Speaker 1: This is cut to it with Steve Smith Senior at
Speaker 1: production of The Black Effect and I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: Steve Smith Senior, and and this is cut to it.
Speaker 1: Good do it, Good do it. Let's get down to
Speaker 1: do it. Good do it. We asked the questions you
Speaker 1: always want to know, but no one ever asked, let's
Speaker 1: cut to it. You ain't heard about it, then we're
Speaker 1: about to let you. Now it's all. We got a
Speaker 1: good one of day. Yes we do. The host of
Speaker 1: Game theory entrepreneur. He's a host not of game shows,
Speaker 1: but he's also a journalist and super uper uh uper
Speaker 1: super super uper. He got so many degrees and yet
Speaker 1: he's doing sports. But we'll get into that. Bomani Joe.
Speaker 1: No matter thing's happening. I appreciate it. Were about welcome bro,
Speaker 1: you about that something fun, kick back, Take shoes off,
Speaker 1: close curtain, everything's good, better curtain. Sorry, that's bad, bad bath.
Speaker 1: Just that ain't west That ain't right there, that's not
Speaker 1: west side. I think you're ignoring the fact that I'm
Speaker 1: a single man. Like like like, if you would have
Speaker 1: asked me to go get a good curtain, I could
Speaker 1: get you. I could go get an expensive curtain, but
Speaker 1: I can't tell you that I would know a good
Speaker 1: one if I saw it. Hints kind of why you're
Speaker 1: still single. That goes the other one. Gonna convince me
Speaker 1: that before you got married, all of a sudden you're
Speaker 1: furticure game, but you're the floor was just super duper
Speaker 1: all point. At least it's up that you did for yourself,
Speaker 1: not wonder one, wonder one. I'm light skinned, so I
Speaker 1: can say possibly, let's just say we all learned the game.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say game recognized games. Did you see
Speaker 1: my face? I said possibly? Yeah? Alright, so man, um,
Speaker 1: I love this. Well, this is this is really it's
Speaker 1: right up Lley. It has nothing to do with the podcast,
Speaker 1: just random, just super duper random questions. So iceb it's
Speaker 1: called get ice stuff. Yeah. So it's just like you know,
Speaker 1: I'm like, why is he asking me that? It's just
Speaker 1: just get your relaxing in. Sometimes I'm a dad, so
Speaker 1: there's times where I just have I just got terrible
Speaker 1: dad jokes, right, so I'm going to your repertoire. Well
Speaker 1: they actually there's an app called dad Jokes. You're supposed
Speaker 1: to finesse out of it. Yeah, no, no, sometimes you
Speaker 1: just gotta on it. Got on it, all right. So
Speaker 1: here's a pretty bad one. It's an icebreaker. Why are
Speaker 1: rivers so rich? Ohm hm hm m hmm. Good question.
Speaker 1: Why are we so rich? Because they have two banks?
Speaker 1: But I'm sorry, man, hey, that was the best I
Speaker 1: got right there. I gotta say. I was really trying
Speaker 1: to like think I could like get it. I'm going
Speaker 1: to figure out the answer myself. And Nope, didn't get
Speaker 1: to the bank. I was. I was like he said
Speaker 1: about currency perhaps, No, Nope, I was when you go
Speaker 1: through that performance, I was just gonna wait on the answer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really it. Literally. I said this the other day.
Speaker 1: We were at dinner. Um, we're at lunch, and my
Speaker 1: kids looked at me. I was like, yeah, so whatever,
Speaker 1: it doesn't it doesn't matter. It was I was feeling it,
Speaker 1: so that's all it counts. Drake talked about that fake love.
Speaker 1: That's that's it right there. Yeah, you know that fake love.
Speaker 1: I can have it right in the line before we
Speaker 1: check on that flight. All right, um man, who is
Speaker 1: someone important in your life? Somebody important in my life?
Speaker 1: For this one, I'll say my brother. Like I moved
Speaker 1: to New York five years ago. And one of the
Speaker 1: cool things is that my brother is thirteen years old
Speaker 1: than me, so like we're closer in age now than
Speaker 1: we've ever been before, if that makes sense. Like when
Speaker 1: you're eighteen and you know he's eighteen and you're five,
Speaker 1: you know, then what uh and so and so like
Speaker 1: I moved here five years ago. He lives like literally
Speaker 1: a block away from me now, and so we get
Speaker 1: to you know, kick it as adults, like both of
Speaker 1: us being adults, which is like a real cool thing,
Speaker 1: not like he being an adult and you uh, you know,
Speaker 1: like not everything I do now was the reason to
Speaker 1: give me advice because you know, otherwise it is it's
Speaker 1: like it's your story. Yeah, put you all into something
Speaker 1: right fast called the party? Are you? Um man? Where
Speaker 1: are you from? In a place you call your hometown?
Speaker 1: I was born in Atlanta, but we moved to Houston
Speaker 1: when I was six and we stayed there to a
Speaker 1: lot of sixteens, so I'd say I grew up in Houston. Now,
Speaker 1: how was growing up in Houston for you? Well, it's
Speaker 1: interesting because I grew up in like the northwest suburbs
Speaker 1: of Houston, but my parents taught at a prairie view
Speaker 1: and the university, and my parents thought that where we
Speaker 1: lived just had too many white people for them to
Speaker 1: feel comfortable put me in the schools um and so
Speaker 1: I went to school in this town called Wall of Texas,
Speaker 1: population fourteen hundred nine when I graduated. So it's like
Speaker 1: I grew up in one place but went to school
Speaker 1: in another place. Hold on, how many fourteen? So less
Speaker 1: you know how many people are your graduating class? No,
Speaker 1: if my graduating class had two hundred people, goes well,
Speaker 1: see how it goes in the country is one town
Speaker 1: has the school for a bunch of towns, right right,
Speaker 1: Like you just got the one that's the location, and
Speaker 1: then you know, because the geography, and then they bring
Speaker 1: everybody in. So we had like people um in my
Speaker 1: graduating class. But yeah, so it's kind of interesting to
Speaker 1: like live in one place but you're like day to
Speaker 1: day life is in another. And it's also kind of
Speaker 1: interesting when you do that. And most people are trying
Speaker 1: to go from like lower income areas to find ways
Speaker 1: to sneak into the schools of the higher income areas,
Speaker 1: and you gotta higher income sneaking. Yeah, the other ways involved,
Speaker 1: we call that ask backwards. Yeah, but you know what.
Speaker 1: That's the thing about being black though, right, is that
Speaker 1: the social the social stuff, it's so important. And so
Speaker 1: rather than winding up like isolated as like the one
Speaker 1: black dude in some of these other spaces, and I've
Speaker 1: seen it happen to other people and I seen him
Speaker 1: get destroyed by it. Instead, like I went to school
Speaker 1: at what people would kind of think of as like
Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere type stuff, and it was the
Speaker 1: best thing that could have happened for me because what
Speaker 1: I had to learn was how to actually talk to people,
Speaker 1: you know, Like you could be the smart kid in
Speaker 1: these other places and just only be around the smart
Speaker 1: kids and you come out of there and don't know
Speaker 1: how to interact with people, right, Like that's how you
Speaker 1: you know, And there was a learning process for me.
Speaker 1: But I got an awareness of life where if I
Speaker 1: had just gone to school with a bunch of people
Speaker 1: who grew up in the same neighborhood as I did,
Speaker 1: I would have had a much different view of the
Speaker 1: world than I did from going somewhere where like classes
Speaker 1: and was determined who goes to school here. It's just
Speaker 1: pure geography. So you meet a little bit of this,
Speaker 1: a little bit of that a little bit. You know,
Speaker 1: all these people all over place, so you know that's
Speaker 1: that's the thing that's a little different for me about
Speaker 1: it is I learned very quickly that Okay, my parents
Speaker 1: are us is that's cool. But you better learn how
Speaker 1: to talk to like secretaries too, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: You better learn how to talk to the people that
Speaker 1: work in the building, and you know and recognize that
Speaker 1: they are you, you are them, Like, ain't a whole
Speaker 1: lot of difference betweens. So so with parents who were professors,
Speaker 1: what were those kitchen table conversations like for you early on? Well,
Speaker 1: the thing with them is, at least for me, it
Speaker 1: was less about like what they were saying to me
Speaker 1: as much as what they were saying to each other.
Speaker 1: And I just happened to be there, you know. You're like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, so like them talking about what they see
Speaker 1: on the news, it lands a little different when it's
Speaker 1: an economist and the political scientists talking about it, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Little yeah, and it's but it's
Speaker 1: not like they're talking about it in like high falut
Speaker 1: terms or anything like that. Like it's not you know,
Speaker 1: it's not that sort of vibe but what what made
Speaker 1: that interesting for me? The is so since my siblings
Speaker 1: are old, right, like my brother's thirteen years old to me,
Speaker 1: my sisters ten years older to be the people I
Speaker 1: went to school with twenty something miles away. So like
Speaker 1: my handout partners by the house are these professors and
Speaker 1: their friends who are also professors. So I'm at home
Speaker 1: and there's like that level of conversation that I'm accustomed to.
Speaker 1: It took a long time to figure out how to
Speaker 1: adapt that to like dealing with everybody else. You know,
Speaker 1: It's funny, is mhmm? You sound like my I'm not comparing,
Speaker 1: but you sound like my son Deuce, who's seven. My
Speaker 1: oldest is four, second should be twenty one in September.
Speaker 1: Then I gotta soon to be seventeen year old. Then
Speaker 1: who got a seven year old? Right? And when my
Speaker 1: seventh year oldest he's at basketball practice, are not at
Speaker 1: the house. There are things that me and my wife
Speaker 1: are talking about that deuces ear hustling on and then
Speaker 1: he's starting to interrupt and ask follow up questions right
Speaker 1: like a lab right on that excuse me? Right? And
Speaker 1: and so it's you're connecting, Yes, you're connecting. Those dots
Speaker 1: like you're talking, I'm going wow, like just just thinking
Speaker 1: about it, so you know, and and I interrupted to
Speaker 1: to connect the dots. So what are some of those
Speaker 1: conversations that that that g s like that you and
Speaker 1: maybe that you're even having applied until now that you
Speaker 1: like you're just you're just connect your dots like oh like,
Speaker 1: because I know they're not sitting there having hyper uh
Speaker 1: you know, intellectual conversations. They're like they're at the house
Speaker 1: between their walls, right intimate you know, mom and dad,
Speaker 1: you got their stuff, and then they're just loose, right,
Speaker 1: a little bit loose where they don't have to work
Speaker 1: concern themselves with you know, how they said they could
Speaker 1: sometimes said in the way that they how they truly
Speaker 1: feel uh economically, ethnically, um ship by the end of
Speaker 1: the day just kind of like hey, I'm I'm just
Speaker 1: tired today and this is and just just saying that
Speaker 1: the real way they want to say, Yeah, like I
Speaker 1: think the big thing and I picked it up. I
Speaker 1: know exactly when I fully put the dots together, like, oh, right,
Speaker 1: is like my father's skepticism about racing America. I did
Speaker 1: not necessarily share the whole way because then I grew
Speaker 1: up in the nineties. The nineties, to me, we're like
Speaker 1: the most optimistic time on races. They like like we
Speaker 1: actually had an era where high fashion was closed telling
Speaker 1: people not to be racist no more, you know, like
Speaker 1: it was kind of a dawn of the time that
Speaker 1: felt like we might have been doing something. And then
Speaker 1: Hurricane can Train a hit and I was like, oh
Speaker 1: I was wrong about everything, right, Like wow, No, they
Speaker 1: really will just ignore us just because we're black. Oh
Speaker 1: they really will stop us from coming over a bridge
Speaker 1: just because we're black. Like I just that was like
Speaker 1: a wild thought to me up until that point, like
Speaker 1: it could be like almost governmental, not just like a
Speaker 1: couple of people around and so like here and my
Speaker 1: dad and parents are both like sitting, you know, supposed
Speaker 1: who did involved in significant like historically significant citty in
Speaker 1: and stuff when they were younger. That it's that discussion.
Speaker 1: But I think the other part that where I got
Speaker 1: really lucky was I spent Since I didn't live where
Speaker 1: I went to school, I would go to my mom's
Speaker 1: office after school and she was the dean of business
Speaker 1: at her view for most of my childhood, and so
Speaker 1: I had like exposure to how an office ran, and
Speaker 1: importantly it was being exposed to an office where a
Speaker 1: woman is at the top of the chain, Like a
Speaker 1: woman is the one not just that people have to respect,
Speaker 1: but also it's the person who establishes the culture um
Speaker 1: of the office. And that as I really look back
Speaker 1: at it, like I think about now doing this TV
Speaker 1: show and not like being the boss boss, but being
Speaker 1: on top of it that learning how to like I
Speaker 1: learned how to relate to people in offices and kind
Speaker 1: of see the importance of how everybody feels about different
Speaker 1: things and stuff like that, people having some good fortune
Speaker 1: of being around that managing people, Yes, managing people and
Speaker 1: recognizing that like flexi power where people's face ain't gonna work,
Speaker 1: like respect is earned. You're gonna have to like if
Speaker 1: they don't respect you, you you ain't gonna make them respect you. Right,
Speaker 1: you can make them fear you, but you can't make
Speaker 1: them respect you. And I think that's something that women
Speaker 1: are far more likely to understand than men because in
Speaker 1: the end, then you know, as there the parking lot
Speaker 1: to really come down to it, you know, like there's
Speaker 1: a chain of there's a chain of events to earn
Speaker 1: that respect With women now you just gotta hurt it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like it. I'm it's it's a lot there to unpack,
Speaker 1: because there is there are some things that you know,
Speaker 1: as men, m it just doesn't add up for us.
Speaker 1: We just don't get it. But then you also add
Speaker 1: the business aspect of it, where you know, I use
Speaker 1: a phrase bulling the china closet, right, and then listening
Speaker 1: to everyone in and taking the temperature of the room
Speaker 1: and figuring out who you know, for myself is figuring
Speaker 1: out what is what is Sally? What is Jenny? What
Speaker 1: is James? What are they going through at home? To
Speaker 1: know what can I get out of them today and
Speaker 1: figuring that out, and then also going, yeah, Alison just
Speaker 1: is having a tough day today. So there's no sense
Speaker 1: trying to pull that extra out of it, because all
Speaker 1: you're gonna do is actually reset the whole office. You're
Speaker 1: gonna mess up the whole office, and then that whole
Speaker 1: office is gonna be mad at you and you're the boss.
Speaker 1: Things you got to navigate through, uh, going going back
Speaker 1: through to your your upbringing. You graduated from Wala High
Speaker 1: School in Houston when you were sixteen. Now I don't
Speaker 1: that's not something that happens every day. Walk us through that. No,
Speaker 1: it's just when we moved to Texas, Um I was
Speaker 1: a little ahead of the curriculum that they would teaching
Speaker 1: slightly time. Yeah, well yeah, well the thing was like
Speaker 1: prior to that, the way I described it is, I
Speaker 1: did like a home school at somebody else's house, but
Speaker 1: it was real like red, black, green, power to the
Speaker 1: people type situation, you know what I mean. And so
Speaker 1: in a situation like that, you're not going to what
Speaker 1: is your quote unquote grade level. You go on as
Speaker 1: far as you go. And so when we moved to Texas,
Speaker 1: that was just jumping back for me to like things
Speaker 1: I had long done before. And it just didn't make
Speaker 1: no sense for me to be in the grade that
Speaker 1: they had me in, and so they put me up one.
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, my birthday is late
Speaker 1: as in eight August, and like September is the roll
Speaker 1: over for schools there. So for me it became interesting
Speaker 1: because I was already one of the youngest people in
Speaker 1: the grade I was supposed to be in, and then
Speaker 1: you get skipped a grade, so I'm like two years
Speaker 1: younger than people in my actual grade. But it's what
Speaker 1: it always was, so I never really gave it any thought.
Speaker 1: It's stunk in like middle school when everybody's growing and
Speaker 1: still you're still waiting for the party. Um. But by
Speaker 1: you know, by twelfth grade, I got up six feet,
Speaker 1: so you know, I made it back to the point.
Speaker 1: Know I I got back. I got back around where
Speaker 1: the crew was eventually, you know, but in the and
Speaker 1: it it being a time. Yeah, you know, like sports
Speaker 1: win't gonna happen for me, like the calendar dictated. That's true.
Speaker 1: Did you ever feel out of place because because of that?
Speaker 1: And if you did, did you ever feel that being
Speaker 1: out of place? Did you ever view that as an opportunity? Now?
Speaker 1: I didn't feel out of place because of age stuff,
Speaker 1: because I was like I was in school with all
Speaker 1: those people from third grade up like whatever it was.
Speaker 1: It always was like they might not necessarily know how
Speaker 1: old I was. It wasn't. But I didn't get that
Speaker 1: part um really too much thought, um, because it wasn't
Speaker 1: like I couldn't hang into space as I was in.
Speaker 1: So like if I was in like if I if
Speaker 1: you skip me a grade and I'm way less mature
Speaker 1: than the kids in the grade because I'm too young,
Speaker 1: then that's gonna be one thing. But whenever they put
Speaker 1: me up in something like that, like I was, I
Speaker 1: was cool with being in that space because I like
Speaker 1: I knew why I was there. I knew I could
Speaker 1: hang Like. It wasn't that I'm spending all this time
Speaker 1: hanging out with actually grown ups. You know, these kids
Speaker 1: who were just a year older than me. That ain't
Speaker 1: You had your folks, right, you had your brother and
Speaker 1: then you were you know, age wise, you were you
Speaker 1: were younger, So it was it was the status quote
Speaker 1: for you. That was that was that was every day
Speaker 1: you're flourishing and standing out, you know even you know
Speaker 1: what it was. Yeah, you don't even know you're flourishing.
Speaker 1: That's just your every day right, Yeah, it's Well. The
Speaker 1: other thing was, for whatever reason, I've been somebody that
Speaker 1: people could identify as smart, like really early and without
Speaker 1: much background. It's not like they're just waiting around to
Speaker 1: being like, oh, this guy's really smart. Like for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: people catch it pretty quick. And so especially when you
Speaker 1: going to school with the same people for all these years,
Speaker 1: like they knew I was the smart dude from nineteen
Speaker 1: eighties seven, all like that's that's who and what I was,
Speaker 1: And so I always had a place because I always
Speaker 1: had that, which is actually cool because I learned something
Speaker 1: that I think a lot of like smart kids don't
Speaker 1: quite get, which is the other kids do. They don't
Speaker 1: mind you being smart. They just don't want you to
Speaker 1: be a jerk about it, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like they might pick on you for being a nerve,
Speaker 1: but everybody wants to be smart, and a single person
Speaker 1: out here, like man, I wish I was who wants
Speaker 1: to Yeah, they just don't want you to be a
Speaker 1: jerk about being smart. But it was always my bag,
Speaker 1: Like it was when I went to college, it was
Speaker 1: a problem because I realized, oh, you gotta have a
Speaker 1: different hustle than this, Like that's like I'm the smartest
Speaker 1: person in the room. Does not worked as an adult,
Speaker 1: but as a child people think that stuff is kind
Speaker 1: of cool. What what was some of your dreams growing
Speaker 1: up as as a as a child? Man? So it's
Speaker 1: actually funny because it's like bo Jackson was my like
Speaker 1: number one athlete. He wrote, like and ship still is
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about. Used to be um And I
Speaker 1: remember I had the boat was closed. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you remember, it's one that went long ways across
Speaker 1: with the with the bat. This is the one where
Speaker 1: he was doing everything like it said when he was
Speaker 1: both Yeah, so he's like in a hockey years too poor.
Speaker 1: We just had the bat to show the path. I
Speaker 1: didn't know there was another Yeah that was I had bikes.
Speaker 1: I didn't have nikes. I had bikes. So only only
Speaker 1: one I know was to show the pads in the bat.
Speaker 1: What you're talking about. I'm not on that side of
Speaker 1: the county. I'm on the other yonder. It did not
Speaker 1: I did not realize until right now that bikes shoes
Speaker 1: were actually blue leg night. I never put the two
Speaker 1: with two together. Serious, you can get it from Sears. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just until right like I remember him and I
Speaker 1: was like, how what an interesting name for shoes. Consider
Speaker 1: that that was it? But now but it was the
Speaker 1: closed with him doing all the stuff. And when I
Speaker 1: was growing up, I wanted to do everything, like I
Speaker 1: believe that I could be good at doing a ziity
Speaker 1: and different things like jack ball trades like that was
Speaker 1: the idea of what I wanted to do. And it's
Speaker 1: actually kind of wild because I did the thirty thirty
Speaker 1: on bo Jackson. I sat for that, and I don't
Speaker 1: on me while I was in it. Like when you
Speaker 1: look at what like, especially with media is in this
Speaker 1: day and time. But I am doing like class these
Speaker 1: different things at efferent point, you know, like it kind
Speaker 1: of worked out there. I love cut to It, and
Speaker 1: I love it even more when you download us and
Speaker 1: subscribe and you can follow us on social media too, Smithie,
Speaker 1: where where at? That's at? Cut to It on Instagram?
Speaker 1: What about Twitter? At? Cut to It? Facebook? Cut to
Speaker 1: It featuring Steve Smith singr? What about online? And you
Speaker 1: can follow us at cut to It podcast dot com
Speaker 1: where you can buy merch and you can subscribe to
Speaker 1: us wherever you listen to podcasts. I got all my answers, questions. Um,
Speaker 1: I got all my questions answered. That's what I'm here for,
Speaker 1: a brother cut to a podcast dot com. Bro. You
Speaker 1: got all these degrees and went to college, but you're
Speaker 1: doing sports? Yeah? How and why? Um? It's a couple
Speaker 1: of things. So when I was in college, I started
Speaker 1: like freelance writing about music and culture and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and I really enjoyed it. And when I got out
Speaker 1: of college, the one thing I knew was that I
Speaker 1: did not want to go to graduate school, and I
Speaker 1: definitely did not want to study economics again. But I
Speaker 1: remember study all of that. Yeah, it was it was
Speaker 1: here's I go. So so, while I'm finishing my senior
Speaker 1: year and I'm writing, I'm talking to this guy's a freelancer,
Speaker 1: and I, you know, looked up to him. He was
Speaker 1: far more experience than me. And he sent me an
Speaker 1: email saying how excited he was because he had made
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars freelancing in the previous years doing his
Speaker 1: taxes and he made ten I was in dollars, and
Speaker 1: he was really excited about the fact that he made
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars doing it. And I said, wait a minute.
Speaker 1: Four thousand dollars is an exciting figure for this freelance life.
Speaker 1: Like if I made ten thousand dollars, maybe I should
Speaker 1: be happy about it. I completely misunderstood what kind of
Speaker 1: money was out there, and so I ain't know what
Speaker 1: I was gonna do. But as a guy who owned
Speaker 1: the magazine, I want to say in like Baltimore, he
Speaker 1: hit me up and he was trying to start this
Speaker 1: and he had all these like kind of Scott things.
Speaker 1: He's gonna do for me and you know about paying it,
Speaker 1: all this stuff, and I hadn't heard from him for
Speaker 1: a while. To my home boys are going to d C.
Speaker 1: And I said, look, I'm gonna ride up with y'all
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna meeting this cat of all a hundred
Speaker 1: dollars for my parents. I got in the car and
Speaker 1: the dude stood me up. And I remember I was
Speaker 1: at my home boys mama's house on the couch, my
Speaker 1: head back to stressed because it's like August. I have
Speaker 1: a degree and I had no play. What am I
Speaker 1: going to do? And I get a phone call from
Speaker 1: Clarenmont Graduate University and Claremont California and they're like, uh
Speaker 1: so we essentially the emails about this fellowship, but uh
Speaker 1: you never responded and now now I'm here to listen,
Speaker 1: you know, tell me some more. And they got talking
Speaker 1: and I said, I mean, I'm talking. I said, cool,
Speaker 1: and I was like, okay, so this is I'm assuming
Speaker 1: for the you know, for January, for the spring, and
Speaker 1: they're like, no, this is for the fault. And I
Speaker 1: called my parents. It was like, you know, can you
Speaker 1: you know, can y'all get me there? And they did,
Speaker 1: and so I got there, and my thinking was, Okay,
Speaker 1: I want to do this writing thing, but I want
Speaker 1: to get to like kind of like that public intellectual space,
Speaker 1: right like the Michael Lary Dice and type of stuff.
Speaker 1: And I realized there were no people who were no
Speaker 1: black economists who were in that space, and I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: so if I can become that dude, right, like, I
Speaker 1: can use this to do that. And so it was
Speaker 1: always really for the writing. And so the first degree
Speaker 1: was great, like I really learned a lot just about
Speaker 1: the end of played between politics and economics, which is
Speaker 1: really helpful in sports with just the business of things,
Speaker 1: and when the business of things becomes part of the
Speaker 1: actual politics, like not like some Kaeperniic stuff, but like
Speaker 1: stadium building stuff like you know, I understood and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and revenue shape exactly, like what's going on
Speaker 1: with the commanders, how he's schanging that? Yeah, like that
Speaker 1: that yeah. And so I kept going through school with it,
Speaker 1: and after I've done that Masters, I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I kind of dig this. I think I can do
Speaker 1: a PhD. And then I started the PhD program. I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't enjoy this at all, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't enjoy me back, like, this is just a lot
Speaker 1: of hard work, and I'm not as good at it
Speaker 1: as I want to be. And I realized I had
Speaker 1: a master's level of curiosity about that stuff, not a
Speaker 1: PhD level of curiosity. And so when I left the
Speaker 1: graduate program, I had established myself well enough as a writer.
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, I had met the late grade
Speaker 1: Ralph Wiley, and he had walked me up to ESPN
Speaker 1: already and I was doing some stuff at them. So
Speaker 1: when the school thing fell apart, ESPN happened to call them,
Speaker 1: was like, look, we got some projects that we think
Speaker 1: you might be interested in working on. It's like two
Speaker 1: thousand five, And so I started working with them. And
Speaker 1: that's so I used the school stuff actually all the time.
Speaker 1: It's about the thought process, like it was the thing
Speaker 1: I had when I got in the game. I didn't
Speaker 1: have access, right, like I'm not in the locker rooms.
Speaker 1: I can't talk about things on that level. So I
Speaker 1: had to find how can I talk about sports in
Speaker 1: a way that's fair to the people that I talked about,
Speaker 1: but also unique and worthwhile. And so I started putting
Speaker 1: big stuff together. He explain little stuff. Let me ask
Speaker 1: you with that because I as an analyst, I struggled
Speaker 1: with that. I struggled with it in my day to
Speaker 1: day job because there are some people that I work
Speaker 1: with and you you know, you've worked with people as well,
Speaker 1: which at times the media, the media sometimes when the
Speaker 1: reporter talks or beat writer, the fans have a belief
Speaker 1: system that that beat writer has a good, bad, or
Speaker 1: indifferent some type of relationship with that player or the
Speaker 1: organ with that player that they're writing about. Would you say,
Speaker 1: and I'm even learning nine times out of ten most
Speaker 1: of the time they don't your eyes popping? What was that?
Speaker 1: That was a yes? No? And I'm always but what
Speaker 1: I was going with this? As an analysts, I'm always
Speaker 1: interested as noticing that a lot of the some of
Speaker 1: the people that I work with, and I work with
Speaker 1: a number of people aren't They don't even go in
Speaker 1: the locker room. They will be talking about things. They
Speaker 1: didn't go to that training camp. They hadn't talked to anybody.
Speaker 1: They may have had a five second conversation and looked
Speaker 1: at you know and say, hey, this team is winning
Speaker 1: and this is the reason why. So my question from that,
Speaker 1: what do you think? Where do you think media and
Speaker 1: the way media is reporting things. Now, where do you categorize?
Speaker 1: I think that it's always important to recognize, like what
Speaker 1: is and is not your lame right. So for me,
Speaker 1: if somebody compares me to Stephen A. Smith, the one
Speaker 1: thing I always point out is is Steven A. Smith
Speaker 1: got thirty years and strikes on the ground that I
Speaker 1: don't have because my life just went in a different direction,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like it just did. It
Speaker 1: didn't go in that place. When Stephen A. Smith is
Speaker 1: telling you he heard something, it means something different that
Speaker 1: if I say I heard something, Like if I tell
Speaker 1: you I heard something, I mean I just heard you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like I'm just telling you, like yo,
Speaker 1: it's a wild stuff like Steven. You know, Stephen A.
Speaker 1: Smith tells you he heard something, you need to perk
Speaker 1: up and you need to listen. Now. If I tell you,
Speaker 1: all right, I know something that I am telling you,
Speaker 1: like it ain't normally like that or whatever it is
Speaker 1: at this time, like I talking about like you got
Speaker 1: you're like, man, I was talking to somebody overheard something.
Speaker 1: I was there hustling g and Steve told men you know,
Speaker 1: or somebody or at this point you get on TV
Speaker 1: long enough, the fish start jumping in the boat, like
Speaker 1: people start calling you to tell you stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: like like you don't have to go find him, no
Speaker 1: more to you start finding you. There's been but there's
Speaker 1: been times people have told me that, like told me information.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I think this is a trick. I think
Speaker 1: they're trying to see if I'm a snitch or not
Speaker 1: knowing that happens. And I'm going, yeah, Dane, this is good.
Speaker 1: I wonder should I say something. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I should say something. Yeah, no, the answer is just
Speaker 1: go get go. What's two people tell you? Let's see.
Speaker 1: I'm still but I'm still stuck on the first person.
Speaker 1: I'd be like, I think this is a trick. I'm
Speaker 1: too busy in my yea, Oh no, you're right. But
Speaker 1: then at that point it's like, yo, man, I know
Speaker 1: you told me this, but like three four people don't
Speaker 1: told you know what, like what people don't tell you
Speaker 1: you know, like if it's just too But it's like, look, man,
Speaker 1: somebody else told me to like you need to know
Speaker 1: like this out here now, there ain't really nothing I
Speaker 1: can do about it. I don't even get that far.
Speaker 1: I'm in the beginning, I was so like I would
Speaker 1: get the information. I'll go on my room. I'm in
Speaker 1: a hotel room, and I don't know what should I
Speaker 1: do write. I'll write it down and I never interact
Speaker 1: with anybody else, and then I'm then I'm shook. So
Speaker 1: now now I'm at training camp. I'm at training camp.
Speaker 1: Do they know? I know that they know that's something's
Speaker 1: about to go down. He didn't speak to me. He
Speaker 1: knows I know. And then I leave and they go, Man,
Speaker 1: do Steve really enjoy yourself? He didn't hardly talk to anybody.
Speaker 1: I'm walking around, I'm walking around with their secret, but
Speaker 1: it's I'm holding it like it's my secret. Yo. Reporting
Speaker 1: is terrified. Like the couple of times that I've like
Speaker 1: tried to break something, it's the most terrifying thing in
Speaker 1: the world because somebody's gonna say you're not telling the truth.
Speaker 1: Ye maybe they're lying, maybe they're not. Maybe the first
Speaker 1: you talk to line. Maybe it all goes all over
Speaker 1: the play. It's like there's a stomach for that particular
Speaker 1: game that I acknowledge. I don't have. I don't you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Like like I see guys who
Speaker 1: do that. But to your point thought about being on
Speaker 1: the ground, it's a whole lot of people, like because
Speaker 1: of my background, I'm a member of the media, but
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't look at it. It's like I'm
Speaker 1: a member of the tribe because I didn't come up
Speaker 1: with these cats like on the ground in the same way.
Speaker 1: Like there's a solidarity and that they kind of have
Speaker 1: amongst each other. That yeah, right, there's no self criticism.
Speaker 1: There's not enough self criticism in the emphasis emphasizing thieves.
Speaker 1: But I think you don't. But I do think that
Speaker 1: we as a group don't don't check each other enough
Speaker 1: things unless it's time to, like, unless it's time to
Speaker 1: like step on somebody's brave with something. But we don't
Speaker 1: do that enough. And so there are a lot of
Speaker 1: people who are in a position where you can cover
Speaker 1: the NFL only talking to owners and agents, right It's honestly,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of white people only talking to white
Speaker 1: people right there, talking to the white ages that they know.
Speaker 1: They're talking to the white executives that they know, the
Speaker 1: white business managers or whatever it is, and that's where
Speaker 1: all their information gets traffic. And then they are never
Speaker 1: on the ground actually talking to players or the scouts
Speaker 1: or guys that are role position coaches, right, and and
Speaker 1: there guys that are the opposite. Right. Jay Blazer, for example,
Speaker 1: we talk every Yeah, his game is on the Like
Speaker 1: Jay Blaze is talking to dudes. He's talking to your
Speaker 1: strength coach. He's talking to the dudes, nanny and and
Speaker 1: the dog walker like he knows that he was walking
Speaker 1: that dog and he had a limp. He's on the ground.
Speaker 1: Even Money said earlier, and I'm glad you brought up
Speaker 1: Like a lot of people don't realize Stephen, Ay Andy,
Speaker 1: I know you spent some time in North Carolina. Stephen,
Speaker 1: they went to win Salem State. He was working for
Speaker 1: went to Salem Chronicle. He was covering high school football,
Speaker 1: like he came up from them. And that's her struggle
Speaker 1: because North Carolina high school football, like he's but everywhere
Speaker 1: he's gone, everywhere he's gone, he's cultivated sources. So to
Speaker 1: his point, like when he says something or was rooted
Speaker 1: in fat because he's come from the bottom. But the problem,
Speaker 1: they're also still on the ground twice a week. With
Speaker 1: all that work that he does, he's still showing his
Speaker 1: face in an arena twice a week. The part that
Speaker 1: that's struggling though, it really is, as you do all
Speaker 1: of that, you almost have to take a side you're
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, white or black. It's like you
Speaker 1: either pro player or pro front office, right, And there's
Speaker 1: times like even with Stephen A, where he can talk
Speaker 1: about things and the players are not happy in the
Speaker 1: way he's talking, even though you know he's gonna talk
Speaker 1: about the sideways anyway. Yeah, I am as interesting because
Speaker 1: you're right, I don't think you necessarily have to have
Speaker 1: to have side, but I'm transparent by me. I got
Speaker 1: a side. My side is pro player. My side is
Speaker 1: pro labor generally speaking, like it's always gonna be that
Speaker 1: in part because somebody has to balance this out. Now.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna be unfair to management because I recognize
Speaker 1: everybody got a job. You know, it's a bunch of
Speaker 1: weird stuff. And I also get that from the perspective
Speaker 1: of media, especially with football, the players are in and
Speaker 1: out so much. The front office guys are going to
Speaker 1: be there consistently, and so your game is probably gonna
Speaker 1: be to try to work with the guy that you
Speaker 1: know is gonna have a job for five years rather
Speaker 1: than just dude, there might be a salary cap casualty
Speaker 1: next year. It's peaky three of y'all. So you know,
Speaker 1: there's so many people. The quarterback don't want to talk
Speaker 1: to you. You gotta go through three people to get
Speaker 1: the access to him. So it's not that I don't
Speaker 1: get how it goes, but I do see people and
Speaker 1: the way that they like root for the front office,
Speaker 1: and I'm just kind of like, no, I wouldn't raise
Speaker 1: like that. Man. I can't imagine doing the job like
Speaker 1: this and not recognizing that if there's somebody who needs us,
Speaker 1: it is the player more than the team. So that's
Speaker 1: being said. The money, you've been able to really find
Speaker 1: your niche. You You've talked about it being the intellectual
Speaker 1: in sports, intersecting music, pop culture, socialty issues, race, all
Speaker 1: these things. How are you comfortable in your own skin?
Speaker 1: Why not? Like? The thing that honestly for me is
Speaker 1: that you were talking earlier about like being younger and
Speaker 1: whether you felt out of place. I don't know if
Speaker 1: there's any like space that I'm in where I truly
Speaker 1: feel like I'm in that place, Like I always feel
Speaker 1: like there's some big difference between me and most people
Speaker 1: that are in a room, no matter what the room
Speaker 1: happens to be. But instead of feeling out of place
Speaker 1: in all those rooms, it just feels like like like,
Speaker 1: no matter what room I'm gonna be in, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be on some I'm gonna be off on something that's
Speaker 1: different than a lot of people. Or or you may
Speaker 1: just be getting there, or someone else in the room
Speaker 1: makes a look or a comment that lets you know
Speaker 1: if that you're not there yet. Yeah, but you know what, dope.
Speaker 1: But the thing for me is, if it's always gonna
Speaker 1: feel like that, then either I can trip out in
Speaker 1: every room I'm in, or I can trip out in
Speaker 1: none of the rooms. And so like I'll tell you this,
Speaker 1: when I started with Around the Horn, not really with
Speaker 1: the ESPN, but when I started doing Around the Horn
Speaker 1: in the first time they called me, I made a decision.
Speaker 1: I was like, I got two choices. I can go
Speaker 1: about this like, man, I hope they called me back,
Speaker 1: or I can go about this as well. I got
Speaker 1: one chance, let's just have a ball, and I went
Speaker 1: with number two and they wanted that back right. But
Speaker 1: like before, I came back to ESPN full time I
Speaker 1: had said that I wanted to work at places and
Speaker 1: established who I was and what I did so that
Speaker 1: whoever hired me next that could be hiring me to
Speaker 1: do what they did. You knew you were hiring me
Speaker 1: to be bits and once I did that, man, it's
Speaker 1: just like what you're gonna do? Be man? Okay, that happens. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but then get you on the principal's office a few times.
Speaker 1: And so my flip on, my flip, my flip on
Speaker 1: a good at staying out of the prison. I'm so
Speaker 1: my flip on that was gonna be how you deal
Speaker 1: with the haters, because, like you said, when you show
Speaker 1: up and you'd be unapologetically you sometimes that pisses people. Also.
Speaker 1: Then on the flip side, how do you deal with
Speaker 1: the haters? There are so many people in this world
Speaker 1: that I like them and that I dislike for no
Speaker 1: good reason. I just don't like them. Life. It happens
Speaker 1: like not everybody's going like what I do. And we
Speaker 1: all know this from a very simple example. What percentage
Speaker 1: of your home boys that rap actually made good rap music?
Speaker 1: M that's still your man. He just can't wrap. And
Speaker 1: so you don't think if you don't think I can wrap,
Speaker 1: whether I know you or not. Okay, cool, you don't
Speaker 1: think I can wrap. But but if I got people
Speaker 1: who do think I can wrap, then I'm gonna wrap
Speaker 1: for them. Yes, yes, man, you know, but I think
Speaker 1: but no. But I think. The other thing though, is
Speaker 1: that those people don't know me. I'm not even a
Speaker 1: person to Steve, I said, you know this as press
Speaker 1: last as you realize when people screaming at you, they
Speaker 1: don't think you're a person. They just think that you
Speaker 1: do like to do in the video game, and they
Speaker 1: just think that I'm like a dude on the screen
Speaker 1: and you could throw something at the screen and they
Speaker 1: don't hit the person, right, They're not thinking about me
Speaker 1: in that way like what I do on TV. I've
Speaker 1: had someone actually on Thursday night throw something at us
Speaker 1: on on and um, I might switch one off. Oh,
Speaker 1: I would imagine, so personally know it wasn't anything. It
Speaker 1: was bear on my suit. Oh so that's not that's
Speaker 1: someone who doesn't google the camera. The camera panned off
Speaker 1: because they hit me. And you know, when you get hit,
Speaker 1: it's a delay reous you know, like when you're a kid,
Speaker 1: you put your hand on the stove and it's it's like,
Speaker 1: I think this is this is hot. That director does
Speaker 1: not get enough credit for their choice that day. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw it and they and I was like, it
Speaker 1: was like you look on your phone and you go,
Speaker 1: somebody stole money out of my account. Right, It's you're
Speaker 1: like you're registering it, but it's just not gathering. It
Speaker 1: was like it ain't raining. Whoa and it was camera
Speaker 1: and I just looked back like yo, and I know
Speaker 1: I'm growing because I was like, man, I hope this
Speaker 1: comes out of my suit. That was the first thing
Speaker 1: I was thinking about it. Then the second thing was
Speaker 1: are they trying me today? You always have to have
Speaker 1: that self question. Yeah, that self question in my rest case,
Speaker 1: do they not know if I take this jacket off,
Speaker 1: I got this stretch underneath, and it's it's just it's
Speaker 1: amazing me personally. I I used to when I first
Speaker 1: started meeting, I struggled with the haters because they all
Speaker 1: tell you're dumb. Well to this day and I could
Speaker 1: joke about it. Oh, he can't speak. He's the worst
Speaker 1: analysts NFL network has. Well one, Um, I can't speak.
Speaker 1: I'm lazy and that's why sometimes I get in trouble
Speaker 1: at the house because I curse, right, So I'm lazy
Speaker 1: with my tongue. But I know for a fact I'm
Speaker 1: not the worst. I know I'm not at least I
Speaker 1: know at least there's two other people worse than me.
Speaker 1: But you don't happen with me, though, And where I
Speaker 1: got lucky was that, like with with because Twitter and
Speaker 1: all that has increased the access we give haters. And
Speaker 1: so I got on Twitter in two thousand nine, and
Speaker 1: I was doing local radio, and so as my following
Speaker 1: is building, I'm now like getting it into in spaces.
Speaker 1: So then I started doing around the horn. And what
Speaker 1: I noticed is when I started doing around before and
Speaker 1: the people who were didn't like me, they were a
Speaker 1: lot meaner than they had been before. And I was
Speaker 1: saying the same stuff, and so I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, this is just about the fact that
Speaker 1: I'm on TV and this person screams, and whoever's on TV,
Speaker 1: that's what they do. And so that gradually builds it.
Speaker 1: So because I was becoming more famous and all of
Speaker 1: this stuff also as a thirty something year old man,
Speaker 1: so I was an adult, you know, as it was happening,
Speaker 1: I was able to watch Animated Abundant in the clear. Oh,
Speaker 1: this has nothing to do with me personally, because doesn't
Speaker 1: have very much to do with my actual work. This
Speaker 1: is just what people do. And so there ain't nothing
Speaker 1: nobody gonna get on damn Internet and say to me
Speaker 1: and really have me taking it personally because I know
Speaker 1: these people don't actually know me, and I do know
Speaker 1: I'm good at this. Like you might not like it,
Speaker 1: and that's cool, but it ain't never gonna be a
Speaker 1: day I can't get somebody to pay thee to talk.
Speaker 1: I may not be able to give to pay the
Speaker 1: millions of dollars, but there's always always gonna pay me
Speaker 1: to talk. That I will be just fine. Yah. We
Speaker 1: don't need a lot, just one. I don't don't even
Speaker 1: need a direct deposit. It's not yes, it's a direct deposit.
Speaker 1: Like like Steve, you think about this. It's dudes in
Speaker 1: the league that coaches like way more than fans, right,
Speaker 1: like somebody that keep on getting the job and fans
Speaker 1: are like, I just don't understand it. And somebody's like,
Speaker 1: you don't understand he occupies two gaps at one time, right,
Speaker 1: and so like they don't take a fan vote before
Speaker 1: they put dudes on rosters, right, And so it's the
Speaker 1: people there. And I've always been lucky that like people
Speaker 1: who made decisions have rocked with what I did. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, the public is a little fickle, but people
Speaker 1: know talent when they see challenging and they know who
Speaker 1: does jobs when they do jobs. And so people who
Speaker 1: don't like me, I focus on the people who do
Speaker 1: like We have a great time together. The people who
Speaker 1: do like it. Good, let's getting down do it? Hey, Gerard,
Speaker 1: why did you get that T shirt? Oh? Yes, I
Speaker 1: got it from cut to a podcast dot com where
Speaker 1: we have exclusive merchandise. Shout out to our guys at
Speaker 1: seven or four shot. But yeah, you can go on,
Speaker 1: buy you a T shirt, subscribe to us wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to podcasts. With all the knowledge and everything you
Speaker 1: went through. Why are you in front of the camera
Speaker 1: versus being behind the camera, Well, right now, I'm like
Speaker 1: doing Game Theory is the first time I've had the chance,
Speaker 1: which is super dope. Yeah, like the dynamic of the
Speaker 1: ESPN ain't a lot of people also producing their shows. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Game Theory ain't nothing going up without it being run
Speaker 1: past me. And it was right there. But it was
Speaker 1: a trip though, because when the first like the show
Speaker 1: has to be your show, in your vision, and I
Speaker 1: was like, I've been so used to doing show. There
Speaker 1: was somebody else's vision. I didn't even have one, Like
Speaker 1: it took me months to figure out like what I
Speaker 1: wanted to show to look like to the point where
Speaker 1: now we just did our fourth episode and it's so
Speaker 1: clear to me now, Like when I hear something, I'm like, Nope,
Speaker 1: that don't sound like us. Nope, that's not you know,
Speaker 1: the way that I want to go about it. I
Speaker 1: got like the corner office with impost didn't you and
Speaker 1: all that, and I do, but I could mean my
Speaker 1: thought is if this is the last television project I
Speaker 1: ever do, I'm fine, Like it's that it's that good
Speaker 1: of the gig, like I I don't know how what
Speaker 1: else I would do. And then past that, I'm now
Speaker 1: at the point where I know enough to then make
Speaker 1: that move behind camera because the truth is man being
Speaker 1: all camera, there is a measure of like prostituting yourself
Speaker 1: like you are the product and that gets all you
Speaker 1: have to say it like that and you know, but
Speaker 1: it's like different types, there's different types. You know, we're
Speaker 1: classy with it, but in the end, it doesn't always
Speaker 1: feel good when you are the product, Like when I
Speaker 1: be out there later a night on the street shoots
Speaker 1: and I want to go home, except you can't get
Speaker 1: done without me because I am a product, you know,
Speaker 1: Like I don't know. So now that you're sitting in
Speaker 1: at what gap do you see that you field with
Speaker 1: game theory? So what I think has happened with game
Speaker 1: theory is and I tell this story that when they
Speaker 1: called me to do the show, I looked at the
Speaker 1: deck and it was a very light, straight ahead comedy
Speaker 1: sort of thing that was just gonna be about sports,
Speaker 1: and that's not me, Like I'm funny, but I'm not
Speaker 1: a comedian. And so I looked at the deck and
Speaker 1: I told him, I said, look around, this deck doesn't
Speaker 1: work for me. But I am literally the only person
Speaker 1: who could host this show and didn't have a chance
Speaker 1: to be successful. And my explanation was, you can't just
Speaker 1: put somebody up telling jokes about sports. People take this
Speaker 1: stuff seriously, right, like like they like they don't people
Speaker 1: get forced yes, like they needed they need somebody whose
Speaker 1: opinion they respect up there, not somebody they think it's funny. Okay,
Speaker 1: So once you find that person, you need somebody that
Speaker 1: can drive the content that you want to do. And
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't see anybody else in this
Speaker 1: space that can do it for you that way. But
Speaker 1: I made it clear, we can't. We can't try to
Speaker 1: make me into a comedian, right. What we need to
Speaker 1: do is take what I do and figure out how
Speaker 1: to maybe make it funnier and bring it to life.
Speaker 1: But we can't make me into a comedian. So what
Speaker 1: we got now is we found a good, comfortable space
Speaker 1: where there are big issues in sports. And I don't
Speaker 1: mean like big like controversial. I just mean big, like
Speaker 1: the scope of them is Lord. So our first episode
Speaker 1: was about Coach K's legacy. The second I watched man,
Speaker 1: I watched the Coach Coach K one and at first
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, you're like, where is this coming
Speaker 1: from and why and how? And then obviously doing your researchers,
Speaker 1: like I went to North Carolina right so and and
Speaker 1: I can understand it. But also the clips in which
Speaker 1: how you categorize saying America's team, and how you put
Speaker 1: it against Duke versus George Town and how the announcers
Speaker 1: are talking and it's so crazy. But yet things like
Speaker 1: that happened every single day. They was happening in the eighties.
Speaker 1: It's happening in where we'll see it, and we see
Speaker 1: it now. Less is more in football, be quarterback play, right,
Speaker 1: exactly what we'll we'll talk about limiting someone's throwing but
Speaker 1: yet paying them forty five million dollars. Right, And and
Speaker 1: we're talking about, um, how a guy processes and how
Speaker 1: a guy doesn't process and how uh the key word?
Speaker 1: And it's funny as you know, doing television and talking
Speaker 1: about and talking. I've told them the lingo of athletic
Speaker 1: and high motor and what those code words are. Right,
Speaker 1: have you ever heard of at the the the high
Speaker 1: motor guy, Like the high motor guy is not a
Speaker 1: black guy, right? Right. It's funny because the highest motor
Speaker 1: guy that I been me and you could think of
Speaker 1: off the top of my head was a black dude
Speaker 1: exactly a high angry motor. Right. But yet the the
Speaker 1: defensive player who has a high motor he has technique,
Speaker 1: but he lacks athleticism. So he has a ton of energy.
Speaker 1: High motor guy that brings the consistency and then, but
Speaker 1: the code word for a black guy is mobility, mobile
Speaker 1: and strong. Right that that that's it. Intellect is never
Speaker 1: thrown in there, right, Intellect is never thrown in there, especially,
Speaker 1: I feel like to some degree, as you know black
Speaker 1: athletes and then you if you're an athlete, which I
Speaker 1: hear a lot of times, and for myself is I
Speaker 1: sat on it, which is athletes are dumb. People who
Speaker 1: are in sports are dumb. And most of my career
Speaker 1: I kind of play to that narrative, right, the angry guy.
Speaker 1: And then I started realizing, like, no, I can't. I
Speaker 1: am actually pretty smart, and I need to stop playing
Speaker 1: into that narrative because now they're starting to write articles
Speaker 1: and trying in the narrative and my behavior is giving
Speaker 1: them that narrative to go, yeah, he is dumb. He
Speaker 1: he is a hot hair without any intellect. He doesn't think.
Speaker 1: And and so trying to change that narrative and go
Speaker 1: through it for for for athletes is tough. But then
Speaker 1: you bring it back full circles, your snips and how
Speaker 1: you put piece that together, it's bananas to me. Indeed,
Speaker 1: hold up, we come behind it with a real live
Speaker 1: black history. Yes, bro, that was say that was real
Speaker 1: and those people were not actors, the people those were
Speaker 1: raw reactions. Yeah, yeah, those are real reactions. Here's what
Speaker 1: here's why I thought it was not it was it
Speaker 1: wasn't real. My man that said Nashburn that he he
Speaker 1: in high school with jam it was real. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: at first I was kind of like, yeah, now get
Speaker 1: you know Jabal from up here, Jabal Harlow, I'm talking
Speaker 1: about the guy who was tall. That was just that
Speaker 1: was just pure coincidence. Like the thing about Flint that
Speaker 1: was like all that stuff that we had there. We
Speaker 1: just brought people in and they walked through and like
Speaker 1: so for me, you asked what space and were feeling?
Speaker 1: Ain't nobody else doing this right? Like I've done the
Speaker 1: high minded ideas that I always have, but I've also
Speaker 1: always been out here kicking it with this stuff that
Speaker 1: I'm doing. And so we're gonna take bigger things and
Speaker 1: bring them the eye level where people can understand, because
Speaker 1: it's not a matter of showing you how smart I am.
Speaker 1: Nobody cares about that. They care about what that spart
Speaker 1: can do for So let's take these smart ideas, let's
Speaker 1: bring them right to people, and let's kick it and
Speaker 1: have fun. Like we got raw on our tests to
Speaker 1: do a video about a fake commercial about treasury bonds
Speaker 1: as a comparison to all the crypto advertisements. Like that's
Speaker 1: the kind of stuff that we make it happen. Right now.
Speaker 1: What I love about is basically with the with the comedy,
Speaker 1: you basically are saying, hey, if it's too much comedy,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be surface. But if you allow me to, yes,
Speaker 1: stow my spin on it and and look at it,
Speaker 1: you start to you start to get to the core,
Speaker 1: the root and that and that's really the show is.
Speaker 1: It's about the it's no longer surfacing, it's it's straight
Speaker 1: to the core and the root of sports. And also
Speaker 1: how how sports looks at everyone. It's the it's the
Speaker 1: sports is the microcosm, right of the real life issues.
Speaker 1: So you bring into life the life issues. And like
Speaker 1: you're talking about, what is the nuance in the language
Speaker 1: in black athlete versus white athlete. You can take that
Speaker 1: same thing out and you put it in corporate America,
Speaker 1: you can put in education, and you can put it
Speaker 1: in whatever else. And now we're have you having higher
Speaker 1: level conversation that's rooted from sports and the polarization of sports.
Speaker 1: But you can take it and talk about that same
Speaker 1: stuff in any place in life. The only problem is
Speaker 1: that a lot of sports people and the sponsors they
Speaker 1: want to check out, and I think that hard. They
Speaker 1: don't want to really do that much work. Intellectually. They
Speaker 1: want to be able to have a beer, eat a
Speaker 1: hot dog, and watch their team play. They don't want
Speaker 1: to hear about all the other stuff. And sometimes they
Speaker 1: don't really care what physical uh setbacks individuals have. If
Speaker 1: you're on the playing field, you're healthy, play, don't nobody
Speaker 1: want to hear about it. Correct, and so over here though,
Speaker 1: we got the space to get to the other stuff.
Speaker 1: But also, and I think it's part as important. I
Speaker 1: don't blame people. It's sometimes they don't feel like the
Speaker 1: heavy stuff, right, get it? And so when you give
Speaker 1: them that stuff, you just gotta be really good at
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like it doesn't matter. We
Speaker 1: gotta figure out how to get the points across that
Speaker 1: we want to. But people are gonna watch that show.
Speaker 1: If it's fun, it's a good time, they'll watch it. Right.
Speaker 1: If they don't make them feel good, they're not gonna
Speaker 1: watch it. So they're coming for the emotional time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's wrong with sports what's wrong with sports media? There?
Speaker 1: I think the thing with sports media is, to be
Speaker 1: fair to them, is it is a demand driven business.
Speaker 1: In part where I think I think most media entities
Speaker 1: believe they are giving fans the coverage that they want.
Speaker 1: They've done research, they figured this. They think they're giving
Speaker 1: fans the coverage that they want. Um. I think part
Speaker 1: of what's happened is the revenue models are so messed
Speaker 1: up for these publications that they don't have the money
Speaker 1: to cover sports properly like they used to. Like it's
Speaker 1: not as many people who are on the ground with
Speaker 1: the team, is not as many people who can write
Speaker 1: like the features and the enterprise stories, and the people
Speaker 1: who do write them can't give them the care and
Speaker 1: dedication they deserve because there's just not the money to
Speaker 1: pay people to do all of those things. You know,
Speaker 1: Like there's there's a lot of like profit minded stuff
Speaker 1: that's a problem with sports media. But I think what's
Speaker 1: good about sports media we have at this point maybe
Speaker 1: like the smartest group of sports writers that we've ever had,
Speaker 1: the most knowledgeable, and they know more things about the
Speaker 1: world because when you're a sports writer, and you get
Speaker 1: any young, the world you know is the locker room.
Speaker 1: The world you know is the field. You don't have
Speaker 1: a chance Like I got lucky. I got to spend
Speaker 1: my early twenty's studying all this stuff. These guys were
Speaker 1: studying the game, right, so I learned from them about
Speaker 1: the game. But when it's time to make bigger connections,
Speaker 1: it's not always as easy for them because they have
Speaker 1: to dedicate their lives to do with something, you know,
Speaker 1: something much different than that. But now I think people
Speaker 1: are coming in with broader knowledge, and if they try to,
Speaker 1: they'll know the players better, they'll know all this other
Speaker 1: stuff there because they should be able to incorporate so
Speaker 1: much more into their coverage. But the thing that's most wrong,
Speaker 1: I guess always is going to be a lack of
Speaker 1: respect for the humanity of the players. Is the hardest
Speaker 1: thing for media to do is to see players as people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then they get offended when the players start to
Speaker 1: look at the media. Was that media does That also
Speaker 1: resonate with fans too, because it almost goes back to
Speaker 1: your port. Yeah, that's the part that you said, how
Speaker 1: do you how do you address the guy who says
Speaker 1: keep the keep those societal debates out of my sports.
Speaker 1: How do you deal with that person too? I mean
Speaker 1: that person that person generally, um, they're buying a ticket,
Speaker 1: right when sometimes the person who's banging aloud as drum
Speaker 1: is buying the chief ticket and the person who may
Speaker 1: disagree with it but probably is not gonna say anything.
Speaker 1: It's a huge sponsor, and they will have those meetings
Speaker 1: after the season. They will talk to the owners and
Speaker 1: kind of say or the organization like, you know, we're
Speaker 1: really about all lives from there and we like it.
Speaker 1: But me, you know, well we got we got this
Speaker 1: to do. But now you deal to people you can't
Speaker 1: deal with, Like That's the one thing about it is
Speaker 1: sometimes people are not gonna like what you're saying. That's fine, right,
Speaker 1: you you work with the people that you can work with.
Speaker 1: But I just I would just like from my colleagues,
Speaker 1: respecting the people they covered is so much more important.
Speaker 1: Like I always tell the story, Uh I think it was.
Speaker 1: Rick Riley once wrote to column of Sports Illustrated, and
Speaker 1: it was about all the players in the locker room
Speaker 1: that he said, like to show off the penises, right,
Speaker 1: Like he said, they were so proud of them and died.
Speaker 1: I died, And I remember I was reading the story
Speaker 1: and he gave an example of one player, and I
Speaker 1: think I won't name him because I cant remember exactly
Speaker 1: appreciate that. Yeah, it's a Hall of Famer. And the
Speaker 1: dude apparently turned around at his locker and stood up
Speaker 1: and put his foot on a stoop and let his
Speaker 1: towel drop and then answer the questions. I read the
Speaker 1: story and I realized, you have no idea what's going
Speaker 1: on here. This dude is tired of y'all trying to
Speaker 1: look at it on the sneak. And he finally said, fine, fowl,
Speaker 1: you want to see it, bo, this is what it is,
Speaker 1: because Steve, you know them dudes that's walking around in
Speaker 1: the locker room looking at these cats like a little
Speaker 1: weird about all that stuff that's not respecting to people
Speaker 1: that you cover. And the resentments that players have towards
Speaker 1: media is often justified because it's not about what you write,
Speaker 1: it's about how you treat them in in writing an article.
Speaker 1: And and I know you got to go soon, but
Speaker 1: one of the interesting things that I've found out, and
Speaker 1: even doing media myself, how many people, how many media
Speaker 1: guys are walking up to me asking me to as
Speaker 1: an analyst, as another media guy, and during an interview
Speaker 1: with me to give them the research and doing their job.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of like I want now I'm saying, I'm
Speaker 1: only to do jobs and then alshow during interview with
Speaker 1: someone who has done their research, if they have not
Speaker 1: done their research, catch get me when you've done your research,
Speaker 1: so you don't spend extra extra time out of my day,
Speaker 1: out of my calendar, catching you up on something that
Speaker 1: you get, you feed your family with. You supposed to
Speaker 1: already know this stuff, You feed your family with this,
Speaker 1: and you're asking me to do your job. I need
Speaker 1: to get some of that stipend right being a bear.
Speaker 1: So man, we appreciate your time. Bro, We're gonna have
Speaker 1: to reciprocate this. Bro, You're funny as hell. Doc, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to keep up a job. Man. Look, I'm still
Speaker 1: trying to image somebody for a beer on you like
Speaker 1: it was it was it was, Hey, I conducted myself.
Speaker 1: I'm conducted myself with I just I mean, I'm proud
Speaker 1: of you for doing that, but to assume that that
Speaker 1: was what you were going to do is bo Hey
Speaker 1: bo this, this is Joe. So I wasn't there, so
Speaker 1: as soon as it happened, he stood up and his
Speaker 1: jacket started coming off. They cut to Canberra four and
Speaker 1: then everybody. Everybody's texting me like, oh, I don't know
Speaker 1: what's about to happen, but he was a hot man.
Speaker 1: I took my jacket off actually to see how bad
Speaker 1: it was. I did not take it off to jump
Speaker 1: in the crap. That's what you took it off, like, Steve,
Speaker 1: I think of you like I think a ghost face, right,
Speaker 1: like how ghost faces really funny? But I want to
Speaker 1: make sure that he was trying to be funny before
Speaker 1: I last s. We all want the same page, like, okay,
Speaker 1: that was atend to kid joke. I don't want to
Speaker 1: expect you. I just thought this is funny. I just
Speaker 1: want to keep it on the level. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: he's really joking everything. I was like, here cool, I laughed.
Speaker 1: Temperature checker check. I'll tell you this man the COVID
Speaker 1: And also, you know, my family at home really have
Speaker 1: made have said some things to me. Let me I'll
Speaker 1: say this. Have you ever took an emotional ass whooping? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm getting at the house well deserved right
Speaker 1: having conversations and asking questions and allowing them to be truthful.
Speaker 1: And I could tell you being a being an athlete,
Speaker 1: any kind of any kind of success creates an ego,
Speaker 1: and then that ego you hate to do it. But
Speaker 1: if you want to grow and improve, taking and getting
Speaker 1: a pole of which you know is gonna happen, which
Speaker 1: is you know how many times I've been married my
Speaker 1: wife twent two years, bro four kids. You know how
Speaker 1: many times you stepped on the emotional land mine or
Speaker 1: you screw something up, But sitting down asking it's tough, right,
Speaker 1: and and but yet it's healthy. But also it's like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I can hear what they say, and
Speaker 1: I can walk away upset and piste off and mad,
Speaker 1: or I can change it. Because ultimately, when you get married,
Speaker 1: when you're in a relationship, not you yet, but when
Speaker 1: you get there, the whole purposes you. You don't want
Speaker 1: to die along. You don't want to be sitting in
Speaker 1: your rocketing chair, drinking whatever you're drinking, puffing on whatever
Speaker 1: you're puffing on, by yourself at the remainder, the remainding
Speaker 1: days of your life. You want to do it with
Speaker 1: someone that at the end of the day, and I
Speaker 1: know this probably isn't man somebody you fox with, and
Speaker 1: my wife is that person. We're different. We're literally different.
Speaker 1: We are a total opposite. I'm Carmel, She's she's Vanilla. Right.
Speaker 1: I grew up in l a and the inner City
Speaker 1: and she grew up in Utah. So we're so totally different.
Speaker 1: That's sitting there, and that different perspective sometimes makes such
Speaker 1: of the greatest conversations and and and so it's been
Speaker 1: awesome and I want to have that as I continue
Speaker 1: to get older, to where when when life can lately
Speaker 1: slows down, we can look backwards and laugh. But I
Speaker 1: gotta earn their trust to say, hey, that is worth
Speaker 1: rehashing and going backwards on some of the things that
Speaker 1: he has said or done um intentionally, unintentionally, conscious, unconsciously,
Speaker 1: and is he is he want to hear. And That's
Speaker 1: what I've been going through. And so I it's been
Speaker 1: good and it's bad. But at the end of it,
Speaker 1: you know, I get to be myself. And this this
Speaker 1: podcast and some of other stuff I'm doing the media,
Speaker 1: is I'm being myself? Yeah. Every so often I'll catch
Speaker 1: somebody catch catch a little fire when you throw something
Speaker 1: on man, I'm gonna give you a little look now,
Speaker 1: but ultimately manness just learning myself, you know, and and
Speaker 1: and and breaking down my own um my own safeguards,
Speaker 1: right and just kind of showing people I am goofy,
Speaker 1: I am silly, and this is who I am. I
Speaker 1: respect you on that man like like on it as
Speaker 1: a public is spelled like I mean, necessarily like that
Speaker 1: all we all got to look back at who we
Speaker 1: are sometimes, you know, And that's because that's what I
Speaker 1: mean to get better at this. Like, one of the
Speaker 1: things I've learned about athletes in my media travels that's
Speaker 1: been interesting is self improvement or just generally like the
Speaker 1: willingness to improve and to hear hard things is like
Speaker 1: I think, I think I find for athletes generally something
Speaker 1: they're better at than my other colleagues. But it's still
Speaker 1: a hall ball game when it's like, now I'm gonna
Speaker 1: take this to me, not this thing I'm doing, but
Speaker 1: this person I am these things right and as a
Speaker 1: would you win in the end, You always do if
Speaker 1: you stay with it long enough, you win. And yes, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a little whack at the beginning, well, appreciate your dog.
Speaker 1: Thank you man. You guys, I'm going with you too.
Speaker 1: You are a unique person, you are well worth it,
Speaker 1: you are competent, and most of all, your lovable. I'm
Speaker 1: Steve Smith Singer, I'm Gerard Little John and this just
Speaker 1: cut to It. Cut to It with Steve Smith Singer.
Speaker 1: That Is Me is a production of Cut to It LLC,
Speaker 1: Balto Creative Media, The Black Effect and I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcast from I Heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows from Cut to It. Executive producer Steve Smith, Singer,
Speaker 1: co host Gerard Little John, talent in booking manager Joe Fusci,
Speaker 1: social media teamer Wesley Robinson and John show from Balto
Speaker 1: Creative Media. Cut to It is produced by Brian Baltaschevitch
Speaker 1: and Meredith Carter, with production assistance by Alex Lebrek, Production
Speaker 1: Coordinator Taylor Robinson. Theme music by Alex Johnson, Lyrics and
Speaker 1: vocals by Anthony Hamilton. You ain't heard about it, then
Speaker 1: we're about to let you know. It's all there is,
Speaker 1: nons