The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - South Beach Sessions - Skip Bayless

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

The legendary Skip Bayless gets together with Dan Le Batard for an all-encompassing conversation unlike any other... this one is for the books! Skip and Dan go over every inch of his career, his departures from ESPN and Fox Sports, why LeBron will never have the “clutch gene”, and what really happened with Undisputed and Shannon Sharpe. Skip also opens up about his cold upbringing, his experience growing up around abuse and alcoholism… where he found the relief that got him through it all and how he's never been more ready for what’s next. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Get a credit card annual fee waiver and earn C plus points faster with the Scotiabank Ultimate package and bank more entertainment Learn more at scotiabank.com slash banking packages conditions apply Scotiabank you're richer than you think Welcome to South Beach Sessions. This is very exciting. Look at who we have here. This is Skip Bayless. Why are you rolling your eyes already? You're rolling your eyes already? I want to get you comfortable. This is a man among a few of them that set the lights on the path for me as a columnist. We have a great deal in common. He was at the Miami Herald before I was. He was at the LA Times before I was. He was on Sports Reporters before I was. Him, Mike Wilbon, Mike Lupica, Kornheiser,

they showed me how to be a sports columnist. And in some instances, how I didn't want to be a sports columnist. We took detours when we got to our 50s and I want to talk to you about that. I've been pretty critical of you and debate culture and Stephen A Smith. I don't know how much of that has gotten to you. I don't know how you feel about how much of that has gotten to you. A bit through Stephen A who you have grilled about ruining it all for all of us. Wasn't that your? Contaminated it in a way that made the athlete a little less human than I would like him to be.

But you guys also created a path for me where I was able to zig where the zagging was because I became a player apologist, someone who was viewed as a player apologist because I was less critical of the athlete than you guys were. And there's great money to be made in everything that we're doing.

Some of it feels like professional wrestling. I know that you don't feel like a wrestling character. No, I'm completely the opposite of a wrestling character in that to a fault, I'm as authentic and real as you can get. And it took Stephen A a while to grasp the fact that while I loved him, I genuinely wanted to beat him every time we argued sports. It became known as debate, your least favorite word in the culture. And he realized over time, I'm as real as you

can get to my core, that I take it very seriously, way more seriously than I take myself. But if you challenge me with the little red light on across the desk from me, I am going to fight you to the death, to the TV death. But when it's over, I'm over, I'm done. And when we go to break and I walk away from the desk for a couple of minutes to start to prep for the next debate, I have let it completely go. I don't hate you. I won't take it home with me as my wife Ernstine will attest. It's a sports debate that I took very seriously and I probably kicked your ass in it. But now we go to the next one and we're still good and I still love you and I want you to love me.

But it's very real and it translates through the camera especially to younger viewers. Wow that just happened and that felt like it wasn't fake, that it wasn't tricked up, it wasn't contrived debate. That felt real to the viewers because it was a thousand percent real. So that's where you and I were different from the start. Well I will say you're a game-changer in this regard because you basically birthed the idea of debate television, of conflict, one of the objections. Not consciously, it just just organically it

just it's just who I am. So I started actually being me. I don't play a character, I play me on TV. And if you know me off camera, I can be a little shy and less gregarious than others in our business. But I think for my mom, she was very outgoing and a very good public speaker, and she forced me, when I was in maybe third grade, to take public speaking lessons because her mother had forced

her to take same lessons from same person. So a woman who was in a wheelchair, this is in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, named Miss Miller, and I had to go every Wednesday to Miss Miller having memorized a poem or an oration or whatever to give for Miss Miller. And then we would have recitals every six or so months at a church where all the families would come and you would have to stand up having memorized your work and emote and project the way Miss Miller taught. So I had that gear in me that when the light comes on, I can go and it's not fake, it's actually the realest part of me.

I'd argue it from a far a different way because my my observation of this and this has to do with recognizing me more than you is that this version of you is actually the most confident version of you. The other version of you wherever it is away from the light, wherever it is that the idiosyncrasies are or the patterns. You grew you grew up rough though, your, your biography, your parents, uh, it seems like a hard household that you grew up in and those marks would be something that allow you in this space to be the performer, the best you, the most confident you, and then you don't have to look so much at the places where you're not as comfortable inside of your identity. because I've always thought that the

Reason that you think this is such a serious thing that we're doing is because it feeds you the most it Nourishes you to be good at this to be arguing with somebody in front of people and then be a winner feel like a winner Okay, I would buy that I think it's very insightful and not to go too deep on this but I I would buy that. I think it's very insightful and not to go too deep on this, but I was the first born into a household of two parents who didn't even finish high school. My father was just a bad man. He was evil to the core. I don't know. I asked my mother many times, why did you marry him? And they just had a sexual click from the start, as a lot of people do. and they just had a sexual click from the start, as a lot of people do, and she made a mistake and stuck with the mistake

for the sake of her mother to impress her mother. And I was the first and then my brother and then my sister came, so there were three of us stuck in a household with the father who tore us down, especially me as the first born, because it came across to my father that my mother started to love me more than she did him.

So he constantly, physically tried to beat me down, but he couldn't because I grew, I was pretty big for my age, so I stood up to him when I was eight, nine, 10 years old. We actually had a fist fight when I was 16 years of age that he lost and that was sort of the end of him. He left home after that, not because of the fistfight, but that was the end of his run with us. Actually ran off with a close friend of my mother's who lived five houses down and they

left and went from Oklahoma City to Tulsa and started another little hole in the wall restaurant there because we always had our little hole-in-the-wall restaurant on the south side of Oklahoma City called the Hickory House, which barely made it. Sometimes we had some money, sometimes we didn't. But to your point, he constantly told me, I wasn't, I couldn't. No, you can't. No, you'll never be anything,

because he wanted me to think of myself as subservient to him and That that I would view myself as a potential failure so then Sports came and right away. I was really good at sports 7th 8th 9th grade, but more important I found I was really good at school. I'm going to a public high school in Oklahoma City. It's a really good public high school, but I started making not even trying, I started making straight A's and I made A's all through high school except for driver's ed which I took in summer school and they did not give A's in driver's ed because they didn't want any kid to think he or she was actually a great driver because that would be a dangerous proposition. So

I made a B in driver's ed. I lost valedictorian to Justine Coyle who went to Harvard and she did not take driver's ed. So I lost on that technicality that I took driver's ed and I got a B. So I was the salutatorian to her valedictorian. I'll never forget it, never forgive her for not taking drivers. Why is winning so important? It just did, I don't know. It's all I had because it's I think I'm trying to show my father look at this, look at this, look look look at this. Every morning I got up I retrieved the paper off the front porch back in the days that we remember fondly when you actually retrieved a paper off

your front porch and come rain or snow I would go out and get it and bring it in and pull the sports section out. I would fold it wide across the floor. I would get down on the floor and read it. He would come in and take the main section, sit in his chair and start to read it, and I would devour the sports section to the point that I could remember box score numbers that would just blow my friends away. And it wasn't like I was a stat nerd, but I was fascinated with the why of sports. Why did I have a ceiling? Why at some point, I thought I would play college baseball,

but then I got to the point my senior year and I was good. I made all area as a catcher, believe it or not, because I like to control the game from the catcher position. And I needed to know why was I finite? What did he have and they went on to play this or that? Why could they be professionals make a career at it? Why was there a ceiling for me that I don't get to win?

I don't get to be the ultimate winner here. My body isn't, I'm not talented enough to be a professional great. Right, and I know what happened to me. I lettered in baseball as a sophomore and very few at my school lettered as a sophomore. So I was pretty good. And then I'd always been a catcher.

And as a junior, I came out of basketball season and stepped right into the starting shortstop position because my coach said, you're a good enough athlete. I need starting shortstop position because my coach said, you're a good enough athlete. I need a shortstop. We had a senior catcher named David Capshaw and he was really good and he wanted to play junior college type baseball but he was a little better than I was as a catcher at that point and so coach Haven Streit said said I need you to play shortstop I'd never fielded a ground ball in my life and this was called the

mid-state conference I don't know if you remember Darryl Porter you probably don't yes no I do the catcher thank you thank you oh was he for Kansas City and then st. Louis and he was the MVP of a World Series in 1985 for the st. Louis Cardinals under whiteiede Herzog. Well, I competed against Darrell all the way up. So our opening game is against Darrell Porter's Southeast Spartans at our place. He was also a catcher and a shooter in basketball, led our league in scoring and a really good high school quarterback.

Oklahoma wanted him badly as did everybody, and he signed with the Brewers who took him fourth overall. Anyway, so that's sort of what I'm not getting at. So he's just better as an athlete than you are. I'm looking at him, and he's bigger than I am, because he's 6'2", 195, and, I'll quickly go to this story, but, my junior year, I started at shortstop and I was a horror story

at shortstop and we had a pretty loaded team of seniors and I was the only junior who started. And I just, I had a hellacious time trying to feel ground balls. I could throw, I never had any problem, had no throwing errors the whole year, but turning two and all the things that you have to do, I just didn't, I was a good athlete, but I didn't have the things that you have to do I just didn't I was

a good athlete but I didn't have the skill and in the know-how of it or the natural I watched last night watching the baseball playoffs and the short stops are just flawless because they've been doing it since they were little kids and hard-hit balls that take wicked hops just, they're so natural with their hands, hands of God and of gold. I didn't have that immediately. And right away I'm getting hot shots at shortstop and I'm botching balls and the teams,

pitchers are looking at me like, come on. Well, I just didn't know how to do it. So then we also played Southeast at Southeast. It was during spring break and I finally got moved back to catcher at this point. We had a pitcher who was the state basketball player of the year, white guy, six foot ten inches tall named Steve Mitchell. May he rest in peace. Where are we going with this? Where's this story taking us? Darrell Porter. Okay. Darrell Porter hit a ball out of my glove. I'm catching. Porter hit a ball out of my glove. I'm catching.

He hit a ball out of my glove over the tennis court fence that served as the right field fence at Southeast High School where Bobby Mercer went. It cleared it by 20 feet and I'd never seen anything like it before and the sound of bat on ball, that was my flashpoint moment of I can't do this. I can't do that. So I'm absorbed by who is Darrell Porter who grew up around the Hickory House where we had the restaurant on the south side, tough side of town. And I got to know him later. He played for the Texas Rangers when I was a Dallas columnist and he winds up overdosing on cocaine and dying in a park in Kansas City as he was becoming a broadcaster for the Royals and It just shook me to my core. Well

Why couldn't he be happy with something that a lot of us would have crawled to do right? MVP of the World Series and I, so that has obsessed me, possessed me to the point that it fuels me in my career, the why of it. Why is he better than him? Why is she better than she is? Why is he better than she or she better than he? What is happening here? And so that's

what I like to argue about or debate about or discuss. I'm a little more interested in the sociology of athletes, like the roots of how they became, who they became. The story that I have in writing that's like that is that when I was in college, I was reading a story by Gary Smith in Sports Illustrated and halfway through it I just what a gift I threw it across the room because I'm like I can't do that that way. I used to do that with Frank DeFord. Do you know Frank DeFord? Yeah of course yes so you used to, so we were different columnists right? You had great success as a newspaper

columnist at the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, and Dallas Morning News. And Times Herald there in Dallas. But a harsh newspaper columnist. Sometimes, when called upon to do so. Harsher than most, I would say. This is when I say that you guys laid the template for me. So I'm coming out of school in my 20s, and I don't know exactly how it is to do this, but the voices who are doing this on the sports reporters and elsewhere, they're raining down pretty good judgment on the athletes. They're hitting them pretty hard in places that I'm like, okay, this is the way that you do it. And I look back at my twenties now and I have some remorse about the things that I wrote

because there was not a compassion in the writing that I was reading. There were columnists who were getting ahead. You got to skip. You were a columnist at 26 years old. We don't know shit at 26. So was I, by the way, but we don't know shit at 26 years old, like to be condemning other people on what their behavior is when we're 26 years old. I wasn't an adult at 26 years old, like to be condemning other people on what their behavior is when we're 26 years old. I wasn't an adult at 26. I'm not sure I was an adult at 36. To give that role to

a columnist was something that I wasn't prepared for. By the way, quick story there. Soon after I got that column job, my sports editor in Los Angeles at the Times named Bill Shirley also wrote occasionally so he did a think piece about all the young gun columnists around the country in various cities including me and so he went to some of the legends like Dave Anderson at the New York Times and asked them is 26 too young to write a column and of course Dave Anderson said he has no idea. He has no idea what's happening around him and I probably didn't but I think didn't we at that time as young gun columnists appeal to younger readers who might think gee he's looking at it more the way I would even if he doesn't know

SH about what's going on around him in real life. Maybe his younger view of that athlete or that development in and around the Dallas Cowboys might be more appealing to younger readers. I don't know. That's just thought. Well, you set a template in the way that you were doing it where it seemed like the tension that could be between media and athletes if we're 26 and we don't actually know what we're talking about in terms of what it takes to be Darryl Porter, right? What it takes, we're trying to figure it out. I wasn't a very good athlete. There were times I was scared of the ball, but I was always interested in the people who were great at it and we come in and we're critical and I would say so if you're leading

me down a path as a columnist where you're being very critical of the athlete and that's what I'm learning, Lupica's parting shots on the sports reporters, how do we get in front of people with our voice? It's to be critical. That's all I'm learning of how it is to do this. And then you get to debate television and you change the form there and some of that ends up being so high bar critical that even LeBron James, somebody who by any standard is a majestic athlete for all time, you're chasing him across 20 years with a you know a torch and a pitchfork, finding his every flaw and benefiting from it. I wouldn't say torch and pitchfork, but I don't want to start on LeBron.

But I have always said and continue to say, still the best passer in basketball, still the greatest driver of the basketball I have ever seen. And I've seen a whole lot of- You still want more from LeBron... You want more from LeBron? He just wasn't born with the clutch gene as I nicknamed it. And I can show you time after time after time that he wasn't. And remember, I'm always on the debate tableau where I'm constantly debating, is LeBron better than Jordan and I

don't know your opinion of that but I got it thrown in my face again and again laughably that LeBron James is better than the mentally toughest athlete I have ever been around gotten to know closely observed and LeBron at times in his career has been one of among superstars one of the mentally weakest athletes I have closely observed in big moments and you were certainly there for his first run with the Heedles My point is about whether or not where it is that we have our criticisms of that it's more of I believe sports are meant to be celebrated and Where debate culture gets rewarded that celebration ends up getting

diluted. There's not, there aren't a lot of shows that you guys or that anyone is doing. It's harder to praise than it is to criticize. It's harder to do two and three hour shows around celebrate, I think, around celebration than about arguing about who's right or who's wrong about who deserves blame. Unless you're arguing how great Michael Jordan truly was, that he was in another universe from LeBron James. I can do two hours on that right now. And I am worshiping, I am idolizing, I am on my knees,

I'm genuflecting for Michael Jordan, just as I was for Tom Brady, just as I have been for Shadour Sanders, because I think he's really, really gifted and is going to be really, really good in pro football and should be the first pick in the draft. So I go that way too, just as emotionally strongly as I go negatively on whoever it is, LeBron.

Hey everyone, it's Mike Ryan. You hear that? That is the sound of me cracking open an ice cold Miller Lite. Maybe if you're the lucky winner of the DraftKings Weekend Observation presented by Miller Lite Prediction Pool, you and a friend can come crack one open with me and the rest of the Day on LeBotard show with Sue Gotts. All you have to do is go to DraftKings and predict what will happen during a segment Weekend Observation presented by Miller Light on October 29th.

How long will the segment last? What hour will it air in? Who will be in the shipping container feeding Sugatsa's lines? So many variables! And only one winner. Well, one winner and their guests. So two people, but one winner. But we're all winners when it comes down to it, right? Especially when you have an ice cold Miller Light in your hand. Must be 21 plus to enter. Eligibility restrictions apply, void where prohibited. See DraftKings.com for details. Well, let's talk about your upbringing a little bit because you described your father as evil. I've read that you said both of your parents

were alcoholics. And so I imagine that growing up amid that would be something that would have you feeling a lack of love or wherever it is. No, just lost, just lost, because I was the first born, so I had to figure this out. And my father was what they called a functional drunk

in that I've never seen anything like it. He could get up and immediately pour himself a vodka and orange juice and then he always forced me to work at our little barbecue restaurant, the Hickory House. And so many nights during summer days or holidays when I was forced to work, I would have to ride home with him driving drunk because he would get himself a full cup of Coca-Cola and

then he would pour half of it out and fill it up with vodka on the way home and sip it through a straw all the way home. I didn't know anything about driving drunk so I think I'm knocking on wood thank you God for getting me this far but he could function that way And then he sent my mother completely over the edge, and she was the opposite as a drunk of him. She was a fall-down, sloppy, sappy, gooey drunk who got silly and over-lovey. She just couldn't function at all when she began to fall to the bottom of the bottle, which happened through my high school days into college. She went to AA.

Let's see, I was two years out of school, so what was I, 24? She went to AA and saved herself. God bless her. She's no longer with us. May she rest in peace. But neither she or my father were ever there for me as I was the oldest trying to go out into the real world and figure it out. If you need to be picked up, you couldn't

trust they were going to show up. And I couldn't talk to them about anything that I was suffering through. I had to keep it to myself. And you tend to, I had the same girlfriend all through high school who got me through high school because you have to have somebody you can confide in and lean on. So did they embarrass you much? Oh my mother occasionally did because she would show up drunk at sometimes at school or a couple of times I had little parties like New Year's parties at home and she would get fall down drunk and my friends would be like your mom you gotta do something about that. Was there warmth in the household?

No, they were both very cold people and no one ever said I love you that was not now everybody says I love you and so was not, now everybody says, I love you. And so I try to go out of my way with my friends. I love you, man, or sometimes women in the vein of, I just love you with all my heart and soul. And if I commit to you, if I'm loyal to you now, I will be loyal to the death with you. And that came from my upbringing

because nobody was ever loyal to me. What would you say was in your childhood that felt like love to you? Nothing. It was as cold and dark as it can get. Reading books was love to me. That's why I was... Sports? Everything.

I read like crazy because it was my great escape. I could go home when it was snowing outside and just curl up with a book and just blow through it. I always won the book reading contests in grade school. I would read the most books, write the most book reports. I've always assumed from over here, right? I'm just doing this observationally. I can't pretend to know you that all of this is a great hiding place so that you don't have to examine

all of that then that reading and writing and escaping and imagining and debating and all of this stuff feels better than having to go and be introspective about well that's the shit that shaped me and it was cold and it was bad and it left me you know a bit sandpapery. Yeah I I buy that but I I looked it right in the teeth from day one never went to any kind of therapy but I I didn't embrace it I just I got to the bottom of it. By the time I went away to college I knew what it was and what it wasn't and what I had to the bottom of it. By the time I went away to college, I knew what it was and what it wasn't and what I had to do. And I got saved by the grace of God,

however you wanna look at, I don't know what your higher power is, but I know what mine is. And God plucked me out of that broken home and saved me my senior year of high school because I won a scholarship to go away to Vanderbilt University, which I'd barely heard of and talk about setting you on a path that got me off a path to hell and put me on a path to success. I would

assume though that if dad feels evil and it's cold and dad is always hitting you with not good enough. Well as writer people keep telling me that's true I'm good enough. Yeah. The things that I'm doing and being rewarded for everywhere in the way that I'm doing this you can criticize it all you like but it seems like I'm good enough everywhere I would assume that that would pass for identity shaping, that you would gravitate toward that because it feels a hell of a lot better than anything that came before it.

I would agree, yet. It always amused me and amazed me that all through high school, as I mentioned, I make straight A's. So I don't know how your high school was, but there was a requirement that when you get your little slip of all A's, you have to take it home and have your parents sign it and bring it back. Was that something? Oh, I recognize this. I ran away from home when I was young because I came home with all A's. I mean, it was for 12 hours. I had nowhere nowhere to go I was at a bus stop down the street but it was

I got all A's and I got a C or a B minus in something and that's all my father noticed and it's all he said and so yeah like it's some of the same it's look man our paths are super similar I mean not I do not have this darkness in my childhood where my parents weren't warm. That's not what I have. But the path to what it is- I thought your father was very warm, actually. Yes, well- Because I got to know him.

Where did you get to know him? You got to know him on television. Yeah, yeah. You felt like you- As much as you can know somebody from television. Well, but this is what I would say, though, where people are characters and not characters. That's true. My mother would say all the time,

I would love to have an affair with that man on television. There you go, bingo. It's just because when the lights come on, you would recognize when the lights come on. That's funny smart, I got it. Yeah, the best you makes an appearance. But the point was, I would bring straight A's home and no one would look at it because they did not care.

And I would have to go say, could you just sign this? Yeah, sign it, okay. And I'd say, other kids are getting paid for these grades. People, you know, back in the day, I'll give you $5 per A, really? And I'm bringing nothing but A's home for four, we'd had four years of high school, for four straight years and you don't even acknowledge?

And so I just happened, grace of God, to have a sophomore English class, advanced English, Northwest class in high school, that was taught by the journalism teacher because she taught one class a day in English just to see if she could find a prospective writer for the school newspaper that she oversaw. So the first day of class, my sophomore year, she said, I sign you a book report. I just want one page. I don't want five pages. I want one page.

Pick any book you want. And I want to see if any of, she called us, you people, if any of you people can write. And of course I chose a sports book on a quarterback you might or might not remember named Y.A. Tittle who played for the Giants. There's a bloody picture of him on his knees that's famous that was on the cover of Life magazine. So I read it in about an hour and a half because I think it was written in an hour and a half and I don't know what possessed me but I wrote a scathing book report review of the book because I was embarrassed for the writer and ultimately for YA Tittle and I didn't know I I'd not written my name before that

or more than my name and so you come out of the box critical of the writer. But I had no guidance. It just happened. So I handed in and on Friday the first week of school she called me up to her desk and she was she was a tyrant, she was a whore, she could be a witch. But I loved her, Mrs. Burdette. And my friends looked at me when she called me up like, God, what did you do? March up to her desk, class is dismissed And my friends looked at me when she called me up, like, God, what did you do? March up to her desk, class is dismissed, and she says, you're coming into journalism.

I said, no, I'm sorry, I have no interest whatsoever. Nope, you're coming into journalism, you're gonna write me two sports columns a week. Now I'm a sophomore in high school, I'm playing sports. I said, she said, I know you play, I've done my homework on you, you're going to write two columns a week. I said, do I write about teams I play? Yep, you're gonna write about teams you play, I've done my homework on you, you're going to write two columns a week. I said, do I write about teams I play?

Yep, you're gonna write about teams you play on. And by the way, my senior year, I wrote a column criticizing at the end of the year, my baseball coach, who nobody liked on my team. So you wanna talk about an inside job, I was the source for the story because I actually played for the team. I don't know if that's ever happened before,

but she did that. And she, and to your point she'd say you can do this. I can? Where did it come from? I don't know where your first writing happened. Where? No that's where that's how it happened for me in in high school. It's the first time anyone ever told me I was good at anything. Okay. And so I just followed that because I didn't feel like I was special in any way. Why did you write? What started? I had an English teacher who made the class fun and made me care about words, but when you talk about some of the things you're talking about here, it sounds like you didn't have

a whole lot of people telling you that they were proud of anything that you were doing. It sounded like there was some carelessness around even the good things that you were doing. And so you get some reinforcement early on something and then you chase that because that feels good when she pushes you into the discipline of it, right? Okay. So I had only one quasi warm moment with my mother in my life and it happened over something I was attempting to write because my journalism teacher said I want you to review a movie because you can do this. So that Friday night I had gone to see this Clint Eastwood movie. You won't know it

it's a blast from the distant past called Cougan's Bluff about he's a cowboy cop who goes to New York City and I'm trying to write the review at night and I couldn't get it to detonate. I couldn't find the thread to go to the bottom. I'd never done it before. So I said, you know what? I've had enough. I'm going to sleep.

I'm gonna set my alarm for five o'clock because she wants it when I go to school at 8.30 and I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna finish this. And my mom got up to get something, not alcohol, but something to drink and she came and knocked on my door and said, why are you awake so early? And I said, I'm stuck on this. And she said, well, read it to me because I'd never read anything to her. So I started reading her my Coogan's Bluff review.

She said, that's really good. And she was just being honest. She said, I like it. What's wrong with it? I don't know. She said, just keep,. She said I like it. What's wrong with it? I don't know She said just keep keep going here It's great and I blew through to the bottom and I turned in an 830 and mrs. Burdett loved it Okay, so that's the only time I got any shred of warmth from my mother was that early morning Because she knocked on my door to see what was happening

Why was that so early and never you from your dad? Never, oh never. So tell me about Katie Bell Henderson. What did she provide you? So because my grandmother knew my parents were such wrecks, she often offered to have me and sometimes my siblings, but often just me early on at seven, eight, and nine, stay at her house. She wasn't a wealthy woman, but she traveled for her work and she had a black woman who helped her, who ran the household for her.

And I hate to tell the story to people who think, oh, it's deep south. It's not deep south. It doesn't have that sort of feel to it. It's not the help. It's not plantation mentality. Katie Bell just worked for my grandmother and she was honored as the overseer of the whole household. So I was taught from day one to honor her just the way I honored my grandmother, but not my mother, because she was lost to me. So Katie Bell saw what was happening and took me over through my formative years and she was far more of a mother to me than my mother was. She would discipline me. She would grab me by my lapels and shake me. She would look right in my eyes and say, you can't do that. And she taught me the word hypocrite. That was her favorite word. You're being such a hypocrite to do that and without her I

wouldn't be me. She taught me right from wrong. She honored me. She told me I was good. She knew I was good. She knew I had real potential and she drove that home to me. And her granddaughter named Audrey, Katie Bell was from Chicago, she grew up in Chicago, born in Birmingham, Alabama. But Audrey lived in Chicago and Audrey would come every summer and stay for like a month with Katie Bell. So I would hang out with Audrey, this is age seven, eight, nine, long hot summer, we're making up games in the backyard. And it was

invaluable to me to be exposed to her as a black girl at that point from Chicago where I would eventually work because I wanted to know all about what's it like in Chicago? What are the streets like? What's the culture like? What how is your upbringing different than what I'm going through in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. So all of this saved me. It was absolutely a gift from God for me. Katie Bell Henderson.

Is there any particular reason that you haven't tried therapy or tried to sort through what the roots of your upbringing have to do with how you are now as an obsessed adult in your profession that cares so deeply about the doing of this and the identity that one gets from this that you've chosen. Ernestine has changed your life, but you've chosen not to have kids. You've said, I would be a worse father than my father. I wouldn't want to turn into my father, which often happens, whether you like it or not, you're just destined to become too much of your father.

And I would never want to do that to a child. Plus I knew in our business, as you know, you often have to move to move up, even though you've been very blessed with your path that stayed pretty much in South Florida. And I just knew in my heart, mine was going to take me all over and it did. And so I didn't wanna do that to kids

to keep uprooting new friends. It's just not fair. And plus I was so, I told Ernestine, she hates this story, but the night we met, our first date, we're at a little pizza parlor on First Avenue in New York City, 2005, I just knew it was going to go someplace. So I said, hey, if this does go any place between us, just know you'll always be number two to my work, which is beyond my work, it's my life, it's my reason for being.

And she says, now, well, at least I became 1A, and she did become 1A. But I don't need therapy, I'm good. I mean, I'm happy, I'm content, I'm confident in who who I am and I don't need to pay somebody however much it is 500 bucks an hour to listen to me You're helping me right now. I just want the tool. Oh you I don't I don't think of any of this is pejorative, right? I don't think of downloading someone who might see blind spots that you don't see to give you tools so that you can work on things. Because when I say, I recognize some of the things

you're talking about. When I met my wife, the first week I happened to be off work. And so we were pinballing all over Miami. Every night was a different adventure. And I said to her that first week, hey, this isn't what my life is, just so you know. Like, I don't, this isn't what my life is, just so you know. Like I don't, this is not the space that we are or me I'm going to live in because I have to get back

to work and work is a very serious and important thing. But she's also helped me shake, rattle and turn upside down what had been my worldview because I get too much of my identity from this stuff. And so I'm not saying to you, have you not explored therapy because I get too much of my identity from this stuff and so I'm not saying to you have you not explored therapy because I'm judging you as something wrong or unhappy with you just you do have a lopsided amount of your identity poured into this thing and for example you can be obsessive in a way that has done cardio every day but two since 1998. Yeah.

That's true actually. Your eating regimen is insanely vigilant and the same. I'm not an angel, but it's pretty strict by most people's standards. Well, tell people what are the most, I mean, two cardio days missed since 1998 seems to be a level of obsession that, I'm not gonna say it might be unhealthy,

but it's certainly obsessive. It is. 1998 seems to be a level of obsession that I'm not going to say it might be unhealthy, but it's certainly obsessive. It is. So when I was 14, my father was in maybe his third try of rehab. We would always go to the VA because he was a veteran of World War II in the Air Force as a bombardier on a B-29. And so it was free to go to the rehab at the VA Center Hospital. And so I participated in many sessions with psychiatrists that were counseling for the entire family. So the first session I had in this certain rehab stint

it was a female psychiatrist who immediately asked me as the oldest Do you drink alcohol? I'm 14 no, and I'd only had a taste of it because at parties when I was like five my parents would have their friends over and as a little party trick game, that they would ask me to take a sip of their hard liquor or their beer.

And of course, I would go bitter beer face and spit it out, and, ugh, because it was horrible. And they would laugh, and I don't laugh at the story because it saved me because I thought it was horrible and they would laugh and I don't laugh at the story because it saved me because I thought it was horrible and I went through stints where I tried to sip a little wine it was just bitter it didn't taste good to me and it's it's miraculous how your taste buds will adapt sometimes devices but okay so the the point was let's see what we're talking about. Your question

was about the obsession with the... Obsession. You missed two days of cardio since 1998. Okay. So when the psychiatrist asked me, do you drink? She said, please don't start because you are genetically predisposed double, you've got double alcoholic genes in your body and I do. So how did I defeat that? My alcohol is cardio and weightlifting and any kind of workout exercise or playing basketball or playing golf or I'm obsessed with all of the above. So that's those are your addictions. Those are your I'm addicted. Those are your vices. And at least can we say they're

positive addictions? Is that fair? I think they are well if they make you happy and they're things that make you feel healthy. They don't destroy me because I do too much and I stay a little bit sore all the time. I'm a little bit sore from this morning. Right now my knees are a little achy. Well, no, I've seen you work out. You go at it strong.

When we did PTI in Washington, we were in those same gyms. And you would go in a way that was really aggressive. Why'd you miss the two days? What are the stories behind the missing of the two days? So I was the columnist at the Chicago Tribune in 1998 during the last dance run in the Chicago Bulls It was their second round playoff series against Charlotte at the United Center on a Sunday afternoon I was new to Chicago for about I've been there maybe three months and I did not yet have a doctor

It was still snowing of course and I caught something upper respiratory and got my usual Sinus infection and I was a wreck and my literary agent named Sherry Wink who lives in Chicago on Saturday night she said you can't run tomorrow you just can't you don't even have a doctor you're going to you know like get get in some serious trouble here so I didn't that was the first time in way before that that I hadn't done any cardio. I did go to the game and I did write my column. And so that was day number one.

And then I went however many years, because this was about a year ago, so help me with the math on this. I went like 23 years without, maybe that's the magic number, Jordan's 23, right? He's the real 23, not the fake 23, not the guy you knew in Miami, right? So I went 23 years and then a year ago,

I had a treatment on my face at our dermatologist that she wanted to try and it required me to lean back and put my neck way back for an hour and she treated my face for me and I came home to lift weights after this session on a Friday afternoon And I started getting dizzy and I got vertigo because my neck was locked back in that position for so long Sort of stressed like what are you gonna do to my face exactly and so for the next 48 hours? I never vomit. I think I'd vomited two or three times my whole life. And I was just

puking everything that I ate. So Ernestine, my wife said, Okay, that's enough tomorrow off. And I didn't even fight back because I just was not capable the next day. So those are the two days that I missed. Ladies and gentlemen, the NBA is finally back and a new season means new ways to get into the action of DraftKings Sportsbook. An official sports betting partner of the NBA who's draining threes from beyond the arc, who's crashing the boards and grabbing rebounds, get behind your favorite players

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They bring tears to my eyes because they're so transcendent and and I it's like you threw the Gary Smith piece it's like a moment of that that's so beautifully done that's so perfect how did you do that where did that come from that's like a gift from God that you did that you you that that was wrought that you created that moment. And it just, we're watching, what's the, I'll think of it in just a second, the Cameron Crowe movie, Almost Famous. Okay, so we're watching Almost Famous, and we'd seen it before, it's a long story,

but we have some sort of personal connections to it. We just started watching it the other night for no apparent reason, and we couldn't stop. And we got to the end of it and I just broke down crying because it's so beautifully done. And she is so good in that part. She nails the part of the groupie. I can't think of her name, I'll think of it in a second.

It's not important that you think of her name, I'll think of it in a second. It's not important that you think of her name. But the point is, it just works all the way home. The kid is so great as the Cameron Crowe figure. The reason I ask the question is because I imagine from over here that you're covered in armor, barbed wire, as it relates to your own personal feelings. I have friends like this who are transported by art, who are also moved to tears by perhaps gratitude for certain things, but when it comes to their own feelings of like wherever anger

or sadness resides, they're covered in so much armor and protection. I think that's true. I like that. I agree. Insightful on your part. I think I have steeled myself against crying about myself or for myself. So I think this informs, right? Because I can be empathetic in terms of how I cover sports and where I see human frailty reveal itself in sports and then probably too forgiving. I don't do very much ravaging, critical ravaging of human beings that I believe are a source of entertainment and celebration, but I think it informs your work that this stuff that you are covered in so much armor that you believe that the

people you are criticizing because they're tougher, stronger, bigger, whatever, they're everything that they are. They're people we admire, that we are admiring their greatness, that they should be able to withstand whatever it is that you beat down on them and we can forget their humanity in that when we're too critical. Well said. Quick point of order, Kate Hudson played Penny Lane. I knew you were going to do that. I knew you were going I knew you weren't even listening to anything I was saying. I did. I heard everything you said. And I agree with everything you just said. That is true. I do view LeBron as cloaked in barbed wire. So, and he does make $50 million a year and he's worth, God knows, isn't he gone over the B word? Isn't

he a billionaire? But so that does that make you feel because, Skip, you've created an entire economy around the criticizing of these billionaires, right? Like, you are within our industry, you're among the highest paid because it pays to have done this the way, it's got great rewards to do this the way that you've done it. But I view it differently than you do because I would like to think I'm a truth teller. Like I'm just, I say what I see and if I see frailty, I will call out frailty because it's all fair game because as you would say, it's all entertainment, there highly paid in her yes But where Russell Westbrook or Chris Bosch get mad at you or where Shannon Sharp gets mad at you or where Chris Carter says He wants to punch you in the face. They're drawing that line by the way that was not true, but go ahead Okay, we can come back to it

I wherever it is you tell me where the greatest criticisms are that are fairest of you But wherever it is that athletes are decrying that you're crossing a line that you're putting in a different place than they are putting. But I always tell, like Chris, I love Chris Bosh and you know him very well, I'm sure. He's a good human. He's just a gentle man, right? Gentleman. But I always, I would always, every time I would talk to him interview him after i was done i would thank him okay for for being so uncommonly vulnerable because i because i appreciate that okay but you but you you called him bosh spice into his face right well i did when he came to espm but okay so so just quick scenario okay so it's the first year of the Heedles, you're there

obviously, and it's March. They're on a five game losing streak which was preposterous. The Heedles can't lose five in a row and you might or might not remember a game played in Miami on a Monday night against Portland that was on television. I'm in Bristol, Connecticut. I'm watching it closely as always. Never miss a LeBron dribble. And Chris Bosch was clearly the third wheel and not even living up to third wheel status at this moment. It's the first year together. They're thrown together and they all took little sacrifices to play together. I had no problem with LeBron doing that because I thought he needed Dwayne to teach him how to win,

you know, how to, he needed a big brother to show him the ropes and Dwayne was showing him how to do this and you know the rest of that story. So Chris is struggling and whether he's a nice guy or not, he's struggling as a basketball player and they lose at home to a So So Portland team and he played they lose at home to a So So Portland team and he played 40 minutes and had seven points and four rebounds and of course Twitter is screaming bloody murder at Chris Bosh and it just hit me because he was playing such soft basketball because he had a soft side to him gifted but soft that just for fun I thought that was a clever nickname because of Victoria and the Miami connection with David Beckham that that he was playing like Bosch Spice so I just me I don't have any

problem with that do you want to do you understand though where it is because you are start you guys cold pizza all the stuff that happened with ESPN getting into the debate game It basically started at the advent of social media that show is ushering in I agree what becomes the acid cruelty of social media and I felt like you guys the way that you were doing it We're giving permission to the anonymous people on social media to be even crueler to these people than was necessary. And now-

I don't think I'm gonna stop them from being cruel. And I'm not sure I can encourage them to be crueler than they already were, but go ahead. No, fair enough. And there's nothing I can say that can soften the internet. I'm not gonna win that fight. But to see someone who had my path, be involved with whatever West Brick and his family

are objecting to, skip. Look, we're going through a vulnerable time where human beings, and yes, you can always say, well, you're making $30 million a year, and that's part of the job. Or better still, Chris came to Bristol and we sat across from each other and discussed this man to man, face to face, eye to eye.

Love him. I truly have love for him. He's a special person. He's a special person. And he told me all about his family members didn't like it. I said, I appreciate that. There's one way you can obliterate that nickname.

You can just play. You can just rise up and play. And by the way, he came up with the greatest offensive rebound in the history of offensive rebounds and kicked it to Ray Allen in the corner. And I was a big Spurs fan and Ray Allen shot me right in the heart. Okay. So that was a play.

That was a basketball play that had to be made. Why Tim Duncan was on the floor. I don't know. I don't get me started, but Do you understand though? My, my, my objection there is I simply want Chris B had to be made why Tim Duncan was on the floor. I don't know. I don't get me started but do you understand though my my my objection there is I simply want Chris Bosh to be rewarded for the way that he is instead of discouraged from being that way because there's no reward in being vulnerable in a climate where the sports entertainer isn't a human being and all right and

we're just gonna ravage him with criticism. So here's the difference in Bosh Spice and Wes Brick. I didn't take Bosh Spice very seriously. It's just, it was a period they were going through and he was playing like Bosh Spice and I stand behind that because that's a good, that's a two word description that nailed his plight at that point. The Wes Brick thing is very different

because he has always from the start been high turnover and one of the poorest, if not the poorest, three-point shooters in the league from day one and takes way too many threes on top of way too many wild out of control turnovers to the point that finally Kevin Durant going into his 10th year with Russ just said, I can't do this anymore. I can't win with him as my primary decision-maker. So West Brick is different because West Brick is lethal to a basketball team and I got nothing against him or his family. His wife got mad at me for West Br, but his dream job was to play for his dream team, the Lakers, and LeBron and AD campaigned for him

to be brought to Los Angeles, and he was. And it got so bad at what was then Staples Center that the crowd was actually gasping when he went up to shoot a shot because everybody knew it was going to be a Westbrick. I don't think I'm going to discourage you from your life principles as it comes to working on this.

I could and would say to call him Bosch Spice is to suggest in some way that Bosch Spice is weak or that girls or women are weak which is not something that I would be doing a little far with it but it's just something the ring of that I like it I think it's funny I'm not here to dissuade you from how it is you do this. Once he came to Bristol and we talked over I never used Bosh Spice again because you want to talk about manned up man he he's the genuine article and I have so much respect for him we when I came to Los Angeles we had him on the show a couple times on undisputed and I ceased and desisted because of that more

more macro you feel because of the amount of dollars in professional sports that you are entitled to be the critic that tells the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it makes anybody. It's important to you to be the truth teller. No shock jock here. I'm not tricking it up. I'm not exaggerating. I'm going right to the heart of the matter.

And that was when I tweeted that at that moment, he had just finished 40 minutes with seven points and four rebounds. He's way better than that. You know it and I know it. He's a double digit, a game rebounder at what do we give him? Six, 10-ish or so. You just, he wasn't living up and he was a little overwhelmed at that point and who knows maybe that Flipped a switch for him. Maybe that was just the gasoline he needed poured on his fire. That's one of my favorite rationalization When you take credit He became a pretty great player He was and yes

He was absolutely a great player the entire time that I watched him play throughout his career. Let's shift a little bit here in terms of you said that I got it wrong with Chris Carter. Chris Carter told the story of you were talking Tebow. And the way he presents the story is that you said to him some form of and that's why you never won a Super Bowl and that he said afterward that if you ever disrespect me like that I'm going to punch you in the face. You're saying that's not true.

It did not happen. Trust me. You can ask my wife, Ernestine, because I would something like that would be so dramatic, such a flash point that I would certainly, because everybody were mic'd up, so the control room would hear that. That would be an event that would have to be discussed internally. We would have to have a meeting about it. We would have to, Chris and I would have to sit down after the show and sort it all out. And I definitely would have told my wife Ernestine about it

She knew nothing about it because it didn't happen He told me in a break now we clashed repeatedly on Tim Tebow because I was all I said just real quick But before he got drafted, I said I would take Tim Tebow at the bottom of the first round He went 25th to Josh McDaniels in Denver And I said if you let him run that Florida offense in pro football, he will win games for you mostly with intangibles but partly with his arm because he had a big arm and Definitely with his legs because he could move at about 240 pounds. So I said I'm taking him there Josh did Josh got fired

halfway through the next year or who knows what would have happened. And when Tim got his chance and his turn at ironically at Miami, a game that went overtime, the rest was history. He took a 1-4 team to a division championship. They won the AFC West and they won a home playoff game against the Pittsburgh Steelers and Ben Roethlisberger when Tim Tebow of all people threw the overtime game-winning touchdown pass to Demaris Thomas, as you well remember. Okay, so... I don't remember actually, but I... There you go. But you're very good at the details. I've got what's called... But I love that it's such... it's so inclusive to say, as you well remember remember to make my ignorance to cover my ignorance for me

And to help me out there. I appreciate the kindness and the gesture So I was at the right place at the right time Not that I tricked it up not that I tried to shock-jock it. It just happened organically and naturally I like Tim Tebow if that you remember the game you probably were there in Miami, the national championship game? Do you remember Florida versus Oklahoma? I remember. Sam Bradford.

I remember. Yeah. I remember them winning the championship. Okay. So do you remember the video of Tim at half time that I saw after the, I grew up an Oklahoma fan, so I'm rooting like crazy for my Sooners and Tim Tebow comes out with the help of Percy Harvin,

and they just took over the game in the second half, and it wasn't even close. And I see the video a week later of him in the locker room saying, we're gonna take the ball, we're gonna cram it down their throats, and we're gonna, you know, and his teammates will look at him like, this guy's a complete psycho.

But they wanted to follow that psycho into battle. So I thought, if you can just bottle a little bit of that in pro football, that will play, that will work. But if the Chris Carter story isn't true, what do you regard as? So in one of the breaks, Chris told me straight up, he said, you're riding the wrong horse. You picked the wrong guy.

I said, Chris, no, I didn't. He had just won a couple of games. I said, Chris, I'm hanging in with this because he can play, he can win games, so we're doing that in the break. But he never said anything remotely like, if you say that again about me I'm going to punch you in the mouth, because we were good together. And

he came to Los Angeles right around the time I came to Los Angeles to be at Fox and FS1 and he was my guy. We had him on all the time for the first six months, we had the whole first football season, we had him on at least once a week, if not twice. And then we went to the Super Bowl and we flew home together on a private plane

so we could all get back to do our shows the next day from Houston and Chris came to me on the private plane and said, because he was going to move to New York to be on First Things First and be full-time on that show, and he said, is there any way I could just stay with you and Shannon and just do Undisputed every day? So that's how tight we were. I love Chris Carter. I was shocked at that anecdote. Maybe he just wanted to launch his podcast. I don't know, but that's not true. Okay. What criticisms do you take to heart where you would say that is a fair criticism? I grew from that. I don't know. You hit me with one. Oh, no,'m just, maybe if the answer can be no, like you do seem to think you're right

about things, so the answer can be no, I shouldn't be criticized, I'm doing this correctly. I'm doing this correctly. Do you have any regrets or remorse about anything that you have said or an interaction that you have had with people that you lament or that you'd like a do-over on because of whatever it is that the public behavior is or was. I have one example that I'm thinking of from years ago, but no, I'd like you to think for a second if you don't mind. You might not have any-

Are we talking about opinions that I had? Just things that you've done in your career that I've got a lot of them that I would like do overs on because I just I just got it wrong. You may not have a lot of them or you might not have any of them. I work hard at what I do. I think hard about what I'm going to say. I don't go off half cocked. I have slept on my opinion. It is in concrete. And it is dried completely when I go on to the air. And as you well know, live TV is about preparation and concentration. So I stand behind every word I have ever uttered on live

television. So that's all I got for you in this vein unless you want to cross examine Well, I this wasn't the example that I was going to use because the one I was going to use was in one of your Cowboys book and Troy Aikman asked his or says he asked his lawyers How much it would cost to punch you in the face and they told him five million dollars And he said if they told him one million dollars he would have done it because you reported in one of your books through some police sources that who were anonymous that you you that he might be gay okay no offense but you obviously did not read that passage in my book. I did not.

Because if you did go read it right now, you would take all that back and you would come at this very differently. I'm still astounded by Troy's reaction because he's the hero of that book. He is the knight in shining-est armor for those Dallas Cowboys, ironically and fittingly, the last Cowboy team that won a championship game and then won a Super Bowl, lo these almost

30 years ago. He was such the hero of my book, almost to a fault because I was very close with Barry Switzer and that book is all about the internal war between the Switzer and supporters and the Aikman and supporters. And if I may say so, it's beautifully done. And I walked a fine line of balance between the two camps, both of which I was close with and knew very well, and I felt like I was almost in the crossfire of the two camps. I thought so much of the book for Troy's sake,

and I talked to him endlessly about all of the above and quoted him endlessly in the book about all of the above. I signed my first copy that I was sent from HarperCollins. I signed it to Troy. Thank you for all that you did for me in this book. I'm paraphrasing what it was. And on the first day of training camp at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas,

I hand delivered it to Troy as practice ended, I gave it to him. And then that happened. And since then, we have worked through all of the above and I'm not saying we're close, but we're very friendly and we text and I text him fairly regularly and get along great with him, especially via text.

So we have worked through all of the above. But the point was the mud was being slung back and forth so hotly and heavily and unfairly that the Switzer camp kept coming to me because there had been rumors that Troy's been haunted by for years prior to 1995 in Dallas about is he gay or is he bi or what is he and Troy poured his heart out to me about said rumors and if you read the book you'll get all of his knockdown quotes and Lee Steinberg his agents knockdown quotes and Lee Steinberg, his agents, knockdown quotes. They're laughing at this whole prospect of him being gay and the

the Switzer camp headed by who was then sort of the assistant head coach John Blake, not going to word for him, may he rest in peace. He became the head coach at the University of Oklahoma thereafter but he was one of the principals who would push me to say, Hey, you know he's gay, right? I don't know anything about it. I've heard the rumors, but I don't know anything, nor do I care about anything. And he said, well, you guys in the media, you're protecting him. You're propping him up. He's fraudulent. He's not what he appears to be. He's doing all these commercials for Brute, Cologne, and whatever the other one was, Acme Brick in Dallas. He's not that. He's not that guy.

I don't know, but I juxtaposed the two camps because it got so bad that those two did not speak to each other. Troy Aikman and Barry Switzer, I remember this is my birthday, December 4th, all the way through the Super Bowl, they refused to speak to each other. Can you imagine an NFL team winning a championship,

winning the Super Bowl, while the coach and quarterback refused to speak? Okay, that's how bad it got in that book. And I'm proud of that book, and I'm proud of the way I wrote that book. What are you proudest of, not in the book, just in general? Just in my life.

Yes. That I've kept my marriage barely together. I didn't think I was capable, and through the, again, grace of God. My wife is saintly, and I love her to death. She doesn't believe that, but I do. And we've barely kept it together through thick and thin because I'm so over emotional about all of the above

that I just wear her out with all of this that we have discussed. So I'm barely proud I did that because I wasn't sure I was capable of maintaining. It's interesting because I want to chew on this a little bit. You speak very highly of Ernestine, but you just said you're telling her on the first date or not and I'm telling you skip I Recognize this because I come from a Latin household all I saw was women living in service of men It was in the pattern of of my life and so I thought that's what I wanted and

I did things early in my relationship that didn't even recognize where my patterns in my blind spots sort of undercut me And I had to make substantive changes that have been for my betterment and well-being and now to learn to love more Correctly allows me to love myself more correctly and chasing her happiness is something that brings me the greatest joy I've ever known in my life. It's so when you say you're not sure she believes you That must hurt somewhere to say it. I Don't know I Can be such a solo act as we have discussed that You say what are you proud of?

Well, I'm proud of that I've barely made this work and we have our moments. I'd be the first to tell you, we scream and yell, we lose it. I have a bad temper, not that I would, like it would manifest itself physically, but I'm capable of just getting angry and she's Jewish mother Italian father that's a

volatile mix also so we can have our moments where it just goes up in smoke and yet we've learned to work through them she's always great she'll come to me and hold her hand out like shake just shake and I'm like I don't want to shake shake finally I shake her hand it like, okay now we're okay You know like it's just silliness, but that works for me is to shake because I'm used to Nobody wants to shake. I'm used to My father turned on me my mother turned on me. They're not to be trusted now. My wife's turning on me. Okay, I'm out I'll go solo.

I am a rock. I am an island as Simon Garfunkel once said. Well, love is not to be trusted. It's interesting because you combine these two things. Love is not to be trusted and the general narcissism of what this is. Yeah, that's true. It is. This is an insanity. The feeding of this it is agree nourishing or can be poisoned depending on whether or not you're paying attention to totally agree. And and if she's living in service of your need for this thing, this obsession, you know, she can get boxed out on her

needs. Yeah. Um, I don't love hard enough. I don't give enough because I'm afraid to give because I learned early on, you just can't trust anybody, even maybe your wife, like that's, that's how I viewed life for so long. But my wife is the most loyal person I have ever met, times a thousand. She is loyal to a fault, to me. She will die for me and ultimately I will die for her. She has taught me that. So that's what I'm proud of is that thing, that connection that we have. As rocky as it can get, it's deep connection that I didn't think I'm proud of is that thing, that connection that we have as rocky as it can get.

It's deep connection that I didn't think I was capable of having with another human being. A lone wolf can still be lonely. Big bad wolf. A lone wolf can be strong and a lone wolf can... The things that you're talking about, Skip, in not trusting not trusting love not trusting people like that will harden you in a way that can feel empty i'm not well i understand true but you fought through yours well i had to be taught i had to be taught i would say because i had i had to learn i just i had to learn what love was i I did not know what it was.

Like I said, I got to 50. You got married at about 50, right? Or no, you met her at about 50. You didn't get married. You got married about eight or nine years ago, but you met Ernestine at about 50. And when I see sort of the parallels of what it is that I'm talking about, the first week of dating, I'm telling her this ain't what it is. You understand that I got to work, and first week of dating, I'm telling her, this ain't what it is. Like, you understand that I gotta work,

and my work ethic is different than yours, or it comes from a different place. Exile children, the way that you get to freedom is work. Like, that is what I was taught in a very supportive household. And so work is the thing that I had, but work also had a lot of fulfillment in it but the loneliness of not having someone to share it with yeah and and then

having someone now who it takes me away from because if I fall into my patterns this this stuff I'm I no offense I'd rather be with her right now than what it is that we're presently doing and this this stuff is'm I I no offense I'd rather be with her right now than what it is that we're presently doing and this this stuff is always pulling me away more so than ever because now I have we have nearly 50 employees and we built a business I want to talk to you about some of the things that you're doing now because before we turned on the lights here I was talking to you about how scary all of this is and must be, even with someone with your credentials and your resume of success, to be out on your own. The Skip Bayless Show was on YouTube.

You should check it out. I imagine it's one of the reasons that you're doing this because you've got to get out there now and do some sales that I didn't think you were doing at 72 years old because you've been supported by the mainstream media for a long time and it's much more comfortable than what it is that you're doing now.

Yeah, it's not as challenging as this in a good way. This is the ultimate challenge which I needed at my stage and age, and I don't know that you view it as a challenge. You're winning, you're winning, and it's hard to win in this space, but from the outside in, you're a runaway success to me. And I honor that because it's been four years of this

for you. And I don't know exactly how you did it because you've, with some help from John Skipper from above, you've created an empire of a show and shows and all the things you talked about, the documentaries and all the things that are a part of this. I'm in awe of that because I have learned

over the last month how hard it is in this space and how hard it is to maintain that sort of runaway success in this space. But you are rare because you're a rare talent to me. And you always, you had rare writing talent, rare broadcast talent that was very different from mine, but it's still very rare. And you have parlayed that and enhanced it and used it as your rocket fuel into a new space and all I can only judge by my small sample size of my

friends talk about what Dan said and what Dan's doing and about he did that and he had a conversation with so and so on South Beach sessions. I keep calling it conversations, but it's a conversation. It's a beautiful conversation and you're a gifted interviewer and a prober and you have wisdom of age now to go with your talent. When you were 26 and 30 and 36

and you were the young gun at the Miami Herald you didn't have the perspective that you have now and now you're you're at your most dominant because you get it and you got it and you've done all the above and now you've gone into a scary space and I think you've dominated it. I don't know how you view it, but that's what I think. Thank you, I was pushed into it, not unlike you, where I think from what it is that I've.

I wasn't pushed, I wanted to try it, but it's edge of cliff, man, and I'm sure you still feel like you're clean to edge of cliff on certain days. Yeah when you're fighting for this stuff it doesn't always feel like joy because there are a whole lot of young people who are doing a bunch of different things in this space and so and and I don't know that we are necessarily aging out but we're older now and need to. I mean, I still think I you can ask my wife, we mostly get this at Century City Mall, we live a block away. So it's out here on west side of LA.

It's a beautiful, I think it's the greatest mall in America, even though there is a mall of America that's very good. But the point is, every Saturday Saturday we take our little daughter, our dog Hazel, our Maltese, to walk in the mall because it's a parade of dog walkers in the mall. So I do get recognized and Ernestine is constantly astounded at 10, 12, 14, 16 year old kids who rush up to me in packs, skip bailus and they call me skip. And she says, you're so much older than they are, but they're treating you like you're one of them.

I have a young soul, I have young energy in me and they love that, they feed off that and they treat me like an equal. So they respect the fact that we've been through all the wars. I've been through all the newspaper wars. I've moved, I've fought. I've been through the politics at ESPN

and the politics at Fox. I plan to write a book about all my wild ride, which I'm looking forward to doing because it is wild. But the point is that you can still connect with the young viewers the young listeners the youtubers because they they know you know and they also know because you have you have a sort of a sillier side to you than I do but but they they love that because you have a kid in you I have a little kid in me still that I've

clung to and so your little kid comes through that microphone and through the visuals here and it connects with the younger viewers because, you're still embracing sports the way they embrace sports. It's fun and games to you more than it is to me, but the kids are still, they know that you're viewing it just the way they do, but you do have the wisdom of not the ages, but of age. And you're not gonna get aged out as long as your spirit stays because it's like they always talk about how did Brady last until he's 45?

He didn't lose his spirit because at certain points, I worked with Shannon Sharp. He said, I got to 35, I just couldn't do it anymore because I got sick of the meetings. Well, I'm not sick of the meetings. Whatever the drudgery or the dirty work is that we all have to go through, because you're overseeing an entire operation.

It's hard, man. And at some point, you might say, I just don't want to do that anymore because that's not worth this, because you have to do all that to get to this, right? I mean, it's work. All of it is work. Forgive me if I was ignorant in saying

pushed into doing something. I was pushed into something I might not have chosen otherwise. The reason I assumed you were pushed into it is only because you were working with Shannon, it was very successful, and then Shannon left under circumstances that seemed difficult for both of you. Ratings started dipping after that, and then I wanted for you a goodbye show after eight

years. I thought if you've given eight years of that spirit to a company, you should get to say a proper goodbye. And so I just assumed if there wasn't a proper goodbye there that there were more details there that I didn't know about. No, that was my choice. They wanted to do a proper goodbye. I just didn't want to do it because I wasn't retiring. I was starting, I felt like I was just beginning

because I knew I was going into a scary space. But I had been planning that for at least a year because my deal was about to run out. And if you ask about regrets, I do regret that Shannon got pushed out before I left because I wanted to finish our concurrent contracts with a year to go, and then we could go our separate ways. And I figured we would because he was starting to have success in this space with his podcast while he was still at FS1.

And I love working with Shannon, but we only had one. We had one clash one day for one flashpoint moment that I think I didn't really understand where he was coming from but we sat down after the show with our boss presiding. I should tell I should tell the people this was when you said to him you reduced his career in front of people comparing it to Tom Brady and saying he was you want to talk about what was your word about pitchfork and torch?

He was pitchforking and torching Tom Brady. I'm like, Shannon, he only won seven Super Bowls. I know you won three, but he was the quarterback who won seven, should have won eight. Belichick stole one from him, wouldn't play Malcolm Butler against the Eagles. I still don't get that. Gave up 41 points to the Philadelphia Nick Foles. Okay, so Brady should have won that. All he did was throw for a record 505 yards in that game, playoff, all-time playoff record.

The point is that Shannon was so hard on Tom that I finally said, come on, man. He's like, he's way up here and Shannon's saying took his glasses off do you know I'm in the hall yeah I got it but you're not in this guy's universe because I told him nobody's in that universe but it was disrespectful nobody tell him to put his glasses back on forgive me I interrupted your story you get together with your boss wasn't disrespectful because we didn't need to go there just put your glasses back on let's continue because I told you early on as I shown Shannon from day one there's no my favorite line was no punches pulled but none thrown we can't if we get

to the point we're going to throw punches across the table they're all going to turn it off because nobody wants to watch that they want to watch heated They don't want to watch anger, you know, pure unadulterated let's throw punches. Passion not rage. Yeah, yeah, there you go. Thank you. You're the wordsmith, right? So that was our only moment. And look, we're very different than Stephen A and I because Shannon and I went after it every day. We were competing because he played and I didn't, but I do know football and I'll go toe to toe with him on Xs and Os or whatever he wants to go with because I worked hard at learning the game that he played.

And I don't know about you, but over time, I often found that the people who played the game at the highest level didn't know the game as well as people who had to overachieve who played the game at the highest level didn't know the game as well as people who had to overachieve to play the game at a successful level. So what happened to Michael Jordan when he became the program builder, the the team runner in Charlotte? He was the worst GM in the history of basketball. So the greatest player ever in any sport was the worst GM in the history of basketball and it the greatest player ever in any sport was the worst GM in the history of basketball.

And it wasn't even close because it was a, whatever it was, like an eight year disaster, okay? So it's not impossible for me to, would you believe I was writing about Don Shula's dolphins when you were, what, were you even born yet? I don't know. Well, yeah, I was born in 68, but Don Shula's Dolphins in 72 and 73.

Yeah, okay. You were at the Miami Herald when you were early 20s. I was, straight out of school, 22, I was at the Miami Herald. So I learned some from Don Shula, but I learned a whole lot from Bill Walsh and Tom Landry and Jimmie Johnson and Dave Wonstadt and North Turner and on and on and on.

I'm pretty good at football. I'm good enough, I'll go on live TV with anybody who played football and I'll go back and forth. I don't know the jargon that Shannon would use like 22 million and bomb blitz and whatever the Denver jargon was, but I know what it was.

I know what those plays are and I know what they look like. And so we, this is what you would call quote unquote go for the throat debate where we got after it day after day after day, five days a week. I love Shannon Sharp because he came to work, man. Oh, he works hard. He still works hard. He came prepared and he came ready for battle. But I interrupted you on what the remorse was. You were going down the- Oh, well, I wish we could have finished together. I had nothing to do with him getting pushed out the back door, but he did get pushed out. So I was dumbfounded and I fought for him and I lost because that's way over my

head. I didn't have that kind of power and I don't know what transpired between him and the people upstairs but he was out. Did you trust your co-hosts? Like I don't want to pitch you Stephen A or Shannon but who was the most... if you have troubles with trust, if you don't... if you're telling me you're a lone wolf who doesn't trust many who was your most trusted co-host well i love steven i mean we're brothers and it's never brothers with shannon we're more competitive but i trusted him i know shannon sharp really well and i love that man's heart and I love that man's backbone and his character. I trusted him with my life. Do you know how many race topics we did where I'm the white guy talking about Black Lives

Matter and I'm very passionate about it but he protected me. Steve and I always protected me on any race topic. So we had that. We listen, when you go to battle that long, I lasted seven years with Shannon Sharp. That's the kind of format where you could be one and done. You could maybe make it through a year and that and you just burn out on each other. He's always so grateful when he speaks of you, always profoundly grateful and I know that you and Stephen A are still very close friends and that he admires you a great deal. I love Stephen A Smith with all my heart and

soul. He is gifted beyond gifted, he has the greatest gift of gab in the history of television and I fed off it. And we were such a great, unpredictably great click from day one. We used to do Jim Rome's show out here in LA when it was on Fox Sports Net called The Last Word. Jim would have us on as his wingman on this half hour afternoon show. Stephen A was in Philadelphia. I guess I was in Chicago when we first started. It was magic from day one. I don't know. I'm from Oklahoma City. He's from Queens. Who knew? But I showed him from day one. I got nothing but respect for you

and I got your back, but you gotta let me go hard at you and don't take it personally or that seriously. We are debating back and forth in front of Jim Rome who became a tennis fan, you know, and it just lifted off. And we did a pilot for a show that would have changed history, that when Jim left had a contract snafu that I was not privy to, but he left Fox Sports Net. Stephen A and I in 2002, I think PTI had just started,

so it was maybe three or four months old a Producer named John Johnston who's a close friend of mine Bright man Great heart. He said I want you two to do a show and It'll be PTI with an edge and he named it for the sake of the pilot sports in Black and White. This is 2002. We did the pilot and George Greenberg who ran the network at that point, Fox Sports Net, came flying out of the control room and said I could put this on tonight but we have to run it up the flagpole to the top. And it got rejected

at the top because people upstairs thought it was just too edgy, just too edgy. It's just that attack mode that you don't like, that as I call it, extreme debate mode. They weren't ready for, but I think the viewers were. Can you explain your friendship to I think the viewers were. Can you explain your friendship to and with Lil Wayne to me? He came to Bristol That Carter three I think had just come out is this oh eight ish I Can't explain it's another Stephen a and skip scenario

We just clicked in the pre-show meeting. We clicked. We started talking about Steph Curry, who I'd said before that draft, I would take Steph, number one overall, over Blake Griffin. I don't know if you remember that time, but everybody at ESPN was pro Blake. He can jump out of the building. And I'd watched him for two years at Oklahoma. He stayed for two years. I'm an Oklahoma Sooner fan. He couldn't make a shot from two feet away. At that point, he became a very accomplished three point set shooter over time.

But I said, this guy at Davidson, he's got a handle. He can play point guard. I've never seen anybody could shoot like this at the college level. Yeah, but it's the NBA 3. Okay, so Wayne walks in and we start to agree about Steph and I said, you would have taken him one over all two. Yeah, I would have taken him. And we didn't know yet what was about to transpire. And the rest is history. We just clicked. Then after the show, he came up on a bus. So he took me out to the bus, showed me his little recording studio that's like a bathroom on the bus that he can wedge into.

And I was hooked, and we have nothing in common except deep passion for sports. He views sports the way I do. And that man has an intellect about him, especially a sports intellect that runs as deep as mine. So when we get on text, not chains, but we text each other, and it's some of my best writing, seriously.

I think about, I look at them sometimes and there'll be 15 responses back and forth. And I think, man, this would make a great book, right? I don't know. So it got to the point where my wife, Ernestine and I, when he moved out here to LA, has it been two, three years ago? We started going out every couple of months

on a Saturday afternoon when I didn't have too many games to watch. And we would sit with Wayne at his place up in Hidden Hills out in the valley. And she would go. And it would amaze me that it would be okay if she went because he loves her like a big sister. And it would just be the three of us and we would talk for four straight hours without a bathroom break No food, no drink, no nothing We would just talk about life and times a little sports But only a little because Ernestine's not a big sports fan and she would chime in and so that's how we got to Really know each other. I will tell the people again that you can catch him now on YouTube

The Skip Baylor show is where you go How have the last few months felt to you untethered from the safety of the corporate overlords because the entire industry is changing. One of the things that you flatter me when you say that we're winning, we are trying to change the game in terms of showing people that they have their own individual brand power and don't have to work or slave for the corporations. They can do so in benefit and in service of themselves. So what have the last few months been like for you? So I was very blessed to leave the newspaper business just in time.

Not sure where you crossed over there completely, but I didn't see it coming. I thought once upon a time that Chicago Tribune would be the last building standing in Chicago. It's unfathomable to me that newspapers have cratered, that radio has cratered. I have felt, I don't know where you're going with this, but I have felt great fortune and gratitude in, I'm not gonna say there was acumen in it or strategy and just being able to jump from lily pad to lily pad as Calamities happened behind me. Well, but fortune not like just lucky not because I saw anything coming. I Did see a year ago Linear TV ratings are starting to erode

Across the board not just the show I was on. I'm looking at it saying, wait a second, people I trust in the business kept saying, you gotta go digital, you gotta go into this scary new space. It's not really new to you or others, but this is the only way to fly, because the other might go away, and I have a lot of close friends at Fox and at ESPN, and I don't want to see it go away and it won't go away as far as televising games obviously but as far as studio shows I'm not so sure so I exited stage right I hope at the right time and now we're taking baby steps as we try to create our little Lebatardian empire,

with different sort of approaches and shows than what you have accomplished. And it's been fun, scary, interesting, stimulating? The best thing about it, as my wife will tell you, I don't have to get up at two o'clock in the morning anymore, because I did for eight straight years, because I was the executive producer of my show, and I leaped out of bed every morning out here on the West Coast at 2

a.m. without fail and now I don't do that anymore. I don't think people understand the amount of dedication that it took to be you. So how disciplined is the eating regimen because it's chicken and broccoli every day, correct? It's it's it's the same thing every day and you were sleeping from what time till 2 a.m. How much sleep were you getting before getting up at 2 a.m. to do your show? I would shoot for nine but it was always 10-ish so I would get four hours then I would go home and nap for an hour and a half and so I subsisted on five-ish hours a day and then Friday night I would sleep 12 straight hours into Saturday

often without getting up to pee and because I was just so dead tired but that's changed my diet has not changed it's chicken and broccoli and rice and yet we do cheat on date night which is Friday night we have a slice sometimes two slices of pizza you maniac maniac I'm out of control Ernst and gets it from mulberry pizza. Not that I'm trying to plug them in Beverly Hills, but we love it And we do have frozen yogurt occasionally, especially on Friday night. So crazy lifestyle. You've been living skip 10 10 to 2 a.m

I have i've marveled at the people in morning radio who get their youth and their get destroyed by working 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. You doing it 2 a.m. to prepare for a show that wasn't starting at 2 a.m. You had to do everything. You had to do three hours of prep before you even started. I did, and I did a lot of prep the night before. We kicked off at 6.30, but I did do a lot of radio, as you have, and the beauty of morning radio, which I did in Dallas, was you didn't have to care how you looked in those days.

So you could say if you had a face made for radio, you could just go as is. And this was different because you had to look like as Ernestine always says she says this morning you look like who did it and ran that's her expression from somewhere I guess that was from the Lower East Side and her mother but I did occasionally look like that because I just hadn't slept. It seems nuts but you have had a great many rewards from how it is that you have done it. I congratulate you and I thank

you for sharing this time with us. I will tell them again the Skip Baylor show is on YouTube as he tries yet another reinvention. The reinventions can be difficult but I wish you well sir. Thank you for spending this time with us. Thank you for doing this. Hey everyone, it's Mike Ryan. So I'm hearing that you still haven't entered the DraftKings Weekend Observation presented by Miller Lite Prediction Pool. Let me ask you, what exactly are you waiting for?

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