Speaker 1: Stephen A Smith. We had a thoughtful, insightful, powerful conversation,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't gonna come at him with any debates,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't looking for hot takes on hot topics.
Speaker 1: Stephen A gets very well paid to do that superbly
Speaker 1: on all sorts of platforms. First take on ESPN, of course,
Speaker 1: and stephen A's World and ESPN plus Sports Center, NBA
Speaker 1: and boxing coverage, and more than nine point two million
Speaker 1: followers between his Twitter and Instagram. I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: to him about what sets him apart, what's gotten him
Speaker 1: to the top, the influence of five strong women in
Speaker 1: his life. He was very open about his challenges and setbacks,
Speaker 1: about loss and his mortality, recovered all sorts of stuff,
Speaker 1: including his excellent acting on General Hospital and his big
Speaker 1: plans for the future. Well, stephen A, you are an
Speaker 1: extremely busy man. I am grateful for you making some time.
Speaker 1: I hope you can enjoy this. This is interesting for
Speaker 1: me because we've never really had a real conversation. I
Speaker 1: think we've been in the same building a few times
Speaker 1: it fights or NBA games. We've we've I've at least
Speaker 1: I've admired you from Afar for a long time, but
Speaker 1: this will be the first ever conversation. We've had no
Speaker 1: pre interview, so there's no safety that here we go. PLEA,
Speaker 1: the pleasures all my man. You've done great, great work
Speaker 1: for us throughout the years, and ESPN wouldn't be what
Speaker 1: it is and I wouldn't be where I am if
Speaker 1: it were not for people like you. So when you've
Speaker 1: made the request for me to come on, I was
Speaker 1: happy to do so. I might edit out the compliments.
Speaker 1: I usually do that. But besides your obvious genius as
Speaker 1: a communicator and your thoughtfulness as a commentator, a couple
Speaker 1: of things I remire about you is is your resilience.
Speaker 1: You've been knocked down a few times, really from the
Speaker 1: start of your life, but certainly throughout your career, and
Speaker 1: you are a risk taker professionally, which I really appreciate.
Speaker 1: Let's let's start with their resilience. Man, how many times
Speaker 1: in your life or your career do you think you've
Speaker 1: been knocked down and in the in the view was
Speaker 1: of other people? Finished? Man, I got left back in
Speaker 1: fourth grade from having a first grade reading level that
Speaker 1: was being knockdown. Uh, humiliated by the whole neighborhood who
Speaker 1: was aware that I got left back and I had
Speaker 1: a reading deficiency, I had dyslexia. Um, even though that's
Speaker 1: what we didn't know that at the time that it
Speaker 1: actually happened in the seventies. So that's a knockdown. Um,
Speaker 1: not making the basketball team uh my junior year in
Speaker 1: high school and way having to wait until my senior
Speaker 1: year and then I made it. But being knocked down
Speaker 1: my junior year, um, you know, being in college, cracking
Speaker 1: my kneecap in half playing for Clarence Big House games. Uh,
Speaker 1: and ultimately having a forfeit my scholarship to come back
Speaker 1: home to rehab because it was a division juke program
Speaker 1: and my mother's insurance would not cover me unless I
Speaker 1: came home to New York and not staying North Carolina.
Speaker 1: That was a huge knockdown, um, you know. And being
Speaker 1: let go by ESPN in uh two thousand and nine
Speaker 1: over a contract dispute. That was a huge letdown. So
Speaker 1: you know, I would tell you, by and large about
Speaker 1: five or six times I've been knocked down where you know,
Speaker 1: people thought I was finished quite frankly, getting canceled in
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, even though I had done three
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty seven shows and conducted over seven hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty interviews in that span. Um it was still
Speaker 1: considered a failure. That was definitely being knockdown with people
Speaker 1: wondering where my career is going. Uh So I would
Speaker 1: tell you about five or six strong times where people
Speaker 1: thought I was finished. That's about right. Yeah, the story
Speaker 1: is definitely one of comebacks. You mentioned the ESPN situation.
Speaker 1: I mean clearly at that time they didn't see the
Speaker 1: value and you the eventually have showed the company and
Speaker 1: then something it's a contract dispute I've heard you describe,
Speaker 1: but you know you came back. First of all, I
Speaker 1: want to ask where were you emotionally and mentally at
Speaker 1: that point when you're sort of on the streets after
Speaker 1: having a budding career and having a visible position. I
Speaker 1: was devastated, first of all. I felt like, um, I
Speaker 1: did not deserve to lose my job, to lose the show. Sure,
Speaker 1: but I was on NBA shoot Around at the time
Speaker 1: before it was called NBA Countdown, UM I was hosting.
Speaker 1: Quite frankly, UM I was I was, you know, an
Speaker 1: NBA analyst and inside of a sports center. Um I
Speaker 1: was doing a radio show as well, and for me
Speaker 1: to wake up one day and after having four jobs
Speaker 1: and having absolutely nothing, Um, I really felt like I
Speaker 1: got screwed over and I felt like it was grossly
Speaker 1: unfair and I played the role of victims. But that
Speaker 1: only lasted for about eight hours. And then my mother
Speaker 1: got rested us soul looked at me and I'll never forget,
Speaker 1: And I'm writing a memoir. I've got my book with
Speaker 1: Simon and Shuster coming out next January, and I tell
Speaker 1: a story about how my mother brought me up a
Speaker 1: trade of food because I went over to her house
Speaker 1: this language in her house and didn't go to my house,
Speaker 1: went back in the bunk bed that I grew up
Speaker 1: in all of this stuff that just laid there for
Speaker 1: a couple of days. And then she came to me
Speaker 1: one day and handed me a plate of food and
Speaker 1: on the plate, on the tray with the food was
Speaker 1: a mirror, one of them handheld mirrors. And I said,
Speaker 1: what is this for? She said, that's for you to
Speaker 1: take a look at yourself, where you feel when you
Speaker 1: start ready, when you're ready to stop, to the surf
Speaker 1: for yourself. She said, I'm quite sure it wasn't all
Speaker 1: their fault. When did you look at you? She said,
Speaker 1: you're my son? How did I raise you? You know this?
Speaker 1: You aren't innocent in all of this. And when she
Speaker 1: made me do that, I was forced to reflect what
Speaker 1: my attitude was like, the kind of approach that I
Speaker 1: took towards work, particularly my superiors, my supervisors. What kind
Speaker 1: of attitude did I have? How did I speak to them?
Speaker 1: How enthusiastic was I about work? Um? Was I too argumentative?
Speaker 1: Did I challenge every little thing that I not picked?
Speaker 1: My battles? You start thinking about all of those things,
Speaker 1: and when you reflected on those things, when I reflected
Speaker 1: on those things, I realized I was more to blame
Speaker 1: than they were. And because I had more culpability on
Speaker 1: my shoulders and in my heart than they did, I
Speaker 1: eradicated any blame in their direction, regardless of what they
Speaker 1: may have done. I put it all on me because
Speaker 1: since I was able to point to a multitude of
Speaker 1: things that I was doing that I would not advise
Speaker 1: any employee to do. I just said, I'm never gonna
Speaker 1: get beyond this unless I own all of it. And
Speaker 1: that's what I did. Moms are filled with wisdom, and
Speaker 1: I want to circle back to her a little bit later.
Speaker 1: But that's a rare place to arrive at, Steven. I
Speaker 1: gotta tell you, people take things very personally. It's hard
Speaker 1: not to get wounded. Very few people can arrive at
Speaker 1: a place to say I had more to do with
Speaker 1: that sat back than anybody else. But you did to
Speaker 1: ride back in the business with a place of wisdom.
Speaker 1: I think realizing from what you said about this that
Speaker 1: it's not personal, it is business. It's far less about
Speaker 1: loyalty than it is about utility. What can you do
Speaker 1: for me now and going forward, not not what you
Speaker 1: did in the past. What can you do now? And
Speaker 1: to a company you are an asset or you're not
Speaker 1: where you are, but you you You come back like
Speaker 1: hardened by that experience. But I think a lot wiser
Speaker 1: about what can be a pretty murky business at times,
Speaker 1: no question about it. And I think that you know
Speaker 1: you able to reflect on a certain things, like for example,
Speaker 1: you know I would see guys like i'd see you
Speaker 1: colling college football games. I see guys calling Monday and football.
Speaker 1: I see guys do a lot of different things and
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, I can't do that. I know better,
Speaker 1: I know my position. But I can be in this
Speaker 1: position where I can help generate money for the company
Speaker 1: if you just gave me the opportunity. Why can't I
Speaker 1: have that opportunity. Well, bosses make decision all the time,
Speaker 1: and everybody's coming to them thinking that they could do something,
Speaker 1: and you have to make a decision as to what
Speaker 1: you think is better. So they have a right to
Speaker 1: make those decisions because they're in those positions. And then
Speaker 1: the other thing was I looked at myself and I said, Okay,
Speaker 1: what was my definition of popularity? People screaming my name
Speaker 1: in the streets, people saying hey Stephen, Hey, blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. Well, guess what that can't necessarily be monetized.
Speaker 1: What's your ratings? What kind of revenue do you bring
Speaker 1: into the company or to a particular show, add sales,
Speaker 1: things of that nature. Q scores, all of these other
Speaker 1: things that we're supposed to pay attention to that validate
Speaker 1: I value to the people who actually make these decisions,
Speaker 1: so they could use that data to basically decipher what
Speaker 1: you're worth and what you're not. I paid no attention
Speaker 1: to any of that stuff. And so my mother would
Speaker 1: say to me once I ultimately confessed to her that
Speaker 1: that was the case, she said, well, if you don't
Speaker 1: know your value, who are you to tell them what
Speaker 1: your value is? And I had no answer. I had
Speaker 1: no answer. And so when I looked at it from
Speaker 1: that perspective, I said, I put them in a position
Speaker 1: of strength because I'm relying on my emotional feelings to
Speaker 1: somewhat try and dictate what they should do when it's
Speaker 1: their job not to make emotional decisions. They're supposed to
Speaker 1: use other means to decipher and determine your value. And
Speaker 1: when the moment I realized that, it was an epiphany
Speaker 1: that was a career altering because Chris, from that day forward,
Speaker 1: I detached emotions from business and I was able to
Speaker 1: look at something to say, Okay, we're supposed to be
Speaker 1: in the money making business. Was supposed to be in
Speaker 1: the ratings and revenue business. Here's what I bring to
Speaker 1: the table. And I've been fixated or making sure I understood,
Speaker 1: at least to some degree, what my value was. From
Speaker 1: that day and the day that happened, I depersonalized everything.
Speaker 1: It made me a better professional, and it made me
Speaker 1: a better man and a better adult. And that is
Speaker 1: why I'm here, I'm where I am today. We're in
Speaker 1: the same business, same employer, but I I see our
Speaker 1: roles is fundamentally different. I mean your job as I
Speaker 1: see it. Maybe you disagree, if so, straighten me out.
Speaker 1: But to to deliver your insight, your opinions, it's about
Speaker 1: you and your vibe and directing and dominating debates. I
Speaker 1: document events I did. I did to show her opinions matter.
Speaker 1: And you were expected to throw your two cents in
Speaker 1: on game, David, as you as you call a game.
Speaker 1: It's about others. It's about documenting what's going on. You
Speaker 1: certainly put your spin on it. Does the idea of
Speaker 1: doing that bore you because it doesn't let you be
Speaker 1: you and and express your thoughts. It doesn't bore me.
Speaker 1: It's just that for me, the Chris Fowlers of the
Speaker 1: world are un rarefied. Here you're able to document and
Speaker 1: and I mean this complimentary, but it's for you, and
Speaker 1: it's for people in your position. You've earned the right
Speaker 1: to be where you are, and so as a result,
Speaker 1: there's a comfort that comes along with it. You go
Speaker 1: to a negotiating table, you are Chris Fowl and this
Speaker 1: is what you've done and you've done it on an
Speaker 1: exceptional level to a point where you're not devalue by
Speaker 1: the company that you work for or the companies that
Speaker 1: are in pursuit of your services. Most folks that have
Speaker 1: the role of documenting and chronicling what's transpiring, to some
Speaker 1: degree their devalued because not enough attention is paid from
Speaker 1: a monetary standpoint to what they can bring to the table.
Speaker 1: Whereas when you're giving your opinions. In my case, I
Speaker 1: did that on a newspaper level. I did chronicle, I
Speaker 1: did document I was a beat writer for many years,
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. That never leaves me. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's one of the other. With what I do.
Speaker 1: I think at the end of the day, my opinion,
Speaker 1: my perspective is expected, but also the responsibility that I
Speaker 1: have to pay attention to what's being documented the chronicles,
Speaker 1: so I can give a reference point as to why
Speaker 1: my perspective is what it is. People who just go
Speaker 1: out there, I want to run them out, have no sources,
Speaker 1: have no context, have no just have no foundation for
Speaker 1: which they from which they gathered the information. But they
Speaker 1: just want to give opinions. No that you've got some
Speaker 1: people who are doing that, but they're not very successful
Speaker 1: at this. The people who are successful at this are people,
Speaker 1: for the most part, that have been journalists that had
Speaker 1: a responsibility at one time or another to chronicle and
Speaker 1: and document things and in document events and what have you,
Speaker 1: and it's never left them. They hold onto it. So
Speaker 1: what they do is they take what Chris Fawala and
Speaker 1: others do, the Kirk curve stryts to the world and others,
Speaker 1: and they say, okay, based on what they're saying and
Speaker 1: what I'm seeing and what my sources might tell me
Speaker 1: and what information I may have gathered. This is what
Speaker 1: I deduce as opposed to just being irresponsible and just
Speaker 1: spewing out something just because you want to. Every dude
Speaker 1: in the street thinks they can be you, and they
Speaker 1: don't have the insight, they don't have the background, they
Speaker 1: don't have the thoughtfulness, they don't even have a platform
Speaker 1: except when that they create. But they all think that
Speaker 1: they can be a pundit and they have no idea
Speaker 1: what goes into it. As I've always appreciated that you
Speaker 1: bring many different perspectives to it and a lot of
Speaker 1: accumulated wisdom. The risk ticking man. He actually goes back
Speaker 1: as I understand that even before you were getting paid
Speaker 1: to be a print journalist, because at Winston Salem State
Speaker 1: where you played hoops for for Clarence Big House Games,
Speaker 1: he mentioned him. He's a he's a Hall of famer
Speaker 1: one more than games. He was a part of Winston
Speaker 1: Sailing for almost a half century and you, before you
Speaker 1: bust your kneecap, were on that team, and you wrote
Speaker 1: an article advising him to retire. Now you gotta be
Speaker 1: the only active college athlete to ever go write an
Speaker 1: article telling a legendary coach he's playing for to retire.
Speaker 1: You understand that it's a it's a club of one
Speaker 1: probably that's done that and gotten away with it. Well, listen, um,
Speaker 1: I loved you. Know. I didn't have the greatest relationship
Speaker 1: with my father, and Clarence Big House Games was like
Speaker 1: a father to me. And I knew that he was
Speaker 1: having health issues. And one time we were on the
Speaker 1: sidelines and he had a patch over his eye and
Speaker 1: he was very shaking, and I got very worried about him,
Speaker 1: and my teammates got very worried about him. So I
Speaker 1: was writing for the school newspaper and he and I
Speaker 1: talked all the time. And while we were talking, I
Speaker 1: said to him, this is what I noticed. What you're
Speaker 1: gonna do about it? And in his acerbic, you know,
Speaker 1: truculent kind of way, he was like, maya damn business,
Speaker 1: you know. And you know, I said to him, you
Speaker 1: need to take care of this and basketball can't be
Speaker 1: the priority when your health is an issue. Man, you
Speaker 1: might need to walk away from this. And he said
Speaker 1: a nephew, man, Yeah, I'm saying I'm not doing anything
Speaker 1: like that. And I said, well, if you don't do it,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna write about it. Since you're so proud of
Speaker 1: you want everybody that you don't you want to give it,
Speaker 1: then you don't want to give it them, you want
Speaker 1: to just shove it aside. I'm gonna write about it.
Speaker 1: And he said go ahead, And so I did it.
Speaker 1: And when I did it, uh, you had a bunch
Speaker 1: of people that obviously had a real big problem with me,
Speaker 1: including the chancellor of the university who wanted to be
Speaker 1: thrown off campus from what I was told, and Coach
Speaker 1: Gaines himself intervened and said, leave him alone. He wants
Speaker 1: to be a journalist. He told me exactly what he
Speaker 1: was doing. He told me why beforehand, and I gave
Speaker 1: him the okay to go ahead and do it. Leave
Speaker 1: him alone. And that's what happened. A lot of people
Speaker 1: didn't know that coach Gains had given me the okay.
Speaker 1: They had no idea, But that's what happened. He was
Speaker 1: a giant man in a lot of ways. Of course
Speaker 1: knew him covering college basketball. But I find that that
Speaker 1: story fascinating and it has a good ending. He did
Speaker 1: retire a couple of years after that. But but uh,
Speaker 1: that's uh, that's ballsy, and it was it was it
Speaker 1: was I guess you you were throwing a lifeline by him.
Speaker 1: You go to Philly, You're you're writing, you said, a
Speaker 1: beat reporter and a columnist, very very tough sports town.
Speaker 1: The readers are tough. Uh, it's just a it's the
Speaker 1: deep end of the pool. You had a setback though, right,
Speaker 1: You're you're a columnist, outspoken, you got political, and then
Speaker 1: they said, uh, get back in your lane. We're gonna
Speaker 1: make you a kind of a beat reporter, not a calumnist. Right,
Speaker 1: So had you had to take that and then rebuild it.
Speaker 1: You know what happened was that I had gotten quite
Speaker 1: frankly with the ESPN two, and I was doing my
Speaker 1: radio show in New York. Prior to that, I had
Speaker 1: an agreement with Philadelphia just show back up once or
Speaker 1: twice a week and so write a column and other
Speaker 1: than that, we're good. And so what happened is is
Speaker 1: that once I was doing that in New York, a
Speaker 1: new regime came into the Philadelphia Inquirer. And obviously that
Speaker 1: wasn't an agreement that they co signed. So they were
Speaker 1: trying to get me to essentially, um give up my posts.
Speaker 1: And I was like, no, without a Separence package, and
Speaker 1: they was and and and and this this is one individual.
Speaker 1: I never forget it, but I can't talk about it
Speaker 1: from a legal perspective. But he looked me in my
Speaker 1: face and he said, you've made enough money. And when
Speaker 1: he said that to me, um, listen, I'm like, because
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a black man, and I'm a proud
Speaker 1: black man, and I don't think that everything is racist,
Speaker 1: and I don't think everything is racism. And there's plenty
Speaker 1: of black peaks people that I know that are wrong,
Speaker 1: and there's plenty of white folks that I know that
Speaker 1: have been right. But in this case he was wrong
Speaker 1: and he had nothing to do with the agreement that
Speaker 1: was signed. And so when he said that to me,
Speaker 1: basically that you made enough money, he wouldn't talk about
Speaker 1: the Philoms inquired. He was talking about the money that
Speaker 1: I was making an ESPN, which is none of his business.
Speaker 1: And so for me, I was like, you know, in't
Speaker 1: start or something. I'm not backing up. I'm not going anywhere.
Speaker 1: So they tried all of those tactics ultimately and went
Speaker 1: to arbitration, and I want the arbitration case. And I
Speaker 1: was returning to my stature as a columnist before I
Speaker 1: ultimately left the Philadelphia Inquirer to come back to ESPN.
Speaker 1: Little did he know the man who should remain nameless
Speaker 1: about it's money in you, hey, people act What you
Speaker 1: do is taking a risk when you criticize people that
Speaker 1: you know. I find a tricky to be friends with
Speaker 1: college football coaches or even tennis players or coaches, because
Speaker 1: you can be friendly ish. But it was hard for me,
Speaker 1: not because I would be relucted to criticize them, but
Speaker 1: they wouldn't like it, and they would be caught off
Speaker 1: guard and surprised. You would you would come at them
Speaker 1: and happen many times. I mean, you you thread a
Speaker 1: line because you're both a pundit, the most accomplished pundit,
Speaker 1: but also an insider. And it's hard because insiders typically
Speaker 1: you know, Schefter, Woach guys are brilliant at that, but
Speaker 1: they're not giving opinions, just working sources. You do both
Speaker 1: ends of it. It's it's does it feel like a
Speaker 1: tight up sometimes? Oh, it's definitely a tight rope, especially now.
Speaker 1: But I don't have to do what Adam Schefter and
Speaker 1: Adrian ward Garowski my Steam colleagues do. That's that's what
Speaker 1: they do every day. I don't have to do that anymore.
Speaker 1: I just choose to be an insider because you've got
Speaker 1: access to information. You've got access to information because you're
Speaker 1: breaking bread with these figures. And then totally, if if, if, if,
Speaker 1: it's the thing to be said, you gotta say about them,
Speaker 1: and they know that. And so for me, I just
Speaker 1: have a car in the loud that I lived by Chris.
Speaker 1: Your personal life is your business, stay out of the
Speaker 1: police bloggers, and I got nothing to say. It's your
Speaker 1: personal life is your story to tell unless you let
Speaker 1: it get Unless something happens that you and the police bloggers.
Speaker 1: That's public information and that changes everything or what you
Speaker 1: do on the court to field, to play, that's my domain.
Speaker 1: What I mean by that is that that's what you're
Speaker 1: putting out on display for the public to decipher and evaluate.
Speaker 1: That would happen to be me. And so if you
Speaker 1: go out on the court and you play like garbage,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say you play like ge But you play
Speaker 1: up out and said, hey, James Harden, you played like
Speaker 1: garbage against the Brooklyn Nets, a near right of the club.
Speaker 1: You're not afraid to sort of be the wiser uncle
Speaker 1: to say, hey, check yourself. You've you've done out of
Speaker 1: the past, you know, recreational where I want to use
Speaker 1: his rampant and pro sports. You've taken a strong stance
Speaker 1: against that. Yeah, absolutely, every understand something. I often use
Speaker 1: this phrase. We don't have we don't have things given
Speaker 1: dinner together, we don't exchange Christmas gifts. I mean, the
Speaker 1: fact of the matter is is that I have a
Speaker 1: job to do and I'm gonna do it. I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to screw you over and I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: bury you. I'm not trying to do anything. But I'm
Speaker 1: chronicling what's transpiring and I'm disseminating that message to the masses,
Speaker 1: and I have an obligation to do that. Now, we
Speaker 1: can be friendly with one another so long as you
Speaker 1: understand that. If you don't understand that, then we don't
Speaker 1: have to be friendly at all. We certainly don't have
Speaker 1: to be enemies. But I'm going to do my job.
Speaker 1: That is my job, and you know that coming. I mean,
Speaker 1: from day one, the first minute, we make sure we understand.
Speaker 1: I make sure folks understand this is what my job is,
Speaker 1: and this is exactly what I am going to do.
Speaker 1: And if you don't like it, you better get over it,
Speaker 1: because as you can see, there's a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: punk that's out there who have a responsibility to do
Speaker 1: that job. Some of them might do it better than me,
Speaker 1: most don't. When people heard you're gonna be on, it's oh,
Speaker 1: I love Stephen A. He's crazy or he's crazy. I
Speaker 1: can't listen to him. I mean, you're gonna be polarizing.
Speaker 1: The people who have done what you do at a
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame level, by definition, are somewhat polarizing. One
Speaker 1: pole is smaller than the other you hope, but the
Speaker 1: crazy part, you're very thoughtful person, you don't. You don't
Speaker 1: shoot in then aime later, how do you how do
Speaker 1: you react when when you get that that crazy loud bombashador.
Speaker 1: I totally understand where they're coming from, because it's a
Speaker 1: debated damn damn, it's friction all day long, right, and
Speaker 1: so you're going at it. So they're paying attention to
Speaker 1: my delivery and presentation, but they need to pay more
Speaker 1: attention to my content because in the midst of all
Speaker 1: of that bantering and and and you know, just that
Speaker 1: a brace them back and forth at times. Like you said,
Speaker 1: I am thoughtful, and I do know what I want
Speaker 1: to say. For the most part, I'm not perfect, but
Speaker 1: I do know what I want to say, and I
Speaker 1: am trying to be responsible. And so they're paying attention
Speaker 1: to my presentation. And sometimes that hurts me because my
Speaker 1: presentation you serves my content, and I recognize that, but
Speaker 1: I also get scared because if I came on the
Speaker 1: air like this, Chris every morning at ten o'clock, Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome the first take you're doing. You know's how I feel.
Speaker 1: That's not how you generate ratings. That's not how you
Speaker 1: generate interests in the product that you're asking people to
Speaker 1: take time out of this schedule to watch. You need
Speaker 1: to be as passionate and enthusiastic as as as anybody
Speaker 1: if you want people to watch you. If Chris Ballance
Speaker 1: calling UH Alabama and and L s U or something,
Speaker 1: you're not sitting up there mumbling. You're not. You're not.
Speaker 1: You're not talking like you're talking to the White Games.
Speaker 1: But I get you. I get your point. You're expected
Speaker 1: to bring the energy that matches the occasion you're projecting.
Speaker 1: You're projecting, and that's what I'm talking about. That's what
Speaker 1: I bring to the table a lot of time. So
Speaker 1: I understand why people think I'm crazy because they're focused
Speaker 1: on that. But there's a you're I don't use this
Speaker 1: word lightly, man. You you're a genius communicator, and that
Speaker 1: you can start out at a one and you're almost
Speaker 1: more riveting when you're quiet, and then you bring it up.
Speaker 1: I saw it today a conversation about Frank Vogo and
Speaker 1: the Lakers, and then you bring it up. Then you're
Speaker 1: you're at a six, Then you're in an eight, then
Speaker 1: you're in the nine, and and you're rolling and it's
Speaker 1: riveting too. Then you bring it back down quiet. So
Speaker 1: the sermon matters, but the way it's delivered. You know
Speaker 1: that anybody's been a church, it's the way it's delivered
Speaker 1: is equally important. Sometimes, I gotta tell you, man, it changed.
Speaker 1: That was one of the things that I learned when
Speaker 1: I lost my job in two thousand and nine, because
Speaker 1: as I went back and I watched myself, it was screaming,
Speaker 1: a screaming, a screaming a and I gotta confess it
Speaker 1: was the one time in my life I got tired
Speaker 1: because I thought I had to be on one hundred
Speaker 1: all the time. And then I started looking at myself
Speaker 1: and I said, wait a minute. I'm just as effective
Speaker 1: when I love on my voice after I raised it.
Speaker 1: I'm just as effective when I'm quiet and I'm making
Speaker 1: my facial expressions with the audience know as I'm talking
Speaker 1: to them without saying a word. And so I learned
Speaker 1: ultimately to bring all of those things together to basically
Speaker 1: fit my personality. My persona. I think about how I'm talking.
Speaker 1: You know, I talked to my mother one way, God
Speaker 1: rest her soul. I talked to my father another way.
Speaker 1: I talked to my four older sisters, but none of
Speaker 1: them exactly the same. I talked to my older sister
Speaker 1: Linda differently in a way that I talked to my
Speaker 1: youngest sister, Carmen, who's four years older than me. And
Speaker 1: then I'm uncle Steve over here with fifteen niece as
Speaker 1: the nephews, and so all of a sudden, I'm talking
Speaker 1: to them in a totally different way than I talked
Speaker 1: to my sisters. You're seeing all these people as you're
Speaker 1: doing your show, are you imagine as Yeah, and so
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, you're doing all of this right,
Speaker 1: and and you just and you just said, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: that's what I do in length. Why would I not
Speaker 1: bring that to the two I'm not speaking at a
Speaker 1: high volume certainly. When I talking to my mother, it
Speaker 1: was yes, man, yeah, but my I'm wanted, but Ma, no,
Speaker 1: that you know. And then my father, he and I
Speaker 1: usually are. We were usually arguing as forts, so I'm
Speaker 1: debating him, whereas with my sisters, they were my big sister,
Speaker 1: so they slapped me upside my head if I talked
Speaker 1: to them in a certain way, but my nieces and
Speaker 1: nephews couldn't because I was uncle Steve, so all of
Speaker 1: these different things I just learned to bring to the
Speaker 1: table and said, no, I'm not a one trick pony.
Speaker 1: I got a multitude of dimensions to my presentation and
Speaker 1: my delivery. Bring it all to television. Let them see
Speaker 1: who you truly, truly are, And that's what I do. Yeah.
Speaker 1: People tend to think that those who are animated or
Speaker 1: not authentic. You you bring a great deal of authenticity
Speaker 1: or nobody would uh would jump on the bandwagon as
Speaker 1: they have for for this many years. You've obviously talked
Speaker 1: a few times about your family. I want to ask
Speaker 1: about growing up the youngest of six with four older sisters.
Speaker 1: I didn't have You didn't have one older sister. I
Speaker 1: wish I had one. You had four. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but one would have been lovely. Will Anderson is one
Speaker 1: of the faces of the sport at Alabama's gonna be
Speaker 1: um one of the top player should have been Heisman
Speaker 1: finals his past year. I've talked to him about being
Speaker 1: raised by four older sisters and how that shaped him,
Speaker 1: give him perspective, a softness in a way you don't
Speaker 1: usually hear a football player talk about it. How did
Speaker 1: it shape you Stephen To grew up there with four
Speaker 1: older sis and a strong mom. Well, you appreciate the
Speaker 1: brilliance the courage of women. You recognize that no matter
Speaker 1: how difficult you think you may have it, they have
Speaker 1: it difficult too, and somehow, some way they persevere and
Speaker 1: they keep on pushing forward. And particularly when you're a man,
Speaker 1: black white has fandom matter. We all got a little
Speaker 1: mancho this in us where we you know, it's other way.
Speaker 1: We we we could handle it, We could do this,
Speaker 1: we could do that, and then when those times come
Speaker 1: and we want to give up. In most cases, you
Speaker 1: might defer to another guy. In my case, I without hesitation,
Speaker 1: deferred to women because the women in my life we're
Speaker 1: extremely strong. No matter what obstacles came in their way.
Speaker 1: We have to adapt and we have to overcome. So
Speaker 1: I tell you a little story. Mark Shapiro, the former boss,
Speaker 1: our former boss of ESPN gives me the show quite
Speaker 1: frankly on ESPN two in two thousand and five. He
Speaker 1: wants me to do it. I'm petrified. I'm scared that
Speaker 1: I'm scared to death, like I ain't gonna host the television.
Speaker 1: So what we're talking about, I mean, I can sit
Speaker 1: up there and get my opinion about something not covering
Speaker 1: I come of basketball, it's come of football. I can
Speaker 1: do that, but I can't hold. I don't know how
Speaker 1: to read a prompt. Us, don't know how to do this.
Speaker 1: I'm no Stewart Scott, I'm know John saw this. I'm
Speaker 1: no Chris Burman and he's I don't dare Patrick. I
Speaker 1: don't know this stuff. This is rage. I can't do this.
Speaker 1: And my sister Linda's it was like, oh, so we
Speaker 1: are punk. Now that's what we are. We were were
Speaker 1: a punk. That's what we are. I mean, that's what
Speaker 1: we do. We're scared, we're scared of a challenge. What
Speaker 1: the hell is this? And literally ripped into me. She
Speaker 1: she called me names that I won't even repeat on
Speaker 1: this podcast. I mean, she was like, what the hell?
Speaker 1: This is not my brother? I don't know you scared? What?
Speaker 1: What do you embraced this? You take this challenge, This
Speaker 1: is your opportunity to show what you're made of. What
Speaker 1: the hell are you doing? And this she reminded me
Speaker 1: of what my late brother had said to me, because
Speaker 1: he died in the cars in nineteen ninety two. In
Speaker 1: October of nineteen ninety two. That August of nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 1: two months before he passed away, while I had just
Speaker 1: graduated from Winston Salem and was coming into the journalism business.
Speaker 1: My brother looked me in my face and said, you're
Speaker 1: gonna be a star on sp one day you watch,
Speaker 1: You're gonna do this. You're gonna be recognized one of
Speaker 1: the best who ever did it the next Howard Coastal
Speaker 1: stuff like that. He was saying this stuff. Obviously shared
Speaker 1: that with my family, and my sister at that time
Speaker 1: reminded me of what he said, and she said, he's
Speaker 1: rolling over in his grave right now because his little
Speaker 1: brothers and effant punk. And I called Mark Shapiro five
Speaker 1: minutes later. I said, I accept, because she had challenged
Speaker 1: me like you don't run. You embrace challenges, you don't
Speaker 1: run from them. And I called him and I said,
Speaker 1: make the numbers right, and I accept. I'll do the show.
Speaker 1: But it was feeding off of that conversation with my
Speaker 1: sister Linda. That's powerful. Linda could be a great life coach,
Speaker 1: but it's more powerful when it's blood. That that's that's
Speaker 1: a great story, Steve, and I you know, I lost
Speaker 1: my mom. Um, it was very painful to watch her
Speaker 1: fade away. It was alzheimer as you become uh an
Speaker 1: echo of yourself, your your shell of yourself. We never
Speaker 1: had that conversation that apparently you've talked about having with
Speaker 1: your mom, where she could say, listen, I've taught you
Speaker 1: a lot. Here's what I hope you've learned when you've
Speaker 1: listened to me. Here's how I hope you use it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you lose her, It's tough, it's devastating. The finality
Speaker 1: is always destroys your heart. But you had that. How
Speaker 1: often have you used that? Every day? Um? As you said,
Speaker 1: you lost her mother, God bless her. My condolegens to
Speaker 1: you and your family. Um, but you know what I'm
Speaker 1: about to say. It never leaves you. You carry her
Speaker 1: with you wherever you go. She's there with you in spirit.
Speaker 1: You can recall times. It could be you sitting down
Speaker 1: having lunch of dinner, you just lounging around the house,
Speaker 1: hug getting on your getting you getting on your about something.
Speaker 1: It could be anything. Every single day, something pops in
Speaker 1: my head about what my mother would say, what my
Speaker 1: mother would do, whether she chastised me, celebrate me, hug me, whatever,
Speaker 1: something everywhere that I go, and no matter what I'm doing,
Speaker 1: and it grounds me. What what it took me about
Speaker 1: two or three years to get over was the fact
Speaker 1: that it depressed me because no matter what I recalled
Speaker 1: or remember, it would always come back to she's not
Speaker 1: here anymore. And one of the things that I've said
Speaker 1: to a couple of people is that I'm not married.
Speaker 1: I'm single. Um, when you're single, you never think about this,
Speaker 1: But the person who loves you most and loves you unconditionally,
Speaker 1: the woman who loves you most and unconditionally is usually
Speaker 1: your mom. If you've gotten married before your mother passes away,
Speaker 1: there's obviously somebody that's some degree she's passed that man
Speaker 1: too too, to love you forever, to be there for you, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: But when you're single, that didn't happen. And so when
Speaker 1: she's gone, one of the first thoughts to enter your
Speaker 1: mind is the person who loved me most and unconditionally
Speaker 1: it's no longer here, and you feel very lost and
Speaker 1: very very bloom and it's hard to overcome. And the
Speaker 1: only reason why, to some degree I've been able to
Speaker 1: overcome it is because many people, believe it or not,
Speaker 1: have reached out to me who have lost their mom
Speaker 1: and they've been devastated, and they come up to me,
Speaker 1: and I'd always tell them what my mother had said
Speaker 1: to me in the weeks before she passed. She said,
Speaker 1: why are you so sad? I appreciate the fact that
Speaker 1: is sad enough to miss me, and I love you
Speaker 1: for it. But this is the way it's supposed to be,
Speaker 1: because would you rather it be the other way? If
Speaker 1: you love me, you wouldn't because then that means I'd
Speaker 1: be burying you, and that's not the way this is
Speaker 1: supposed to go. And so I've always told men, specifically
Speaker 1: who lost their mother, that story when they come up
Speaker 1: to me and they asked me about it, just to
Speaker 1: let them know, as much as painful as it is
Speaker 1: that she's gone, she wanted it that way. She would
Speaker 1: not have wanted to you to go before her. Remember
Speaker 1: that and hold onto that. And that's what I try
Speaker 1: to do, just to tell folks that, yeah, that's beautiful.
Speaker 1: I think many would say the lessons don't stop even
Speaker 1: from the next world, right, they continue. I talked about
Speaker 1: risk taking. People are familiar with the risk you take
Speaker 1: an ESPN. I'm a big general hospital viewer. My wife
Speaker 1: Jennifer cooperates this podcast is a long, long time rabid
Speaker 1: general hospital view Right. You probably wouldn't like the term rabbit,
Speaker 1: but you get it. So you you took a professional risk.
Speaker 1: You you play Brick, who I would say is a
Speaker 1: tough character, a fixer, surveillance expert, expert for the mall
Speaker 1: for Sunday Conto, one of the legendary figures played by
Speaker 1: Maurice Bernard. Now that is a risk, now, you know,
Speaker 1: because you're stepping out there. You're not you're not playing yourself.
Speaker 1: You've done that on Placka and of the things. You
Speaker 1: get those offers to come play yourself when you're playing
Speaker 1: a character and you're working with iconic actors who are right, Maurice,
Speaker 1: these are some of the most Leger eight figures in
Speaker 1: the history of soap operas and you're doing scenes with them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's that's the deep end of the pool.
Speaker 1: And you go in as a novice. At what point
Speaker 1: do you transition from mistake avoidance, not wanting to screw up,
Speaker 1: to like pursue an excellence because you can. You got chops.
Speaker 1: If people listen to this have not seen you act.
Speaker 1: They need to check that out. I gotta tell you, man,
Speaker 1: I mean I appreciate you say, and that what I
Speaker 1: would tell you is that I didn't view it as
Speaker 1: a risk because it happened by accident. What happened is
Speaker 1: is that I had made a cameo appearance in two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven for like ten seconds, and then other
Speaker 1: than that it was done. But I've always been a
Speaker 1: General Hospital fan. I've been watching the soap opera for
Speaker 1: now it's about forty six years, and been watching this
Speaker 1: since I was eight years old. Because when you came
Speaker 1: home from school, you were in the older TVs, a
Speaker 1: couple of TVs we had in the house. We're both
Speaker 1: our General hospitals. So if you want to watch TV,
Speaker 1: you had to watch General Hospital. If not, you had
Speaker 1: to go do your homework because those are the TVs.
Speaker 1: Are stuff. That's what my sisters watching on TV. And
Speaker 1: so I grew I was watching it from the days
Speaker 1: of Frank Smith and a mob to the weather Machine
Speaker 1: and the Cassadines and all of this othering so crazy.
Speaker 1: And so I came there a few years ago because
Speaker 1: they saw first take and saw me saying how much
Speaker 1: of a big General hospital fan I was, and they
Speaker 1: had me do a scene the executive producer of the show,
Speaker 1: Frank Valentini, who's just a wonderful, wonderful guy, the brilliant
Speaker 1: executive producer. They asked me to come on the show.
Speaker 1: I did the scene with Maurice Bernard, the star of
Speaker 1: the show, who plays the role of Sonny Carinthos, and
Speaker 1: I come on the show and I do a scene
Speaker 1: with him with him and the next thing I know,
Speaker 1: they just stopped taping and Frank Valentini runs downstairs and
Speaker 1: comes over to the set and he says, you were phenomenal,
Speaker 1: and Maurice Bernard was like, yes, you were. And Frank says,
Speaker 1: what we want to know is do you have time
Speaker 1: to do this? I said, do what they said. We
Speaker 1: want to make this character a permanent character, for a
Speaker 1: recurring role on this show. And I said done, Yes,
Speaker 1: I said please, I say anytimes I got I said,
Speaker 1: I gotta schedule, I gotta onor my obligation to is
Speaker 1: in have to come first. But anytime I could be
Speaker 1: out here to do this, I will do it. It's
Speaker 1: not a problem because it's totally fun with me. And
Speaker 1: so from that point forward, Maurice Bernard has looked at
Speaker 1: me and he says, I know you don't believe it,
Speaker 1: but you have it. He said, I've been around for
Speaker 1: a long time. He said, you have it. Whatever that
Speaker 1: it is, you just got it. And he said, I'm
Speaker 1: telling you, I've been in this business a long time
Speaker 1: and a lot of people can't do what you do.
Speaker 1: They get in front of that camera, those lights, cameras
Speaker 1: actually come on, and then nervous as hell, and I said,
Speaker 1: we don't think. I wasn't. I was gonna say, come on,
Speaker 1: you're telling me you just slid in there. And this
Speaker 1: was feeling natural. First take these days from soap operacy,
Speaker 1: it is first take. You don't get a chance to rehearse.
Speaker 1: Sound like the old days. You gotta nail it. It's
Speaker 1: a team sport, it's collaborative. You screw up, everybody else
Speaker 1: is wasting their tap exactly. That's exactly the part that
Speaker 1: made me nervous. So my point is, I've never viewed
Speaker 1: myself as an actor because all I'm trying to do
Speaker 1: is memorize my life just so I don't screw it
Speaker 1: up for everybody else. You want to say, because if
Speaker 1: you get it wrong. They have to do it over.
Speaker 1: People have to stay longer. It could be this everybody's life.
Speaker 1: You have to do your job. But Maurice Bernard deserves
Speaker 1: all the credit. Is actually two guys. I'm actually blessed
Speaker 1: and fortunate. Chris, I know the two biggest soap opera
Speaker 1: stars arguably in history. I'm very very good friends, great
Speaker 1: friends with Eric Braden, who plays Victor Newman on Young
Speaker 1: and the Wrestless. He's a huge first take fan. And
Speaker 1: his son, Christian is a phenomenal director. He um, you know,
Speaker 1: he's done a couple of movies and what have you.
Speaker 1: And he, you know, he said to his father, this
Speaker 1: dude's the best sports analysts and television. You gotta meet him.
Speaker 1: And his father watched him, and his father watched me,
Speaker 1: and he tweeted me one day and I and I said,
Speaker 1: who the hell is Eric Braden? I had no idea.
Speaker 1: It was Victor Newman for Young in the Wrestlers. I
Speaker 1: knew it. I just never paid attention to what his
Speaker 1: real name was. And so we made arrangements to see
Speaker 1: one another in l a we had at lunch, and
Speaker 1: we've been a separable sense every time. I'm in l A.
Speaker 1: We always have a lunch of dinner. I'm very close
Speaker 1: to him and he would give me tips. And then
Speaker 1: when I went on the set with Maurice Bernard, Maurice
Speaker 1: Bernard with got me, Okay, here's what I'm looking for
Speaker 1: with Deceeed, think about this, think about this, think about that,
Speaker 1: and he tell me and just guide me. And the
Speaker 1: more he guided me, the better I look. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: it's really them, It's it's especially Maurice Bernard just teaching
Speaker 1: me on the spot on the set. This is what
Speaker 1: I need from this, says you got it? If he's
Speaker 1: sit that's high prayers. What are you gonna do with it?
Speaker 1: Is there more acting? Oh? I'd love it to be.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't pursue it per se, but when
Speaker 1: people ask me, I definitely will consider it. That's what
Speaker 1: that That's how Blackish came about. When I was on Blackish,
Speaker 1: you know, because I'm friends with Anthony Anderson, but he's
Speaker 1: not the one who called um, you know Ken you
Speaker 1: Burrows and those guys do a great job and they
Speaker 1: asked me come on the show, and I was happy
Speaker 1: to come on and do a scene with with Anthony Anderson,
Speaker 1: who I think is it's just a phenomenal actor. Um.
Speaker 1: But the thing that I love but she's very funny.
Speaker 1: But you were playing yourself, and you you're playing maybe
Speaker 1: at slightly heightened version of yourself, and and you one
Speaker 1: round one big and then then you didn't win the end.
Speaker 1: But but that a little girl about yourself, so that
Speaker 1: youughter got me. But I think what I love about
Speaker 1: it is that when you're acting, you can play any
Speaker 1: role that the road dick. You can play any character
Speaker 1: that the road dictates for you, and so you can
Speaker 1: be something else. And the fact that you can be
Speaker 1: something else is a huge, huge deal. And not only that,
Speaker 1: it comes in handy because when you're on live television
Speaker 1: doing first take every day, sometimes you gotta put on
Speaker 1: your acting chop in terms of your mood. Might come in,
Speaker 1: a little tired mike coming, a little sluggish might come
Speaker 1: in because you know, family or friends or somebody annoyed you.
Speaker 1: But the audience don't want to hear that the lights
Speaker 1: are on, it's time, it's showtime, and they want what
Speaker 1: they want from you. And so knowing that that's what
Speaker 1: you've got to bring to the scene acting wise, that
Speaker 1: also helped me doing first take as well. Where do
Speaker 1: you get the stamina mentally, physically do you get the
Speaker 1: voices the instrument? You gotta take care of the voice
Speaker 1: because you're using it, You're you're you're testing and challenging
Speaker 1: it every day. I mean, look, you had you woke up.
Speaker 1: People don't know this except maybe a lot of your
Speaker 1: hardcore um IF viewers, but you rang in in the hospital.
Speaker 1: You had you had a fully vaccinated right, but you
Speaker 1: had a bad bout of COVID pneumonia both lungs as
Speaker 1: you've described it, and it was dicey, and you did along.
Speaker 1: You took a long time off. You had to kind
Speaker 1: of come back and maybe with a different perspective, rebuild
Speaker 1: your stamina. Yeah, I'm passionate about I love my job,
Speaker 1: so that helps. UM. I know how to pace myself
Speaker 1: to some degree. That helps. But COVID was a different animal. UM.
Speaker 1: I'm not in the greatest shape in the world, but
Speaker 1: I ain't in bad shape. UM. My exercise a few
Speaker 1: days a week. UM. And to be in a situation
Speaker 1: where I was just laboring with my breathing, uh, to
Speaker 1: have pneumonia in both lungs, to get progressively words to
Speaker 1: go through the hallucinations and all of this other stuff,
Speaker 1: delusions and everything was crazy. Um. But I think the
Speaker 1: scariest moment was um New Year's Eve, because I visited
Speaker 1: the hospital twice for New Year's Eve. Around ten thirty
Speaker 1: that night before the ball dropped. An hour and a
Speaker 1: half before the ball dropped, I was feeling really, really
Speaker 1: really bad, and the nurse came in there and they
Speaker 1: looked at my X rays and stuff like that and
Speaker 1: took X rays of my chest and what have you.
Speaker 1: They did all of that, and they turned around and
Speaker 1: they said, what's your family's number? We need to call him.
Speaker 1: They said, we're gonna try something, but this is pretty bad.
Speaker 1: And I think what ultimately ended up happening was that
Speaker 1: several weeks earlier, I had an endoscopy perform because my
Speaker 1: vote was my throat was a little bit raspy and
Speaker 1: my stomach was hurting, and they found out that I
Speaker 1: had and inflamed esophagus and a bacterial infection. So the
Speaker 1: combination of the two put me in a bad spot.
Speaker 1: COVID piggyback off that and so if you're already having
Speaker 1: problems with your esophagus and then COVID comes in, it
Speaker 1: swarms you, and so that's where the ultimately the pneumonia
Speaker 1: came into play, and everything and nothing seemed to be working.
Speaker 1: And it turned out that they put me on steroids
Speaker 1: and an antibiotic and took me off the antibiotic that
Speaker 1: I was on for the endoscopy, and that ultimately made
Speaker 1: me better in a matter of hours and ultimately got
Speaker 1: me through COVID. But it was a real, real big
Speaker 1: Tom scared that particular moment of time because my doctors,
Speaker 1: they continue to tell me, had I not been vaccinated,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be here. They told me I would have
Speaker 1: been gone. Yeah, holy ship, I mean that that's not
Speaker 1: supposed to happen a fully vaccinated person, this late in
Speaker 1: the COVID game, and you're they're telling you maybe you
Speaker 1: better call your family. Yeah wow, I mean I know
Speaker 1: that you you had plenty of acquired wisdom and resilience.
Speaker 1: But you come back after that. And what we do
Speaker 1: on one level is pretty silly stuff. We get we
Speaker 1: get to talk about athletes and games and sports and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, and people are out there doing real
Speaker 1: world jobs, including people that are taking care of you
Speaker 1: in the hospital. What what did that do when I did?
Speaker 1: You see you're fired up to get back on TV.
Speaker 1: But when you come back and the lake goes on
Speaker 1: and its first take time, how are you a changed person?
Speaker 1: Stephen A? From that the first business I thought, I
Speaker 1: was reminded of the inherent responsibility that I have. Of course,
Speaker 1: I was appreciative of my family and my loved ones,
Speaker 1: so there was an elevated level of appreciation that went
Speaker 1: on from there. But then to go back on the
Speaker 1: air after a month off with so many people looking
Speaker 1: for me, wondering what was going on? Where am I?
Speaker 1: Colleagues all over the place, friends, everybody, because they've never
Speaker 1: seen me take off that amount of time in my career.
Speaker 1: I took off more between mid December and mid uh
Speaker 1: January sick watse for sick days more than I'm taken
Speaker 1: off in my entire twenty eight year career combined. I
Speaker 1: mean I used like thirty six days for crying a lot.
Speaker 1: I was really bad, and so to come back and
Speaker 1: to see just the world and flux as it be
Speaker 1: as it pertained to COVID, I felt an inherent responsibility
Speaker 1: just to let everybody know what happened to me. Make
Speaker 1: your own decisions. You got your own doctors, your medical experts,
Speaker 1: you know what your health situation is. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to get into all of you should be vaccinated or whatever,
Speaker 1: even though I think you should. That's your business. But
Speaker 1: I was basically, I basically felt an obligation of bringing
Speaker 1: to perspective this virus is real. COVID nineteen is real.
Speaker 1: And when you're walking around without a mask, when you're
Speaker 1: walking around being completely oblivious or disinterested or apathetic towards
Speaker 1: how the next first you could be harmed, that's where
Speaker 1: it's Unamerican. That's where we're not our best selves, you know.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to send that message because my sister
Speaker 1: smokes every day. I hate it. She's a smoker. She
Speaker 1: got COVID from me and she was fine in three days.
Speaker 1: I don't smoke. I'm a casual drinker, I exercise all
Speaker 1: the time, and I almost died. And so for me,
Speaker 1: it was like, it can happen to anybody, and you
Speaker 1: don't know why, So let's be considerate enough to think
Speaker 1: about our fellow woman, and man, it leads to the
Speaker 1: point where we're not jeopardizing somebody else. And that was
Speaker 1: a message that I felt obligated to come back and
Speaker 1: bring because they say, I'm the face of ESPN. It
Speaker 1: is the worldwide leader. We have tremendous reach and with
Speaker 1: that position comes responsibility, and to me, that needed to
Speaker 1: take precedent over anything else. And that's why I came
Speaker 1: back the way that I came back. My first focus
Speaker 1: was to deliver that message and to let everybody know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I recovered, but I went through hell in order to
Speaker 1: get here. Let's think about that for a second. That's
Speaker 1: what I tried to do. Yeah, you had another way
Speaker 1: that you powerfully use the platform, well said, Well, your
Speaker 1: viewers are glad that you're back. Ready to work? Is
Speaker 1: you need to roar with full energy with when Chris
Speaker 1: Matt Russell comes on every Wednesday, the first take has
Speaker 1: become become appointment TV. Not that the show isn't every day,
Speaker 1: but when when he comes in and tries to match
Speaker 1: your energy, tries to match you that that I've known
Speaker 1: him forever, I mean that is that is Uh? Does
Speaker 1: that feel like, hey, these are the minutes of the
Speaker 1: week when I really got to put the gloves on
Speaker 1: and go at it or is it just you know
Speaker 1: for me personally? Um year from the standpoint that he
Speaker 1: is mad or Russ. So the man doesn't have his
Speaker 1: own show. He's that is on the channel, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, he's got he's got, he's got damn near
Speaker 1: cult following for crying out loud. We get all of that.
Speaker 1: But you know, I'm old in the sense. You know,
Speaker 1: one of the greatest compliments I've ever received when I
Speaker 1: first came back to ESPN two thousand and eleven, everybody
Speaker 1: was shaking my hand, good to see you, blah blah, blah,
Speaker 1: blah blah, and then Boomer Chris Burman shook my hand
Speaker 1: and he said, welcome home. He never should have left.
Speaker 1: And that meant the world to me, coming from somebody
Speaker 1: like him. And I bring all of that up to say,
Speaker 1: you know, I might be younger than some folks, same
Speaker 1: age and some folks or whatever, but I'm old school
Speaker 1: at heart. I know who paved away from me. You know,
Speaker 1: I remember all of y'all. I remember listen, I remember
Speaker 1: Howard Costell back in the day. I remember Jimmy the Greek,
Speaker 1: I remember Earth Cross, Brent Musburger on the New Side,
Speaker 1: Ted Copple, you know, Peter Jennings, you know Dan Rather
Speaker 1: Tom Broke, call I remember, you know, the John Saunders
Speaker 1: of the world, to Dan Patricks, to keep the Oberman's
Speaker 1: of the world, the rich eyes is of the world.
Speaker 1: You know, you and Kirk Curves should have been doing
Speaker 1: a great job on these lead corpse. So you know,
Speaker 1: all of these guys rich eyes, and listen, what what
Speaker 1: ESPN is, what this industry is is because of the
Speaker 1: people who preceded me. And so when everybody comes along
Speaker 1: now and it's about the younger generation and it's about
Speaker 1: the younger demographic, I get that that's the audience, but
Speaker 1: I refuse to allow anybody to ever think that I
Speaker 1: am somebody that, in catering to that younger audience is
Speaker 1: gonna forget the people that put me in a position
Speaker 1: to cater to them. So I feel an inherent responsibility
Speaker 1: of somebody who's seen as having some kind of gravitational
Speaker 1: pull with that younger audience to sort of pull that
Speaker 1: audience over to me in a way that reminds them
Speaker 1: of the people who preceded me. That's a big, big
Speaker 1: deal to me. Don't forget the people who paved the way.
Speaker 1: Know some semblance of your history, and that's what I
Speaker 1: try to do, and when I look at mad Dog Russo,
Speaker 1: he was doing it in the eighties, he and Mike
Speaker 1: for Incessor Mike and the Mad Dog started sports talk radio.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, wait a minute, I'm not forgetting that.
Speaker 1: I want the world to know who he is. I
Speaker 1: want them to see what he brings to the table.
Speaker 1: I want them to know and understand his value. And
Speaker 1: I love the fact that he looks differently than I do,
Speaker 1: and think differently than I do, and come from a
Speaker 1: different cultural background than I do. Because I want the
Speaker 1: audience to know I'm not here just to tell you
Speaker 1: how I feel. I want you to have it all
Speaker 1: and to make your decision based on how we debate
Speaker 1: one another. I think that's the fair and right thing
Speaker 1: to do, and I'm very very big on that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we grew up watching and admiring a lot of the
Speaker 1: same icons beginning you mentioned Cosell, Jim McKay, many others.
Speaker 1: It's it's really thrilling when you actually get to bridge
Speaker 1: and work with some of those people later in their careers,
Speaker 1: earlier in your careers. That's been a thrill for me.
Speaker 1: I'll leave you with this question because we talked about
Speaker 1: challenges and risks. I think improvement and growth and not
Speaker 1: just expected, they're essential to us. So what's what's when
Speaker 1: you look forward and knowing that in this business, sometimes
Speaker 1: it doesn't end well, even for the legends, it's I
Speaker 1: don't know what it is. Sometimes it doesn't end well.
Speaker 1: What's what's next for you? What are the areas where
Speaker 1: you say I could continue to grow and improve and
Speaker 1: do something better or do something different. Well, I don't
Speaker 1: rule out the possibility that this next this last contract,
Speaker 1: and I've got over three years remaining on it could
Speaker 1: be my last on first take. UM, that remains to
Speaker 1: be seen. I thoroughly enjoy doing it, but I'm anxious
Speaker 1: to do other things. I started my own production company,
Speaker 1: Mr Essays Productions. I want to show my producing chops
Speaker 1: to produce content sitcom, scripted and unscripted, doctuseries, drama series,
Speaker 1: those kind of things, even film. Eventually, UM, I want
Speaker 1: to start my own podcast company. I have an aspiration
Speaker 1: to do that. UM. I'm still gonna I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna elevate my acting chops to some degree. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do more or that. UM definitely so UM and my
Speaker 1: ultimate aspirational as well on camera is to do late
Speaker 1: night television. When I think about Stephen Gobert, I think
Speaker 1: about Jimmy Fallon, I think about the great Jimmy Kimmel. Um.
Speaker 1: I come back to the days of UH, you know,
Speaker 1: Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Jay Leno, are Cineo hall Um.
Speaker 1: I saw all of this stuff, and you know, they
Speaker 1: basically celebrate the great, great things that people are doing.
Speaker 1: I've been debating and then being combat up for years,
Speaker 1: but I want to step back and have a good
Speaker 1: time and show that I know how to have a
Speaker 1: good time and I can help others shine as well
Speaker 1: and celebrate the great things that they do. So, you know,
Speaker 1: again answer that question. Being a producer and with my
Speaker 1: production company behind the scenes, doing late night television in
Speaker 1: front of the camera, those are my primary two obligations.
Speaker 1: And how soon that will happen remains to be seen,
Speaker 1: but I would prefer much sooner then later. Well, I
Speaker 1: can't wait to see all the things that unfold next.
Speaker 1: Look forward to reading the memoir you mentioned UH in
Speaker 1: about a year's time. Stephen A. Smith. You always bring it, man,
Speaker 1: and thank you for bringing it here. I'm grateful for
Speaker 1: you and continued success. I appreciate you, Chris Man, thanksful
Speaker 1: the great work that you do on it, and proud
Speaker 1: to call you a colleague. Man. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for having me. I really appreciate Stephen his time in
Speaker 1: a very busy schedule and for saying yes immediately to
Speaker 1: this request. I really enjoyed getting to know him a
Speaker 1: little bit. I hope you enjoyed seeing different sides to
Speaker 1: the man, things that contribute to making him the great
Speaker 1: broadcaster that he is. As always, grateful to my co
Speaker 1: executive producer on the podcast, Jennifer Dempster and A. Jason
Speaker 1: Whitehill for his editing skills. Please subscribe to the podcast,
Speaker 1: review it, leave feedback on my Instagram at Chris Fowler
Speaker 1: or at Chris Fowler dot com. I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: M