Oh god, you like the ones? Yeah, you'll be a
big one guy.

Speaker 4 (01:37:43):
You know what my top three?

Speaker 6 (01:37:45):
We used to compare shoes when I was working with Well.
I used to check his drip every day, drip Bayless.

Speaker 4 (01:37:50):
I do like the Concords the elevens both high and lows,
and so they would probably be high and low would
be my second two because they're away beyond all the
others that I.

Speaker 2 (01:38:01):
Had quickly explain their relationship between you and Lil Wayne
and then you guys seem like you guys are really
good friends. Yeah, yeah, he loves skipp that's my boy loves.

Speaker 4 (01:38:14):
You know that he loved our show. This is pre
stephen A and I think you helped get him to
My wife helped book this, but somehow she connected with
his people. And because he was playing a concert in
Westchester County and outside of New York City, it was
a fairly handy to hour bus ride. He was on

(01:38:35):
his tour bus to come to Bristol and he wanted
to come to Bristol and be on first take. And
he came to the pre show meeting which started at
seven thirty in the morning. I don't think he went
to bed, no, right, nope, but they literally pulled their
tour bus right up to the door and we start

(01:38:57):
talking across the table about Steph Curry. And it was
before the Steph Blake draft. And everybody at ESPN loved
Blake Griffin and I didn't because I'm an Oklahoma fan
by birth, and so I'd watched Blake for two full
years at Oklahoma and he could make a shot from
like a foot away, seriously, but he was, as you know,

(01:39:20):
extremely explosively athletic at whatever six ' ten, could jump,
you know, to the next county. As an explosive dunker.
But I don't know. I just didn't. I didn't love him.
He reinvented himself as a three point shooter and extended
his career shooting threes. But I was in awe of

(01:39:42):
little Steph at Davidson because I said, this is revolutionary,
and I kept saying his handle is way better than people.
He can play point guard because he's not a flashy passer,
but he's a really good passer with a great handle,
So forget just about the shooting. He can run the
basket ball team. So Wayne is agreeing with me, and

(01:40:03):
no one had agreed with me at ESPN, and we
clicked over Steph at Davidson because it's before the draft,
and we agreed we would both take Steph number one
in the draft above Blake And when do you go
seven in the draft?

Speaker 2 (01:40:16):
Like, come on? Really?

Speaker 5 (01:40:18):
Okay?

Speaker 4 (01:40:18):
So that started it. And then he took me after
the show out to the tour bus where he has
a recording studio. It's like a bathroom size studio on
the bus. Did did you get a contact?

Speaker 2 (01:40:32):
I don't.

Speaker 4 (01:40:37):
I don't do that. Yeah, And so I'm pretty susceptible
to contact.

Speaker 2 (01:40:45):
And I was.

Speaker 4 (01:40:46):
Feeling real good.

Speaker 5 (01:40:49):
Good.

Speaker 2 (01:40:50):
We could we could re enact that feelings.

Speaker 4 (01:40:54):
I'm sure I should try that sometimes. Maybe that would
would sort of calm me down. But the point is
then we just clicked. I don't know, but it's pure
sports you want to talk about, coming from opposite ends
of the earth. So it was that when he moved
out here four years ago, my wife and I would

(01:41:15):
go visit him. I don't know, every couple of months.
We'd drive out to hidden hills out in the valley.
And I know people won't believe this, but we would
sit and talk, the three of us. He would include
her because he does love her and has like a
big sister, and we would just talk about not about
sports because she's not the biggest sports fan. We would
just talk life stuff, show stuff, I don't know, music stuff,

(01:41:38):
behind the scenes stuff, a little sports. She says that
it would work its way in. But but we would
talk for four straight hours with no bathroom breaks, no food,
and no drink but occasional puffs, you know, right, yeah, okay,
so but that's but we would sit outside because Ernestine
doesn't deal great with the smoke. We just sit out

(01:41:59):
on the backboard, just talk Okay, so that's how it,
that's how it happens and whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:42:05):
People don't know whatever Wayne is.

Speaker 6 (01:42:07):
He's in the studio nominally from like eight in the
evening to like nine in the morning normally. Whatever he is,
basketball sports is on every TV. There's no TV, no
shows and sports on every whatever game is on ESPN,
like it.

Speaker 5 (01:42:20):
That's all he watched all night long. That's that's why
he knows so much about sports.

Speaker 4 (01:42:24):
No, he is obsessed and also brilliant, like deep brilliant.
My favorite communication with him is text because we kind
of play can you top this when we're going back
and forth, and I would look at the text chains
and I would say this, this, this could be a book.

(01:42:46):
He knows what he's talking about.

Speaker 2 (01:42:48):
And it's like deep passionate, deep.

Speaker 4 (01:42:51):
Passion of what makes somebody tick tick, you know, like
what's really happening with so and so so.

Speaker 5 (01:42:58):
He didn't see it a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:43:00):
You covered Mike Tyson in his prime. Yeah. Thoughts on
the upcoming fight with him and Paul at Jerry's World
where Jerry's Okay, you're welcome, I'll be there.

Speaker 6 (01:43:09):
No, I know I told him he was coming, because
any otherwise you can come down there, you ei the
j mac honey can come. I called it, like Jerry,
I'm bringing some forty Niners fans from Kelly.

Speaker 5 (01:43:18):
They cool.

Speaker 6 (01:43:19):
He was like, yeah, they cool because it's a boxing match.
But if it was a game, y'all couldn't come in.

Speaker 3 (01:43:22):
Okay, cool, exactly, skip the call in too.

Speaker 4 (01:43:30):
The closer we get, the more fascinated I get by it,
because at first I scoffed like everybody else did, and
then I start to think that guy, there's some special
guys you know, who are just special, special whatever they're
made of. Obviously, Mike didn't take care of himself when
it was time to take care of or he could
have done whatever he wanted to do. But when he

(01:43:50):
was right, he was the baddest on the planet and
arguably the baddest who ever walked, ever walked. And whatever
for that quality is is still percolating inside there. There's yes,
And he looks like he's in pretty good shape, because

(01:44:11):
I'm in really good shape. And so I look at
it and I say, he's fifty eight. Okay, okay. So
at first I thought, there's no way he can beat
this kid, because this kid's pretty athletic. In his decent body.
He does. Then I start watching it. I don't know
what Jake's doing, but but he looked like he'd put

(01:44:31):
on a little weight to me, just to just paunchy,
excess weight that he does not need. And I start thinking,
is Jake really taking this as seriously as you better
take the I hope he is. Or I know they're
wearing big old pillowcase gloves, you know, like pillows. But
still Mike could hurt him. If if Mike goes like

(01:44:54):
Haywire screwy, you know, like where he calls upon that
thing that's it's locked deep down side, then he could
do some damage.

Speaker 6 (01:45:03):
But that's why I feel scared for Jake, because the
best boxes are the ones that can inflict pain but
also mentally in control. The best one was Floyd Terrence
car for those type of guys. So Mike is more
a piece than he's ever been. That's what's scary. That
he's going He's not showing up to the fight. I
want to eat your kids. He showed up with how Jake,

(01:45:24):
That's what's scary. So if you think Mike not showing
up going crazy, it's more frightened than the calm Mike,
you better think that.

Speaker 3 (01:45:31):
It's another thing you need to look at it about boxing.
Roy told us he wasn't. Mike was supposed to. They
were supposed to kind of supposed.

Speaker 2 (01:45:36):
To chill him. I saw Mike he head movement. His
powers is still there.

Speaker 4 (01:45:43):
No, he can't help. At first I thought Mike wasn't
taking this very seriously. And then Jake started to insult
in like personal shot, insulting. And after a while you
could see Mike's eyes and they're going crazy eyes like
like good crazy.

Speaker 6 (01:45:58):
Like Mike had time to get his health, like you
want to play jail. Okay, give me some time to
get my health. Right now, I'm going to come knock
your ass out.

Speaker 2 (01:46:05):
Shall see?

Speaker 6 (01:46:06):
We should see if you could see one guest on
All the Smoke, who would it be? But you have
to help us get your answer on the show Donald Trump?

Speaker 2 (01:46:17):
Oh nice? I like that.

Speaker 5 (01:46:19):
Nice.

Speaker 2 (01:46:20):
I would definitely sit down with Nice. I can't help,
but yes, yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:46:23):
That's that's a good one. I like that. A lot
of you want to see that.

Speaker 2 (01:46:26):
I would well, skip man, thank you very much.

Speaker 3 (01:46:29):
And before we get at it, I just want to think,
like I said, I've always had a lot of respect
and been a big fan and and in this process
of finding out we were going to get a chance
to interview, I got to dig deep and and do
my research and kind of find out what you're about
and who you're about, and and and hear you out,
and it just made me more of a fan of
what you do. It was honored to get a chance
to work with you early on and definitely looking forward

(01:46:50):
to seeing what you do in this next step. As
hard as you work, I know you'll be successful.

Speaker 5 (01:46:54):
Man.

Speaker 3 (01:46:54):
So we just really want to on behalf of both
of us extend our you know, our biggest.

Speaker 6 (01:46:59):
Gradi and appreciation for opening that door. You know it
undisputed for us too. That was big for both Thanksciate that.

Speaker 4 (01:47:06):
All that means a lot. I love both of you.
She knows this, My wife knows this because of how
you fought. Because you're both your own men, and you
believe so passionately and deeply in what was down inside
of you that you fought back. And you have true

(01:47:30):
edge to both of you. Why this is exactly working now.
I have deep edge in me because by nature, if
you know me at heart, I'm a fighter, I'm a
competitor and I have kindred spirit to what you're achieving
on this show. So God bless both.

Speaker 2 (01:47:48):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:47:49):
I remember reading you stop fighting high school though, that's
when you give it up, skip you the scrap I
was reading.

Speaker 2 (01:47:56):
I read about you.

Speaker 3 (01:47:59):
The fifty broken nose and two black guys still went
to school the next day.

Speaker 4 (01:48:03):
Took one shot, Yeah, from Jamie Staley in fifth grade.
I took one and my nose was flatten.

Speaker 2 (01:48:10):
I did. He wrote about that's how I do. I
read that pieces like I love that gifts like in
high school.

Speaker 4 (01:48:17):
I said, yeah, but it was a sucker punch.

Speaker 5 (01:48:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:48:21):
Before we get out of here, we're gonna.

Speaker 4 (01:48:26):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:48:26):
We've launched the fight side of our company. So we
got some all the smoke, fight some all the smoke,
a shirt looking and then we're you know, most proud
of you know, we've we've teamed up with Simon and
Schuster to do our first ever podcast, first podcast ever,
Soldier boy can't say that you ain't got off your

(01:48:47):
table book. So again, in honor of just your greatness
and and taking the time with us, we want to
make sure we get all this to you and thank
you for being on the show.

Speaker 4 (01:48:56):
Todaye Ship thank you.

Speaker 5 (01:48:59):
Yeah, give it up.

Speaker 2 (01:49:01):
Skip, thank you. Hey man, Now where can you catch
this episode?

Speaker 5 (01:49:07):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:49:07):
Man, that's a wrap.

Speaker 3 (01:49:08):
Amazing at a great time today, sitting down with with Skip.

Speaker 5 (01:49:11):
But you can catch this.

Speaker 3 (01:49:12):
On all the Smoke Productions YouTube and the DraftKings Network.

Speaker 2 (01:49:16):
We'll see y'all next week. See y'all next week.

Speaker 1 (01:49:19):
Mm hm mm hmmm mm hmm.

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How Skip Bayless Changed Sports TV Forever (& Made A Lot of Enemies) | Full Episode | ALL THE SMOKE

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}How Skip Bayless Changed Sports TV Forever (& Made A Lot of Enemies) | Full Episode | ALL THE SMOKE