Speaker 1: M hmm. Everything she does. That's because she never loses
Speaker 1: sight of what's important. Putting on a military transport tonight. Hell, yes,
Speaker 1: he's backing down on either side. We have a bona
Speaker 1: fide crisis. We'll follow it up together, get to the truth.
Speaker 1: I did what had to be done. Sports is being
Speaker 1: a place for social and political movements. It always has been.
Speaker 1: This was our moment to that people know how we
Speaker 1: felt as a team. Welcome back all the smoke, my
Speaker 1: brother Jack, and we're back. We're back. We got a
Speaker 1: special guest today, Jamil Hill Wallace. Right. Yeah, I did
Speaker 1: change my last name, but professionally still Jamal Hill. Okay,
Speaker 1: thank you, congratulations, thank you. I appreciated it. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: we've been in it for a couple of months now,
Speaker 1: being married, and so far he hasn't wanted to divorce
Speaker 1: me yet. How did you guys need to heard? You
Speaker 1: both went to Michigan State. Did to start there or yes?
Speaker 1: And no, we both went to Michigan State. But I'm
Speaker 1: a cougar, so he is five years younger than me.
Speaker 1: So we actually met at home. We actually met at homecoming. Um.
Speaker 1: I had gone back to Michigan State because I was
Speaker 1: the grand marshal of the homecoming parade. And when your
Speaker 1: grandmar show, you gotta shake hands, kiss some babies, walk
Speaker 1: around and talk to people. And so we were. They
Speaker 1: were taking me around at different tailgates, and one of
Speaker 1: ones they took me to was when I was going
Speaker 1: to wind up at Anyway. It was the Black lum
Speaker 1: Not tailgate, and I saw a friend of mine that
Speaker 1: we didn't figure out obviously till I met him that
Speaker 1: it was also a friend of his. So I'm talking
Speaker 1: to this friend and he comes walking up and you know, um,
Speaker 1: we're kind of checking each other out and a little
Speaker 1: flirting going on, and so we kind of left it there.
Speaker 1: And later that night I saw him at at the
Speaker 1: Black Alumni party. UM DJ by mc light shout out
Speaker 1: and then so we saw each other, and it's one
Speaker 1: of those things where I was like, now, what are
Speaker 1: the odds that the fine guys saw the tailgate will
Speaker 1: also be here at the dance. So you know, I
Speaker 1: did that thing that women do is that I'm sure
Speaker 1: you gentlemen have been on the receiving end of this,
Speaker 1: but we'll give you a look like you've been bringing
Speaker 1: your ass over here, right. So I gave him that look.
Speaker 1: He came over and we talked and the rest, as
Speaker 1: they say history, you had. You had all my home
Speaker 1: girls at you at the wedding part I said, y'all
Speaker 1: oversee is having a good time. We were, Yeah, we
Speaker 1: had a great time. So some you know people you
Speaker 1: might know Carrie Championship with one of my bride's maids
Speaker 1: and the bachelorte party which was a few months trigger
Speaker 1: Tray as we call her in these streets. Amina who's
Speaker 1: saying who uh is coordinating producer for NBA Countdown on ESPN.
Speaker 1: So ESPN was well represented, uh in my bridal party,
Speaker 1: in my bride's maid or my maid of honor Kelly
Speaker 1: Carter who is a senior entertainment writer for The Undefeated.
Speaker 1: So we did the wedding which was incredible, had music
Speaker 1: Soul Child sing me down which was great. And then
Speaker 1: afterwards we went on a honeymoon for three weeks, so okay,
Speaker 1: we were gone, yeah to Kenya, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and
Speaker 1: the Maldives. So it was it was a dream wedding,
Speaker 1: dream honeymoon. And so we're still kind of riding good job,
Speaker 1: great job, great job. We always kind of hear obviously
Speaker 1: from a guy's point of view of you know, guy
Speaker 1: being in the spotlight. You're in the spot like, you
Speaker 1: have a tremendous platform. How does that dynamic work being
Speaker 1: married with a Well, it's interesting because, um so his
Speaker 1: nickname became oh boy, my old boy, because back when
Speaker 1: I was doing television every day on ESPN, my former
Speaker 1: co host Michael Smith shout out to him one of
Speaker 1: my dear friends. Uh. He nicknamed him that because there
Speaker 1: was like early on in our relationship. I tagged him
Speaker 1: in a photo and put it on Instagram, and he
Speaker 1: got like a thousand requests, and I was thinking, like,
Speaker 1: I'd be damn, I had these helps all over the
Speaker 1: meat right in front of all. But not only that,
Speaker 1: I felt like maybe and he didn't give me any
Speaker 1: indication to this, but just me just trying to realize
Speaker 1: that dynamic you talked about. I wanted to give him
Speaker 1: some time to kind of get used to that, because
Speaker 1: he didn't sign up to be dating somebody who was
Speaker 1: on TV every day and had a public profile. He
Speaker 1: didn't sign up for that intrusion it can sometimes make
Speaker 1: in your life. So after that he was just called
Speaker 1: old boy. Nobody knew his name. And one of the
Speaker 1: early tests, if you will, in our relationship was our
Speaker 1: first SPS. So we go to the SPS and a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, um, you know the SPS. You see
Speaker 1: how that environment is mass celebrities, athletes, you know who's
Speaker 1: who and all that, and he was just himself. He
Speaker 1: was just comfortable. Um, he wasn't fanning out, he wasn't
Speaker 1: acting different, you know, he didn't act insecure, he didn't
Speaker 1: like none of that stuff. Like. He was just real chill.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, ship, yeah, my wife, I'm good,
Speaker 1: I'm good. Well, you know that there's there's upside and
Speaker 1: downside with that, okay, because again suddenly you have a
Speaker 1: dual public persona, and it's certainly intensified now that you
Speaker 1: know we're married. Our our wedding was covered by essence
Speaker 1: and all this publicity, and then once people started to
Speaker 1: figure out that we were seriously dating, there would be
Speaker 1: blog posts about who is this dude that she's with
Speaker 1: and all that kind of thing. But he always handled
Speaker 1: it well and in stride. He's never you know, acting
Speaker 1: funny about it. I've certainly, um not necessarily been in
Speaker 1: full scale relationships, but I've certainly dated dudes that I
Speaker 1: could tell it was going to be a problem. And
Speaker 1: knowing a lot of women who are in television in
Speaker 1: this industry, they have definitely dealt with that where it's
Speaker 1: just every dude you can't bring to the like you
Speaker 1: just can't. You just can't, you know, because a bit right,
Speaker 1: you know what, maybe the half the party, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, and just from a standpoint is that people
Speaker 1: have to know how to how to act in certain situations.
Speaker 1: And um, you know he always was just you know,
Speaker 1: he always batted a thousand when it came to that,
Speaker 1: so I knew, you know, it would work. And he
Speaker 1: you know, he never tripped about especially being in this business. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: your salary, whether true or not true, it's always made public.
Speaker 1: And so it was never a thing whereas somebody joked
Speaker 1: and called him stamping or something like that, like he
Speaker 1: didn't give a damn about that or whatever. Look, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of dudes that would trade a place pretty
Speaker 1: much trade a place and be with a stampinias right now,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. I never said that. I
Speaker 1: never said that. I've never said that. I never said
Speaker 1: that's never said that, never, Right, now that's so funny.
Speaker 1: Ship Man mad It's so funny. Ship Oprah, gotta high man.
Speaker 1: You gotta be careful, damn singleheadedly shut down the beef.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep I'm gonna keep saying. One day, Regina Hall,
Speaker 1: what that's your celebrity front and Regina, you see this? Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll put in a good word. I put in a
Speaker 1: good word for you. Heard that. It's on camera? All right?
Speaker 1: So where did your journalism journey start? Uh? Well, it's
Speaker 1: started really young. Um. Most times, you know, growing up,
Speaker 1: you change professions or things you think you want to
Speaker 1: do multiple times. You know, one week you might want
Speaker 1: to be a fireman and next week you might want
Speaker 1: to be something else. But I always wanted to do this,
Speaker 1: and I had a love of sports very early on.
Speaker 1: It always came very naturally. I don't remember ever not
Speaker 1: loving sports. So I was like the neighborhood tom boy
Speaker 1: and you know, out there playing baseball and football, flipping
Speaker 1: off garages with the guys and you know, just kind
Speaker 1: of hanging out. And when you're the girl in a
Speaker 1: company of like little boys or whatever, they're gonna always
Speaker 1: try to try you. You know what I'm saying. So
Speaker 1: when people would ask me years later, how is it
Speaker 1: that you're at this desk with this athlete and this
Speaker 1: man and you just are comfortable to hold your own
Speaker 1: I was like, well, it goes back to, you know,
Speaker 1: growing up in Detroit in the hood. It's like, y'all
Speaker 1: ain gonna take it easy on me just because I'm
Speaker 1: a girl. So I learned you talk about my mama,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about your mama right back. You know, you
Speaker 1: learned the roast and go back and forth. And so
Speaker 1: I was always comfortable, um being in that like sort
Speaker 1: of environment with boys and men. So I played a
Speaker 1: lot of sports, and I also love to read. I
Speaker 1: was a voracious reader, had a library card, love to write.
Speaker 1: UM wrote poetry short stories every city I live in.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about like I had one. It's not
Speaker 1: warn especially you know, you have to do a desimal
Speaker 1: system to get the books process process. So we don't
Speaker 1: nothing about what they called stuff when you put the
Speaker 1: plastic go over to make sure you don't break the
Speaker 1: library car, what's they called laminated. I even did that
Speaker 1: and still didn't use it. If freshs all get out,
Speaker 1: I bet your notebook was well I was. I was
Speaker 1: a neurse, so I love to read and I just
Speaker 1: had this love of language. And in high school I
Speaker 1: took a high school journalism class where I essentially wrote
Speaker 1: for the school paper, and it kind of started there.
Speaker 1: And the way that papers are high school papers were
Speaker 1: produced in Detroit then is you. They put a special
Speaker 1: insert in in the Detroit Free Press where once a
Speaker 1: month you could read all the high school newspapers in
Speaker 1: the city because they gave everybody one page. So we
Speaker 1: had to go to a professional news room to put
Speaker 1: our paper together. So the moment I walked in the newsroom,
Speaker 1: it was like love at first sight. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: these people are crazy. They're like running around. It was
Speaker 1: all this energy and just the idea of being able
Speaker 1: to make a living covering something that I participated in
Speaker 1: and loved to watch. It just seemed like, hey, this
Speaker 1: is one plus one equal to So I couldn't do math.
Speaker 1: I was terrible as science, so literally there was nothing
Speaker 1: else I was meant to do. But this. They always
Speaker 1: asked you, the old guidance counsel, the question you know
Speaker 1: that you love it and have a passion for it,
Speaker 1: if it's something you would do for free, like y'all
Speaker 1: would play back. Y'all did play basketball at one point
Speaker 1: for free right, And so I felt the same way
Speaker 1: about writing a journalism. And I never expected to be
Speaker 1: on TV. That was never in the plan. I just
Speaker 1: wanted to write for newspapers. My dream job was actually
Speaker 1: the work of Sports Illustrated because when I was coming
Speaker 1: up that was working for the magazine and writing cover
Speaker 1: stories like I wanted to do that. And eventually I
Speaker 1: wound up at ESPN, and when I saw them checks
Speaker 1: look differently when you on TV, that's when I made
Speaker 1: the decision, like, you know what, this TV thing ain't
Speaker 1: bad after all. So it's just been an evolution. But
Speaker 1: at the base of it, I still do you know,
Speaker 1: all the things that I did as a writer. We
Speaker 1: talk to people, have good conversations. Hopefully they tell you
Speaker 1: something they didn't know, give you some insight and some introspection,
Speaker 1: and put history and what's happening now in the context
Speaker 1: for other people. So it just hasn't changed. It's since
Speaker 1: the methods are different because of technology. I think you
Speaker 1: touched on it a little bit, But tell us more
Speaker 1: about your upbringing, which made you someone who can hold
Speaker 1: your own someone who was outspoken, someone who's not afraid
Speaker 1: to hold your tongue. Tell me about your your childhood. Well, Um,
Speaker 1: in addition to you know, being in the neighborhood tomboy,
Speaker 1: I think another big component why some of the you know,
Speaker 1: challenges and just obstacles you'll generally face just being black
Speaker 1: in America, being a black woman in corporate America and
Speaker 1: making your way in media, is that you know, when
Speaker 1: you grow up and um, you know, we were on
Speaker 1: food stands for a good bit of my childhood, grew
Speaker 1: up poor. My parents are both recovering drug addicts. Uh
Speaker 1: so I saw a lot growing up, and so um,
Speaker 1: some of the problems I would face later, I could
Speaker 1: put them into perspective because you know I used to
Speaker 1: I made this joke all the time, especially when it
Speaker 1: came to the controversy I had with the President. And
Speaker 1: it's true. It's like, you know, Donald Trump tweaked me
Speaker 1: and saying that I should be fired and the White
Speaker 1: House color would be fired. It's like literally the six
Speaker 1: hundred thousands worst thing that's ever happened to me. Like
Speaker 1: it wouldn't even make the top team. So it's like
Speaker 1: I've damn about a tweet alright, cool, thanks for putting
Speaker 1: my name in your mouth. Appreciated. So it's just like
Speaker 1: that was not um. It was certainly created some adverse
Speaker 1: situations for me as a result, but it was just
Speaker 1: it's nothing compared to um, you know, seeing your mother
Speaker 1: go through you know, rehab, or seeing your your dad
Speaker 1: still have Heroin marks on his on his arm and
Speaker 1: and his fingers and stuff like. It's nothing compared with
Speaker 1: life experience. Yeah, exactly. And so you know, thankfully, by
Speaker 1: the grace of God, they've both they've been you know,
Speaker 1: in recovery for a long time, so that hasn't been
Speaker 1: an issue in a while. But the fact of the
Speaker 1: matter is is that coming from that environment, this other
Speaker 1: stuff is just like, yeah, it's hard, but it ain't
Speaker 1: that you know, it ain't even closed. So I think
Speaker 1: having that perspective has allowed me to not only approach
Speaker 1: this work with a bit of a chip on my shoulder,
Speaker 1: it's also as whatever accolades come when people love me,
Speaker 1: don't love me, hate me, whatever it is, I can
Speaker 1: kind of keep it all level because of some of
Speaker 1: the things that I've been through. That's why that's why
Speaker 1: I really want to know about your upbringing. Because I
Speaker 1: was telling them earlier. As athletes, we always get interviewed
Speaker 1: and acts of how we bring how we was brought
Speaker 1: up in the first thing you say, man, we grew
Speaker 1: up in the hood, we grew up poor, But we
Speaker 1: never hear that from women, and and we go through
Speaker 1: the same thing. It's the same thing, we just don't
Speaker 1: hear from women. So it's good to hear that from
Speaker 1: you because y'all go through the same things. The struggles
Speaker 1: in the ghet was the same. For what what male
Speaker 1: and women? You know what I'm saying, So it's good
Speaker 1: to hear that from you because women don't get to
Speaker 1: tell lay side of how they growing up and how
Speaker 1: growing up poor and the struggles affected them. But it
Speaker 1: made you tougher, And it's exactly. It's easy to see
Speaker 1: why you can carry yourself in a room full of
Speaker 1: men because of your It's easy to see that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it is important that people understand that, you know,
Speaker 1: the cycle and the shame that comes with poverty. It's
Speaker 1: just it's really pervasive, and men and women may process
Speaker 1: it differently and may make us act and behave as
Speaker 1: adults in different way, but we're still left with the
Speaker 1: same generational trauma. I mean me and my husband, Uh,
Speaker 1: we often Joe because he's also um from the city
Speaker 1: of Detroit. UM. And while you know, economically he was
Speaker 1: a little bit better than me, we still grew up
Speaker 1: in the same kind of environments and that is one
Speaker 1: of the things that we kind of couldn't relate to
Speaker 1: with each other. But we talked about it all the time,
Speaker 1: about having hood PTSD, you know, and we live of
Speaker 1: you know, in the good part of l A and um, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I see him do certain stuff. I'll be like, babe,
Speaker 1: we don't right, you know, certain habits. And that's not
Speaker 1: to say you should never keep your hood senses or
Speaker 1: I like to call them, yeah, like spidy senses like
Speaker 1: hood senses about you. But it's amazing, Um, the things
Speaker 1: that you grow up in, how you normalize it then
Speaker 1: you realize later as a dog at all. We make
Speaker 1: it look we make it look We do it, man,
Speaker 1: we make it looking like it's not when we get
Speaker 1: because I mean similar background. Both my parents were you know,
Speaker 1: we're addicted to drugs at a young age. And I've
Speaker 1: seen it in front of me, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So and then face racism and and being by racial
Speaker 1: So by the time I'm getting to NBA and my
Speaker 1: ships on TMZ and whatever, and then furthering that like
Speaker 1: in this corporate world, like there's nothing you can show
Speaker 1: me that's bigger than what I've already dealt with, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So that's why we handle it gracefully,
Speaker 1: be handling it with ease. We do it our way.
Speaker 1: But they also don't understand, and I think it takes
Speaker 1: somebody from that background to get it, especially talking to
Speaker 1: YouTube gentlemen, is that you both came into such money
Speaker 1: and something fame right um, to some degree, I did
Speaker 1: too much later than you all did. You did when
Speaker 1: you were young. There's no blueprint for that. Like when
Speaker 1: you guys coming from where you came from and then
Speaker 1: suddenly you have all this stuff. People don't understand that
Speaker 1: that's an adjustment period, like you have to learn on
Speaker 1: the flat and there's nobody to teach you how to
Speaker 1: do it. They say experience is the best teacher. What
Speaker 1: It's true, but you you you fall a lot doing
Speaker 1: those experiences trying to learn. You go through a lot
Speaker 1: of frustration enough and downs trying to get through it.
Speaker 1: But experience is the best teacher, and that's normally how
Speaker 1: we learned through our own funk ups. You don't get taught.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know personally, like my first four or
Speaker 1: five years bay the end every summer I was broke,
Speaker 1: I mean, no question, but family because not just not
Speaker 1: having to not know what, Like I got a bunch
Speaker 1: of money right now, and I got a bunch of homeboys,
Speaker 1: and I got family everything for him at one time.
Speaker 1: I want to do everything. I want to take everybody
Speaker 1: one time. And like you said, from having nothing to
Speaker 1: having this, you're not knowing that. Okay, it's gonna run
Speaker 1: out one day. But you have people in your life,
Speaker 1: you know so much six six years of your career,
Speaker 1: send me weeb. They might come to me, like Luke,
Speaker 1: bro enough is enough. Some people don't have that, and
Speaker 1: that's the ones that end up broke. You know, as
Speaker 1: all athletes, a lot of us we have to learn
Speaker 1: from experience. We don't get taught nothing, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. And you know, coming from our backgrounds, it
Speaker 1: makes us strong enough to deal with it. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. People don't understand that walk us through
Speaker 1: the path to finally getting two ESPN. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: it was very accidental, and it was it was, It
Speaker 1: was very accidental. It's it's two people I could think,
Speaker 1: or one person I could think and one phrase I
Speaker 1: could think. I could think Willis mcgahey and the word
Speaker 1: baby mama. I got to ESPN, so when I was
Speaker 1: in Orlando, I was a columnist there and it was
Speaker 1: my first columnist job. And I think I often like
Speaker 1: to give athletes, especially black athletes, I need them to
Speaker 1: sometimes understand the full scope of what the media looks like.
Speaker 1: Y'all could tell when y'all in the locker room, for sure,
Speaker 1: a boy who's covering you. But at that point, I
Speaker 1: was the only black female columnists at a major daily newspaper,
Speaker 1: at a daily newspaper, excuse me in North America. Noticed
Speaker 1: I didn't say America, North America. I was one out
Speaker 1: of three hundred and five. And you know that that
Speaker 1: picture is has a lot to do with, frankly, the
Speaker 1: reason that black athletes are covered with the way that
Speaker 1: they're covered. So I'm the singular one, and so a
Speaker 1: lot of the things I wrote it would get a
Speaker 1: lot of attention just because there was nobody else in
Speaker 1: the country that was doing what I was doing, and
Speaker 1: I created this idea to do this series car riding
Speaker 1: with where it was very basic. I get in the
Speaker 1: car with an athlete, we right around. I asked them
Speaker 1: some questions. They answered fun for everybody. Boom, we're sticking
Speaker 1: in the paper, real simple. Willis mcgay he was the
Speaker 1: first person that I got to agree to do this
Speaker 1: series with me. And I'm in the car with him
Speaker 1: and it's a videographer for Tygrapher in the back, and
Speaker 1: you know, we're just shooting the ship. And I just
Speaker 1: asked him because I knew he uh he had a
Speaker 1: couple of kids by different mothers, and I was just like,
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, Willis, what do you think would
Speaker 1: be worse having a white for a baby mama? Right?
Speaker 1: And he gave some funny answer and it was hilarious
Speaker 1: when I'm up making the paper. And then they got
Speaker 1: picked up by some blogs because they were like, well,
Speaker 1: it's he goes in on baby mama, because he did
Speaker 1: go in one. He was sure it was funny, but
Speaker 1: he didn't go in and you know, there was no outrage,
Speaker 1: but it just got picked up and the paper I
Speaker 1: was working for they weren't really used to that kind
Speaker 1: of viral traffic necessarily, and for something like that, you know,
Speaker 1: going viral. So next thing I know, I'm getting called
Speaker 1: into essentially the principal's office. And the editor, older white lady,
Speaker 1: was livid. She had never heard the term baby mama.
Speaker 1: So she was like, how dare you put this in
Speaker 1: the paper? And this is beneath our standard. I was like,
Speaker 1: the word baby mama again, this is a testament to
Speaker 1: how white newspapers generally have been and still are. So
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, if I get fired over the word
Speaker 1: baby mama, it's gonna be some ship. You know. It
Speaker 1: was kind of crazy. So but that was the column.
Speaker 1: Because it went viral. That executive at ESPN noticed and
Speaker 1: at the time, uh, skip Bayliss was moving on from
Speaker 1: writing for ESPN dot com. He was going to work
Speaker 1: on a show called co Pizza, which became First Take,
Speaker 1: and so, uh it just so happened this editor that
Speaker 1: saw my stuff or not this editor, this executive at
Speaker 1: ESPN and saw my stuff, knew a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: and so that friend um linked us up and we
Speaker 1: went to dinner. The executive's name was Keith clean Scales.
Speaker 1: He he said, hey, do you wanna come? And interview
Speaker 1: because we need a general columnist for ESPN dot com
Speaker 1: and I think you know you'd be perfect for it.
Speaker 1: Just come up to Bristol, So I said, all right, cool,
Speaker 1: so I go and I got the job. And so
Speaker 1: that's why I said this was It's Gay and Baby
Speaker 1: Mama that got me into ESPN. ESPN was never my destination,
Speaker 1: probably because I thought of it as a TV property,
Speaker 1: but I originally went there as a writer. I did
Speaker 1: not go there to do broadcast. So I just was
Speaker 1: going to be writing columns and I would make some
Speaker 1: occasional TV appearances. And sometimes ignorance is not just bliss,
Speaker 1: but ignorance is helpful. And by that I mean this.
Speaker 1: When I first started doing TV, appearing on like Outside
Speaker 1: the Lines and then started doing Cold Pizza Slash first take. Um,
Speaker 1: I didn't take it very seriously because I'm like TV,
Speaker 1: who cares, you know? Um, print reporters thought that way
Speaker 1: of TV at that time. It was like bloods and
Speaker 1: crips like this would have been two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: So two thousands and sixes when I got to ESPN,
Speaker 1: and so early part of two thousand and seven when
Speaker 1: I'm starting to do a little bit more TV, because
Speaker 1: you know, the reason why I on Around the horn
Speaker 1: you see so many columnists or former columnists, is because
Speaker 1: we generate opinion, and so they want to put people
Speaker 1: on TV who have things to say. And so, yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't take it seriously at all, and I was thinking,
Speaker 1: that's why allowed me to always be myself on TV,
Speaker 1: because I didn't know what I didn't know. So I'm
Speaker 1: just on there kicking it as far as I'm concerned,
Speaker 1: and I guess it kind of worked. And next thing
Speaker 1: I know, um, other shows started to call to and
Speaker 1: I'm on Jim Romans Burning, and then uh, sports reporters
Speaker 1: Around the Hornet. So I was just going through the cycle.
Speaker 1: You guys, no ideas, Um, you know, being there where
Speaker 1: you're on one show and next thing you know, you're
Speaker 1: on fifty shows. And so I look up a couple
Speaker 1: of years into my deal and the TV is literally
Speaker 1: fifty of what I do. And the thing that made
Speaker 1: me realize that this is something I needed to put
Speaker 1: all of my energy to into. Um, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of changes going on at ESPN dot com. That
Speaker 1: was one part of it. The other part was Matt
Speaker 1: Loward got paid. Uh in my first and second year
Speaker 1: at ESPN, and he got twenty million dollars a year,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, they actually would pay somebody on TV
Speaker 1: that much money, you know, Matt lowar Man, he was
Speaker 1: making bank and I just then I they're doing a
Speaker 1: little more research and just picking up, you know, some
Speaker 1: conversation at the water cooler when I whenever I would
Speaker 1: go to Bristol because at that point I didn't have
Speaker 1: to live there full time, and I was just like,
Speaker 1: met people really on TV making millions of dollars. This
Speaker 1: is crazy, Well now my focus must shift. So I
Speaker 1: just made a financial decision. It was something I was
Speaker 1: already comfortable with, so you know, why not try to
Speaker 1: pursue it, you know, full time. And that led into
Speaker 1: in part, um Mike and not linking up because we
Speaker 1: he got to ESPN maybe a year or two before
Speaker 1: I did, Um, but we met when we were both
Speaker 1: print reporters. But that led to us linking up and
Speaker 1: creating His and Hers and then Sports Center and the rest.
Speaker 1: As they say, it's history. Tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about your guys have launched together with the the six
Speaker 1: o'clock Well, um, you know it is. It's a great
Speaker 1: lesson just in the sense of uh, it goes along
Speaker 1: with grass is not always greener and also goes along.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you don't know how good you have until us
Speaker 1: already gone. And when we got the promotion to Sports
Speaker 1: Center one, it wasn't one that we asked for. They
Speaker 1: came to us and asked us to do the six
Speaker 1: o'clock Sports Center. We were having a lot of fun
Speaker 1: doing his and Hers on all kind of crazy ship
Speaker 1: you shouldn't be putting on. Oh that was the Friday
Speaker 1: of the Boys in the hoods. Look still, I'm sure
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do that. We want to do that.
Speaker 1: We want to do some skis with you for the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm in. I got my sad card and everything, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, we being on a noon at ESPN two
Speaker 1: during that time because it was Mike and Mike First Take,
Speaker 1: then US and at one point it was Sports Nation
Speaker 1: and highly questionable. So it was branded as the opinion
Speaker 1: kind of fun network within the ESPN you know, family
Speaker 1: to the major leagues. That was the only the only
Speaker 1: fun show. Everything else was just straight ahead sports crazy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I still, I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in
Speaker 1: ESPN history to ever drink of forty on TV. That
Speaker 1: a real forty. You a legend for that alone. Man,
Speaker 1: go to the store. I need a real forty because
Speaker 1: I gotta sell all this. But yeah, so we were
Speaker 1: in our creative space. They let us do whatever we wanted,
Speaker 1: and the audience like really loved it. It drew the
Speaker 1: attraction of the folks that around Sports Center. They were
Speaker 1: looking at that time to kind of shake up Sports
Speaker 1: Center a little bit, make it more personality branded. They
Speaker 1: started with s VP, giving him his own Sports Center,
Speaker 1: and so now they wanted to try to recreate that.
Speaker 1: But we created at six o'clock. So we go from
Speaker 1: um studio in I'm not gonna tell you what we
Speaker 1: used to say in Still for but y'all. So we
Speaker 1: were from studio in which we used to affetually refer
Speaker 1: to as a project because it's like a box we're in.
Speaker 1: They're selling tapes out the truck, you know, getting this
Speaker 1: daily TV ground studio in the car is to lookout
Speaker 1: on that first rock. That's it exactly, so you know.
Speaker 1: But we again we were giving total creative freedom and autonomy.
Speaker 1: We go from that to a seventeen million dollars studio
Speaker 1: cross campus in the new building the digital center, and
Speaker 1: it's got all the bells and whistles, super fancy. Overnight,
Speaker 1: our staff triples, we got all this, we got commercials
Speaker 1: um we're doing a media tour, like all the stuff
Speaker 1: we said we wanted for his and hers, and it's
Speaker 1: like boom here. It is the worst job I've ever
Speaker 1: had at ESPN was doing a six and block sports
Speaker 1: and I was like, sometimes, you know, things are just
Speaker 1: not what you think they're gonna be. The you know,
Speaker 1: Wortsen is a legacy brand, it's the it's ESPNS baby.
Speaker 1: They care about They don't care about ship else. They
Speaker 1: care about Sports Center, right, is what built the network literally,
Speaker 1: But it was not a fit for me at all
Speaker 1: because one, you know, it was a lot more people
Speaker 1: that had a lot to say about our show and
Speaker 1: they didn't know what then that was talking about. And
Speaker 1: that was a problem. Right. So creatively, we're used to
Speaker 1: being able to have our own space and autonomy and
Speaker 1: frankly we had earned that right and suddenly it's like,
Speaker 1: as Mike used to say all the time, we got
Speaker 1: all these cooks in the kitchen and don't nobody know
Speaker 1: how to make a meal. And it was it was tough.
Speaker 1: So from before the first launch of the show happened,
Speaker 1: the first show launch happened, It's like we were having
Speaker 1: a lot of creative issues and those continued and persisted
Speaker 1: as we tried to figure out what exactly this show is.
Speaker 1: We rushed on the air. I mean, we started the
Speaker 1: day after the super Bowl, which is good because your
Speaker 1: ratings are gonna be phenomenal. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: when we started, we just didn't know what the show was.
Speaker 1: We had not been given the proper time to figure
Speaker 1: that out. You know, Scott Van Held, I mean he
Speaker 1: probably got six months or more. I think I'm probably underselling.
Speaker 1: I think you got more time than that to figure
Speaker 1: out what that was. Even when they did get up
Speaker 1: really show, they got a lot of time to figure
Speaker 1: out what it was before it hit air. And anybody
Speaker 1: in television would tell you what you are on day
Speaker 1: one versus what you are a year later. Totally. I'm
Speaker 1: sure even now this podcast is different than the first
Speaker 1: one that you did, right, that's just the evolution of
Speaker 1: how it works. But we got caught up in some
Speaker 1: really unfortunate drama that had nothing to do with us,
Speaker 1: that was going on surrounding the narrative of ESPN. I mean,
Speaker 1: at this point, um, ESPN was about to experience their
Speaker 1: first layoffs and like god knows how many years it
Speaker 1: might have been their first layoffs ever and downside and
Speaker 1: you're not you guys know what this feels like. When
Speaker 1: your salaries put out there, people have a lot to
Speaker 1: say about what it is. And they were laying off people.
Speaker 1: People knew what our salary was, and suddenly it became
Speaker 1: Michael Jamal, why you're playing these two clowns and laying
Speaker 1: off all these people like at ESPN, and not to mention,
Speaker 1: there was this bubbling narrative that ESPN was too political
Speaker 1: and too liberal, which frankly didn't start until more black
Speaker 1: people start getting shows and more women and they started
Speaker 1: to becoming the face of the network. Then that ship
Speaker 1: started and so we became the post of children for
Speaker 1: everything that was going wrong at the network. And this
Speaker 1: is in our first couple of months. If you go
Speaker 1: back and look at some of the ship that was
Speaker 1: written about us, I mean, not only was some of
Speaker 1: it racist, but it was just like we were just
Speaker 1: caught up in this this narrative of bad headlines that
Speaker 1: we just could not get from a bunder, so all
Speaker 1: this is happening, and then, of course, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of the big explosion is when the Trump stuff happened.
Speaker 1: And even though I eventually left Sports Center, I didn't
Speaker 1: leave Sports Center because of Donald Trump. I left Sports
Speaker 1: Center because I wasn't happy. And that happened before uh
Speaker 1: that situation ever even materialized. M mmmmmm. The intro workings
Speaker 1: I think. I mean I explained to people like, you know,
Speaker 1: you look at ESPN, how you kind of look at Nike,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like they're they're a set brand,
Speaker 1: you know, so what happens in there sometimes good, sometimes bad,
Speaker 1: sometimes political, sometimes bullshit, sometimes raised. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: it's just a constant cycle of whatever is going to
Speaker 1: happen almost the next man of kind of mentality, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So it may not always be
Speaker 1: you know, Carrie, she she and now she's leaving, Like
Speaker 1: why would she leave ESPN? You know, to to to
Speaker 1: better herself, to spread her wings, to kind of really
Speaker 1: fully be her and be unfiltered because people don't realize
Speaker 1: how to the book you have to be at ESPN. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, well it's a it's a massive platform and
Speaker 1: they have their hands and a lot of different stuff.
Speaker 1: And it's no question, you know, from a media standpoint,
Speaker 1: it's the biggest brand in sports, and it's, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the biggest brands period. The Nike comparison is
Speaker 1: very appropriate. But even within that, there's a lot of limitations.
Speaker 1: And you know, Carrie, I think she just kind of
Speaker 1: reached her ceiling um and it's a ceiling that, you know,
Speaker 1: frankly wasn't once she created, and she knew that, and
Speaker 1: there's so much more she's capable of and can do.
Speaker 1: And so it was time ago. And for a lot
Speaker 1: of people, it's a destination job, but everybody's not destined
Speaker 1: to be their long term and I certainly fit that
Speaker 1: category because when it was time for me to leave,
Speaker 1: I felt like it was I had done everything there.
Speaker 1: I've been there twelve years and he's the best job
Speaker 1: I've ever had, the longest job I've ever had. The
Speaker 1: journalists I was the day I came to campus in
Speaker 1: November in two thousand and six is not the journalists
Speaker 1: I left, as in a good way, I grew more versatile,
Speaker 1: all those things happened, but there was only so much
Speaker 1: I could do there, and I wanted to be able
Speaker 1: to create another spaces um. Esp is a very possessive company.
Speaker 1: They're not gonna let you sit here, house here and
Speaker 1: do a bunch of work for everybody else. And certainly
Speaker 1: given that the network was cracking down about anchors and
Speaker 1: people in the commentary having commentary outside of sports, touch
Speaker 1: on that, I mean, that's because that's the sports and
Speaker 1: or is the platform. And then when you start talking
Speaker 1: about stuff other than sports that's still relevant to a
Speaker 1: lot of us. The fact that you're a black woman
Speaker 1: talking about it, yeah, well it was. It was crazy
Speaker 1: because we got accused of doing that a lot on
Speaker 1: sports and and we never did. I mean, we only
Speaker 1: talked about it when it made sense with the intersection
Speaker 1: of sports, new developments on Colin Kaepernick, um, you know,
Speaker 1: league business like things that kind of made sense because
Speaker 1: they were in the headlines, right. Uh. The interesting thing
Speaker 1: is we were way more if you want to stay
Speaker 1: crossing the line with that when we were on His
Speaker 1: and Hers. But it was received differently because I think
Speaker 1: the audience is different. The six o'clock audience for sports
Speaker 1: and sports and an audiences period are trained to see highlights,
Speaker 1: they trained to watch Okay, this is the news of
Speaker 1: the day, and that's what I want to hear about.
Speaker 1: But His and Hers was a commentary show where we
Speaker 1: talked about whatever. I mean, we we had like a
Speaker 1: ten minute conversation on the air about Philando can Steel
Speaker 1: when that happened, Um, Trayvon Martin, I mean we we
Speaker 1: talked about all these issues because rightly, yeah, real ship
Speaker 1: and athletes were talking about them too. They didn't like
Speaker 1: they Yeah, I mean a lot of I know it
Speaker 1: made a lot of networks probably uncomfortable. But when you
Speaker 1: have Lebron James and the Miami Heat wearing hoodies because
Speaker 1: they are so affected by this what happened to Traymon Martin.
Speaker 1: The fact that you know, you guys have kids, and
Speaker 1: you're well off, and you know you live in good neighborhoods.
Speaker 1: And if you're a child is walking down the street
Speaker 1: and they don't know that's Matt Barnes, this child, well
Speaker 1: that's your child. It might be some ship if the
Speaker 1: police roll up, or if a neighbor sees them in
Speaker 1: that neighborhood. So all the guys could relate to what
Speaker 1: happened and just growing up, We've seen those cases a
Speaker 1: thousand times, right so we thought it was pertinent to
Speaker 1: talk about. But there was this bubbling sentiment. Um. Some
Speaker 1: of it came from fans, some of it came from
Speaker 1: inside the building, is that they didn't want those messy
Speaker 1: intersections to be discussed. Now. For me, I'm all about
Speaker 1: the messy intersections, right, And so I didn't ESPN is
Speaker 1: gonna be who they are and I needed to be
Speaker 1: who I am. And so I felt like I was
Speaker 1: missing out on a lot of conversations because of that.
Speaker 1: Um that there were certain things I can't talk about
Speaker 1: with the honesty, the brutal honesty in which they needed
Speaker 1: to be discussed. I don't want to compromise ship right,
Speaker 1: nothing at all now. And you know, keeping it all
Speaker 1: away real. When you have enough money, you can do that,
Speaker 1: you can make that decision. And so um. When I
Speaker 1: left in in September of eighteen, I went to The
Speaker 1: Atlantic with a very purposeful mindset. Is that they are
Speaker 1: a political magazine. They loved my writing and they wanted
Speaker 1: somebody who wanted to cover the mess of sports, and
Speaker 1: that's what I wanted to write about. And esp is
Speaker 1: in a different position. I mean, they're in partnership with
Speaker 1: a lot of the leagues that they covered, and so
Speaker 1: you know, it's certain things that they're not gonna be
Speaker 1: able to say. I mean that nobody from the corner
Speaker 1: office ever came down to me and said, hey, you
Speaker 1: can't say this about the NFL, this about the NBA.
Speaker 1: But as a as the old adage goes, was understood,
Speaker 1: need not be said. And so um with that business relationship,
Speaker 1: you just with certain subjects you kind of have to
Speaker 1: walk a fine life. I don't have to worry about
Speaker 1: only to cut you off. But one thing about Spen,
Speaker 1: what I've learned, like if they pick and choose or
Speaker 1: what they wanted, what bullshit they want to deal with?
Speaker 1: Perfect perfect example with me. I used to post a
Speaker 1: lot of ship on my social media that I that
Speaker 1: I heard that higher rubs didn't like. But as soon
Speaker 1: as I get into an argument with with Wiggins and
Speaker 1: his family and it's beneficial for the station, they take
Speaker 1: it off my feet and throw it all over all
Speaker 1: the shows. So I didn't like that ship. You know
Speaker 1: what it's like, you don't support the ship that you
Speaker 1: want to support. You know what I'm saying, support me
Speaker 1: full time. And that's one thing I didn't like about
Speaker 1: everything wasn't genuine there. Yeah, it is. It's definitely some
Speaker 1: of the criticism you might receive internally and some of
Speaker 1: the things that may happen, it's arbitrary. It's on a
Speaker 1: case by case basis. Um, as you said, when some
Speaker 1: things are beneficial to the network's fine. When they're not,
Speaker 1: it is what it is. I mean, I couldn't help
Speaker 1: but notice um during the National Championship game between you know,
Speaker 1: L s U and M and uh clips I've just
Speaker 1: liked on their name, they of course showed the president
Speaker 1: right and some commentary there or whatever, and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're having to stick in the sports, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: you're not saying that. And I get it. It It like
Speaker 1: a president goes to a game. It's it's a it's
Speaker 1: a thing. But I was thinking to myself, I wonder
Speaker 1: if KLi Kaepernick were in the building Washington game where
Speaker 1: they have ever shown a camera shot of Collie Kaepernick,
Speaker 1: probably not, probably not arobably, they wouldn't. They probably wouldn't
Speaker 1: have done that. I wouldn't want to be in that stadium. So,
Speaker 1: and the thing is, if you're gonna address and talk
Speaker 1: about Colin Kaepernick, you have to talk about why he's kneeling,
Speaker 1: what is he protesting? And when you start getting into
Speaker 1: those issues, people start sweating, People get real uncomfortable. And
Speaker 1: even with some of the things that Donald Trump said
Speaker 1: about NFL players and and right, I mean, you gotta
Speaker 1: you have to go there. And I think under the
Speaker 1: political climate in this country, it just put ESPN in
Speaker 1: a very tough position, and it's been some awkwardness. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's been some positives and some fails on
Speaker 1: their parts. So I just be real curious to see
Speaker 1: how they adjust if there is a new president or fromnmore,
Speaker 1: how they have to kind of double down on what
Speaker 1: they've been doing with being very hotness and restrictive about
Speaker 1: their personalities, talking about politics and even in some instances
Speaker 1: when sports and politics mix, allowing them to stay in
Speaker 1: certain gray areas so as not to offend. And you
Speaker 1: know this, you can't have no kind of real conversation
Speaker 1: if you worry about who's gonna be offended. Cannot Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was himself and ship though, because I know a
Speaker 1: lot of times my homeboys be on the run and
Speaker 1: they is having birthday parties, they don't go because they
Speaker 1: don't want the fans to catch them at their kids party.
Speaker 1: All this ship you got going on, You want to
Speaker 1: show up to the National Championship game. Put the whole
Speaker 1: arena in danger knowing these people after you, bro, that's
Speaker 1: some selfish ass ship. The thing is, that's selfish and
Speaker 1: that he came to the arena and showing people that
Speaker 1: you that's some selfish ship. He did the prim walk
Speaker 1: across the field, that's selfish ship. That's some selfish ship.
Speaker 1: Then as soon as he lined up with his girl,
Speaker 1: she broke her hand. That's selfish, you know, after you bro,
Speaker 1: and you want to come to the game, come on,
Speaker 1: don't do that. But that's some selfish ship. And everybody
Speaker 1: sucked up. That's some selfish ship. You know how to
Speaker 1: go on the hood. You want to run your kid
Speaker 1: got a party, don't show up to the party. You
Speaker 1: don't want the faster run up in the party and
Speaker 1: sunk up the whole party. You know he did that
Speaker 1: because where he was, being in a more friendly environment,
Speaker 1: being in Louisiana, being amongst those fans. The church put
Speaker 1: my hand right about it. At home. A while back,
Speaker 1: we had Stephen A. Smith on the show, and then
Speaker 1: we had aired some highlights of the interview on our
Speaker 1: social media post and you commented, uh and kind of
Speaker 1: went back and forth with him for a minute. Tell
Speaker 1: me what that was about and you guys relationship. So, um,
Speaker 1: steven A, somebody give a lot of credit to on
Speaker 1: a lot of fronts. I think it's fair to say
Speaker 1: he's the face of ESPN, and um, you know, you
Speaker 1: think about somebody like say Stewart Scott or or even
Speaker 1: other icons that have become that. To have a you know,
Speaker 1: a black man that is the face of this network
Speaker 1: is a huge accomplishment. And if it's true that he's
Speaker 1: the highest paid ESM and personality ever, equally big you
Speaker 1: know accomplishment for him, especially considering at one time he
Speaker 1: was kind of on the outside, you know, with the networks.
Speaker 1: So for him to have gone from that to this
Speaker 1: is pretty special and spectacular. And when he had his
Speaker 1: own show, quite frankly, stephen A was very purposeful and
Speaker 1: putting black journalists on the show. Yeah, he he. He
Speaker 1: gave a lot of us a platform, uh to talk
Speaker 1: about our perspective, our opinions and just get experienced doing television.
Speaker 1: And I was one of the people that regularly appeared
Speaker 1: on quite frankly, but so I'm always grateful for him
Speaker 1: for giving me that opportunity and for what he's meant
Speaker 1: in this business in terms of, you know, black journalism.
Speaker 1: So as they say, reasonable minds can differ. And I've
Speaker 1: heard some of the things that he said about Colin Kaepernick.
Speaker 1: I've been asked about it a lot. I've generally resisted,
Speaker 1: UM commenting on it. I don't really like to comment
Speaker 1: on other people's opinions for the most part, especially people
Speaker 1: I used to work with. It could get awkward and
Speaker 1: somebody might take it personally and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: And yet, nevertheless, my ass did not follow my own advice.
Speaker 1: And I when I saw what he said the clip
Speaker 1: that you showed on your show, UM, I was surprised
Speaker 1: on a lot of levels because Steven they may not
Speaker 1: still consider himself a journalist, as I get it because
Speaker 1: when I did TV, outn't either because I'm like, look,
Speaker 1: I'm not going in the locker rooms anymore. I'm not
Speaker 1: necessarily interviewing people outside of them being on my show.
Speaker 1: I am not I become friends with some athletes, like
Speaker 1: I'm not in that traditional role that I used to
Speaker 1: be in when I was a newspaper reporter, and so
Speaker 1: me and me and Mike USA always joked that we
Speaker 1: were former journalists, right even though that's how people size,
Speaker 1: because we realized we were entertainers because we were on
Speaker 1: TV every day. And so maybe he sees himself in
Speaker 1: more of a hybrid role, but it just seemed like
Speaker 1: a line was somewhere a cross by him admitting that
Speaker 1: he had spoken to or through back channels, got Conline
Speaker 1: Kaepernick a workout or helped in that calls him and
Speaker 1: jay Z and I just thought that was that was
Speaker 1: really interesting because on one end, the network you represent
Speaker 1: it is talking about how they want to stay out
Speaker 1: of politics, and then on the other end, you're doing this,
Speaker 1: so you're sort of like inserting yourself and creating the news.
Speaker 1: You know. It's just that's not typically the role that
Speaker 1: we play. And I'm not here to play Stephen's journalism professor.
Speaker 1: But I was always under the impression that was somewhat
Speaker 1: of a no no to do um. So there was
Speaker 1: that part of it. And then considering what he has
Speaker 1: said about Kylie Kaepernick, then I have to wonder how
Speaker 1: personal this is to you, because if you felt like
Speaker 1: it's kind of like, uh, if you you know, to say,
Speaker 1: in a in a in a dating situation, if you
Speaker 1: hook one of your homeboys up with your home girl,
Speaker 1: well you're just like and you vouch for him where her?
Speaker 1: You like, not he a good dude? I know what
Speaker 1: you heard blah blah blah blah blah. And then he
Speaker 1: show up and he acted fool. You're like, damn dog,
Speaker 1: like you're gonna be mad. And that's not to say
Speaker 1: that Karlie Kaepernick did anything wrong, but he kind of
Speaker 1: sounded that that like, oh, I went through these back channels,
Speaker 1: hooked you up with this job, and then you show
Speaker 1: up in the couture get a shirt, embarrassing me in
Speaker 1: front of my favor So it's just sort of like,
Speaker 1: you know, I just thought that that contaminated his opinion personally,
Speaker 1: and it um you know, I I generally kind of
Speaker 1: disagree with his perspective about Colin not wanting to play
Speaker 1: and even the whole thing with the shirt and and
Speaker 1: really that trial was nothing but a set up. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was nothing but a set up. You know. It's
Speaker 1: like the the NFL was just looking for a way
Speaker 1: and excuse to point to something that they can say no,
Speaker 1: he doesn't really want it. And I can tell you
Speaker 1: this as a forty Nighties fan. I watched all the
Speaker 1: college Kaepernick's professional games, all of them. He looks in
Speaker 1: better shape now that he did when he was playing.
Speaker 1: And he's done. Uh, I mean, he was never out
Speaker 1: of shape, but I can see the body transformation that
Speaker 1: he does. He's done. Why was somebody who has not
Speaker 1: played in a few years keep themselves in that tip
Speaker 1: top of a shape if they were not intent on
Speaker 1: play the game? He really does and people have to
Speaker 1: understand something was taken from him. He didn't get hurt
Speaker 1: for no reason. He didn't get hurt, he didn't get cut.
Speaker 1: He didn't you know. I mean he eventually got cut,
Speaker 1: but you know why he got cut. But like he
Speaker 1: was not the one who uh engineered his own demise.
Speaker 1: He got essentially his career taken from him because NFL
Speaker 1: owners are cowards, and it's just that some reasons they're
Speaker 1: cowards and Donald Trump those are the reasons. And so
Speaker 1: when I saw you know him sort of um, you know,
Speaker 1: going off about him not wanting it and the Konta
Speaker 1: Kitty shirt, like he could have showed up and what
Speaker 1: you got old they weren't letting him back in the league.
Speaker 1: These people have had his number for three years, they
Speaker 1: have not called, they have not brought him in. If
Speaker 1: they were serious, they would have brought him to the
Speaker 1: team facility to work out. And then that's how it's
Speaker 1: normally done. The NFL doesn't set up to try out
Speaker 1: outside of like the combine, but they don't do that.
Speaker 1: And so it was just a farce from the beginning.
Speaker 1: And so this idea that Colin Kaepernick should have, you know,
Speaker 1: kissed the NFL's asked more to get back in. It
Speaker 1: was like, so you're asking somebody who decided to take
Speaker 1: a knee to protest racial and social injustice to suddenly
Speaker 1: kiss the ass of the same people who just took
Speaker 1: his career away. It wasn't. It doesn't work that way, right, So, um,
Speaker 1: we disagree. But I'm of the opinion I saw this
Speaker 1: a lot of this on social media, people calling Stephen
Speaker 1: a sellouts and all that kind of stuff. That was
Speaker 1: to me over the line. I know what Stephen has
Speaker 1: been able to do for other black journalists, and I
Speaker 1: was not in any way insinuating he was that. I
Speaker 1: just disagree with what he said. Now I didn't want
Speaker 1: it to become some big social media thing, despite the
Speaker 1: fact that's where I originally commented, And so when he
Speaker 1: commented back, I made sure to say, hey, bro, I'm
Speaker 1: taking this off Twitter. I'll call you that way we
Speaker 1: can have a conversation and not have some you know,
Speaker 1: full fight in open view, because there's nothing social media
Speaker 1: loves more than to not just see two you know,
Speaker 1: personalities go back and forth, but two black people fight,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't about to do that, even though I
Speaker 1: disagree with his position. So you know, I call I
Speaker 1: did call him. I left a message I love him,
Speaker 1: a text I have yet to hear back when when
Speaker 1: when he said that. Honestly, in my mind, I'm thinking like, Okay,
Speaker 1: as much as you're killing him, you're trying to help
Speaker 1: him get a job. Like when he said it, I'm
Speaker 1: thinking like that don't even sound right. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying that I was waiting because we wanted him
Speaker 1: on the show too, to get to know him better
Speaker 1: and and and for people to understand him, like we
Speaker 1: understand what he did for for us and to be here,
Speaker 1: to be in this game. You know, he's had a
Speaker 1: lot to do with it. But At the same time,
Speaker 1: that statement threw me off too because I've seen all
Speaker 1: the stuff you said about Kaepernick, now you're trying to
Speaker 1: help him, Like it sucked me up too, So I
Speaker 1: was just a little confused that at the role. But um,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean again, I think that the one
Speaker 1: thing that I wish our conversations, uh could really take
Speaker 1: a step forward. I mean conversations that are in our
Speaker 1: community that get outside the community. And you know, I
Speaker 1: know black people are always a lot of times aware
Speaker 1: of this opinion, Like you know, we can't discuss this
Speaker 1: in open view to people don't see it's like the
Speaker 1: white people don't care about a lot of them don't
Speaker 1: care about us anyway, so it doesn't really matter. And
Speaker 1: it's not like we can meet once a month and like, hey,
Speaker 1: black people, let's all come together discuss our internal community issues.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's spills, it spills out, but I think it's
Speaker 1: really constructive. It's really not constructive. Rather, when we start
Speaker 1: to have this litmus test for blackness based off disagree
Speaker 1: with people's opinions, right, I mean there there, look, I
Speaker 1: gonna act like it's not some people out there that
Speaker 1: are operatives in our community. There are. We know who
Speaker 1: they are a lot of the time, a lot of them,
Speaker 1: you know, and so I understand that that really does exist,
Speaker 1: But I personally am not comfortable, you know, calling black
Speaker 1: people those names and public cools and Uncle Ton's and
Speaker 1: all that. I'm like, I'm not even going there with somebody.
Speaker 1: And that's why he was comfortable coming on our show,
Speaker 1: because we always have respect for each other, and we
Speaker 1: as men should be able to and even as a
Speaker 1: black race. We talked about this all the time. She
Speaker 1: should be able to disagree without disrespecting each other. And
Speaker 1: we have a proud with that. We have a big
Speaker 1: problem with that. Yeah, and it's all or nothing, Like
Speaker 1: I don't I don't sunk with him at all now,
Speaker 1: Like he just didn't say something that aligned with It's okay,
Speaker 1: It's okay, Yeah, No, it's all I mean. And it
Speaker 1: doesn't have to you don't have to um indict somebody's
Speaker 1: whole record based off of it. I mean, I called
Speaker 1: a lot of flat because you know, I wrote that
Speaker 1: I didn't agree with jay Z partner with the NFL
Speaker 1: um mostly because I felt like the NFL and this
Speaker 1: is not too demean or belittle jay Z's obviously a
Speaker 1: various stupid business knowledge or that he doesn't know what
Speaker 1: he's doing. But the NFL is a different entity, and
Speaker 1: I just felt like they were using him, are using
Speaker 1: him to regain some credibility with the black community that
Speaker 1: that they had lost because of how they treated Colin Kaepernick.
Speaker 1: They want their Super Bowl show. They don't want there
Speaker 1: to be shame associated with the halftime show anymore because
Speaker 1: the last couple of years, Holli Kaepernick, what happened to him,
Speaker 1: has been hanging over the Super Bowl, their biggest of it,
Speaker 1: and they wanted to eliminate that. And they even you know,
Speaker 1: have the owners have talked about it um privately, which
Speaker 1: became public, you know, based off a New York Times
Speaker 1: report about how they felt like they needed a liaison
Speaker 1: to talk to us and help bridge that gap that
Speaker 1: was widened by Colin Kaepernick and hello jay Z. So
Speaker 1: I just felt like there was the NFL was playing
Speaker 1: a game where they could shift the focus off what
Speaker 1: they did and shifted on whatever, you know, darts. Jay
Speaker 1: Z took a ball right, and suddenly it's like they
Speaker 1: care about social justice issues, which they didn't before Colin
Speaker 1: Kaepernick anyway, So It's just they're just playing this magnificencent
Speaker 1: game of chess. And I just felt like he got
Speaker 1: caught up in that and he rapped about it. He
Speaker 1: said he didn't need them right as he said, they're
Speaker 1: gonna need him, and they did. And I didn't think
Speaker 1: he should have gave them the leverage. And how can
Speaker 1: you how can you take the next step with us?
Speaker 1: All the videos kept saying with j Z saying, well,
Speaker 1: what's the next step. Let's not talk about Niel and
Speaker 1: what's the next step? Well, how are you gonna get
Speaker 1: to the next step without Kaepernick? Well, the next step
Speaker 1: he should be involved, Kapinnick should be involved. Oh, he
Speaker 1: should definitely be in Nold. But the next step. And
Speaker 1: this has always been I think the difficult part of
Speaker 1: of seeing this movement that was created around Colin Kaepernick.
Speaker 1: It was an individual decision that became a movement. It
Speaker 1: was always meant to be an individual decision, you know,
Speaker 1: and it became a movement. Other people got inspired. That's fine,
Speaker 1: And I understand that even with the players coalition UH
Speaker 1: that received the money from the NFL for various social
Speaker 1: justice causes they're looking for. In this sight, I do
Speaker 1: understand that and get that that there has to be
Speaker 1: an endpoint to this. But the next steps had kind
Speaker 1: of already been in place. Jay Z has done a
Speaker 1: lot of magnificent social justice work, the Traylon Martin documentary,
Speaker 1: the Khalib Browder documentary, all he's done in the community.
Speaker 1: His record is unquestioned in that area, So that had
Speaker 1: already taken place. Colin Kaepernick had been taking next steps.
Speaker 1: What he's doing to get felons re entered into society,
Speaker 1: giving them close to Interview UH and to Know Your
Speaker 1: Rights Camp, teaching young people about their rights when it
Speaker 1: comes to the legal system and UH and the police
Speaker 1: already in motion. You don't need the NFL for any
Speaker 1: of that. The next steps of the NFL has to address.
Speaker 1: It's been a hot button issue in the off season.
Speaker 1: Why don't you have more black coaches, Why don't you
Speaker 1: have more black gms. Those are things the NFL directly
Speaker 1: has control over. They can't do it about police brutality,
Speaker 1: that's not really their role. But they can't do something
Speaker 1: about what their league looks like and why they've never
Speaker 1: had a black owner. That's on them. And if he
Speaker 1: was gonna apply any pressure to them. It should have
Speaker 1: been about those things and not about the social justice stuff,
Speaker 1: which essentially to me, where was efforts that he didn't
Speaker 1: need their help on necessarily. I mean, it's good to
Speaker 1: have it, yes, but he didn't need them. They needed
Speaker 1: his credibility, not the other way around. Right. How do
Speaker 1: social media affected journalism? Oh? Man? Um, know where do
Speaker 1: I start? I mean, I try not to be so
Speaker 1: pestive mystic about it, but it's drastically changed our profession. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, there used to be and the media was
Speaker 1: never perfect. But I came up as a journalist when
Speaker 1: there wasn't social media, and there was a shame that
Speaker 1: went along with getting something wrong about somebody you were
Speaker 1: writing about, whether it be their name, a fact, like
Speaker 1: you were embarrassed when that happened because you couldn't just
Speaker 1: go online and corrected. The paper had to run a
Speaker 1: full scale correction the next day, so you had to
Speaker 1: live with that mistake being there and that that edition's paper. Um.
Speaker 1: And so now there's not a lot of accountability where
Speaker 1: in the age of corporate media, the size of the
Speaker 1: media is shrinking in its own by fewer people, and
Speaker 1: as a result, they are trying to turn media and
Speaker 1: journalism into a for profit business, and much like any
Speaker 1: other businesses, they're trying to make as much money as possible,
Speaker 1: as cheaply as possible, and it's effect that the product.
Speaker 1: It's not a lot of mainstream media outlets that can
Speaker 1: be committed from a financial standpoint to really doing good journalism.
Speaker 1: And that's why you see some of the mistakes. You
Speaker 1: see some of the stories that get written that are
Speaker 1: a little more delicious. Um, there are things now that
Speaker 1: are able to be printed and tweeted and all that
Speaker 1: kind of thing that would never have stood twenty years ago. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a rush to be first and not right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they are good with being first and wrong and because
Speaker 1: there's really no repercussions for it, right, And so that
Speaker 1: part greatly concerns me. The misinformation concerns me. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: not to go all conspiracy theory on everybody, but people
Speaker 1: have to understand with everything we saw in the last
Speaker 1: election with Facebook's rolling, this, social media's rolling, this is
Speaker 1: that most people these days, unlike kind of I think
Speaker 1: probably from the age we were are from, they are
Speaker 1: looking to reaffirm their beliefs through media as opposed to
Speaker 1: neutrally being told the information and then coming to a conclusion.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a reason why certain networks, you know,
Speaker 1: what their political slant is, and that's why they watch it,
Speaker 1: because they want somebody else to just reinforce what they
Speaker 1: already think. If that's you said it, So if they
Speaker 1: already think that way, it's like then they're happy to
Speaker 1: traffic and misinformation. And so I worry about, you know,
Speaker 1: people's ability to decipher what is fake and what is true.
Speaker 1: A Facebook meme will go around and people will take
Speaker 1: that as the truth in the media. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I remember during the Kaepernick stuff and that meme got
Speaker 1: around about Tim Tebow. Tim Tikootle took a knee and
Speaker 1: nobody did anything and that totally wasn't what he was doing.
Speaker 1: He was praying in the end zone, and somebody took
Speaker 1: the image and said that he was taking a knee
Speaker 1: for pro life rights. And it's but that people thought
Speaker 1: that was true. And I saw that hundreds of times.
Speaker 1: And that's what happens nowadays. One bit of information gets
Speaker 1: out about you, and if it circulates enough, nobody sticks
Speaker 1: around to see if it's correct or note, how does
Speaker 1: like I know I preach it to the choir over
Speaker 1: being a leader in the industry. What kind of challenges
Speaker 1: have come with that, being a black female in the
Speaker 1: space of it, but also being a leader. Um well,
Speaker 1: I think, um, you know, kind of one of the challenges.
Speaker 1: One thing, they know you ain't taking those ships. They
Speaker 1: know that you better come correct it, don't come at all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I am start to get in that reputation.
Speaker 1: But that's welcome, welcome to the club. Um No, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of the things I've gone through
Speaker 1: are just relatable to like black people everywhere being hailed
Speaker 1: sometimes to a different standard, um, being scrutinized differently. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, certainly when you're a woman in sports, a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of people think that you're there, um,
Speaker 1: you know, just to get a husband or you know,
Speaker 1: to date somebody. And uh, that's why I hated movies
Speaker 1: when they always have that story A lot of the
Speaker 1: reporter hooking up with the athlete is so annoying. But
Speaker 1: like that's what we all are in there for. So
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that has never happened. When I am
Speaker 1: saying it's like that's really not the mission. So um,
Speaker 1: you know, you just have to live with the fact
Speaker 1: that you'll be doubted, that they're gonna come at you
Speaker 1: a different way than they would a man. And people
Speaker 1: seem to think that sports and a knowledge is directly
Speaker 1: related to genitalia, and it doesn't work that way. So
Speaker 1: those are you know, dealing with those doubts are something,
Speaker 1: uh that I feel like most black people experience, regardless
Speaker 1: of what you're you know, profession is, but it can
Speaker 1: be doubly worse when you're a black woman because you
Speaker 1: didn't have to deal with the narrative that we're angry, combative,
Speaker 1: you know, if we assert ourselves as if you totally
Speaker 1: different than if a white dude does it. It's just
Speaker 1: totally did. It's like, Okay, she stood up for something
Speaker 1: that frankly anybody should have stood up for. But now
Speaker 1: she's a troublemaker. Now she's difficult, and so you know,
Speaker 1: we have to deal with or I've certainly had to
Speaker 1: deal with some of that, you know as well, and um,
Speaker 1: let's get taxing. It is some days, you know, you
Speaker 1: you wonder how much fight you have left in you.
Speaker 1: But for me, what always keeps me going, and this
Speaker 1: is that leadership part that comes with it. This isn't
Speaker 1: about me anymore. It has ceased to be about me
Speaker 1: for a long time. This is about the younger journalists
Speaker 1: of color who are looking at me, and yeah, it's
Speaker 1: about who's next. And it's not just about me getting
Speaker 1: them through the door. I have to make through. When
Speaker 1: they get through the door, it's a safe place for them.
Speaker 1: And so I can't be at work anymore in working
Speaker 1: environments where I can't not just speak my mind, but
Speaker 1: I can't get them to culture correct if there's a problem. Um. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's kind of all that I'm in it for.
Speaker 1: And because again the numbers look real, sad, and it's
Speaker 1: changing how the news and how we as a as
Speaker 1: a culture and community are perceived. When you have a
Speaker 1: number of journalists who do not look like you, covering
Speaker 1: people that they have really no connection or contact with
Speaker 1: or have never had any it greatly changes how they're perceived.
Speaker 1: And so you know, it's like just a small example.
Speaker 1: That's why in this opioid crisis, you're seeing all these
Speaker 1: sympathetic stories about treatment, not saying they shouldn't be there,
Speaker 1: but they should, and the covered crack epidemic that way
Speaker 1: it was law in order send you all to jail,
Speaker 1: you know, deal with it. Come raade this community, take
Speaker 1: away everything. You know. That's that's that was the picture
Speaker 1: of the coverage. People, right, bad people. They don't deserve
Speaker 1: your sympathy, you know. And it's a lot of times
Speaker 1: why the coverage of us is often not only it
Speaker 1: lacks sympathy and empathy and compassion, it lacks humanity, like
Speaker 1: covering us like we're not even human, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? And so, um, the only way that could
Speaker 1: change is that it has to be more of us,
Speaker 1: not only in the business, but more of us in
Speaker 1: decision making roles. You know, you've got to get out
Speaker 1: of here soon. Um. We just want to touch on
Speaker 1: a couple more things. What are your thoughts about female
Speaker 1: assistant coaches and that phen I'm growing in the NBA. Um.
Speaker 1: I think it's great. I mean obviously, and I think
Speaker 1: a lot of the teams see a lot of the benefit.
Speaker 1: But if I may pivot, I think the thing you
Speaker 1: have to that we have to be concerned about. Look
Speaker 1: at the w n b A and look at and
Speaker 1: even in women's college basketball, look at the lack of
Speaker 1: black female head coaches. That's a real problem out there.
Speaker 1: And give black male NFL NBA players w NBA jobs,
Speaker 1: but they won't give them NBA jobs. There you go,
Speaker 1: and that that's what I'm It's like, okay, and then
Speaker 1: and you know, before I mean, people are always questioned,
Speaker 1: is it a pipeline issue, like it's just not enough?
Speaker 1: Something like over eighty five percent of black female college
Speaker 1: basketball players get their degrees. It's an extraordinarily high number, right,
Speaker 1: So you can't say because it's not qualified they got
Speaker 1: that degrees because they used to use that to hold
Speaker 1: that against black men and college basketball and in other
Speaker 1: a space to saying, well, y'all don't get your degrees,
Speaker 1: that that's why you're not able to coach or able
Speaker 1: to get this athletic director position and all that. But
Speaker 1: I can't say that with them. And the numbers still
Speaker 1: look like what they what they look like. They go,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like they're giving white women, white men,
Speaker 1: black men jobs. Black women are not represented at the
Speaker 1: coaching position in the w NBA. So I think that
Speaker 1: needs to be addressed. Um, But I'm happy in general
Speaker 1: to see Sue Bird and Becky Hammond and and all
Speaker 1: those players be able to come and give their knowledge
Speaker 1: of the game. Um. And I think it shows why
Speaker 1: the NBA has always been a little bit more progressive
Speaker 1: basketball period, I think has lent itself to see more progressive. Um.
Speaker 1: You know kind of approach is happening because ball is
Speaker 1: just ball when it comes down to it. And right,
Speaker 1: I don't understand is how you gonna make a coach
Speaker 1: that the NBA players ben't like Derek Fishing and you're
Speaker 1: gonna make it force the girl to like like the
Speaker 1: guysn't even like Now you're gonna send over trying to
Speaker 1: coach them. I don't get it. And then second of all,
Speaker 1: sometime of the w n b A they're getting paid. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm happy to getting paid now. Like I said, I'd
Speaker 1: rather watch Ty Young played in Otto porter. So I'm glad.
Speaker 1: I'm glad they're getting their money. Now. What do you
Speaker 1: think about that? Well, Um, but I understand that it
Speaker 1: was never and that many of them that you talked
Speaker 1: to you you would tell you this. It was never about
Speaker 1: they're number one pick getting the same as Lebron James.
Speaker 1: It was never about that what they wanted was a
Speaker 1: big percent a bigger percentage of what they were bringing
Speaker 1: in and it's right, that's only right. And I think
Speaker 1: the m w b A had no choice because you
Speaker 1: can't have somebody like Brianna Streward going overseas and getting
Speaker 1: hurt and then missing the season. You're taking money out
Speaker 1: of your pocket. And they're going overseas because they needed
Speaker 1: something that they did. A lot of people to understand
Speaker 1: these women have to go playoff seas or get another
Speaker 1: job because what they're getting paid is not enough. So
Speaker 1: it's great that now every every woman in the league
Speaker 1: will make six figures. Maternally, these are basic things that
Speaker 1: they've earned the right to have and so UM, I
Speaker 1: think it's an amazing step for this league to take
Speaker 1: and they could be a real model. And what I've
Speaker 1: always appreciated is how NBA players support that their WNBA
Speaker 1: like it just generally love women's college basketball and women's
Speaker 1: basketball period, and I think that's just a dope relationship,
Speaker 1: you know, between um kind of the two sports. So
Speaker 1: like you know, when we're talking about the coaches that
Speaker 1: you know, ball is ball is like I think y'all,
Speaker 1: y'all recognize a real one when y'all see one, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter the gender. So I'm happy that
Speaker 1: they're at a point now where maybe you'll see fewer
Speaker 1: of them go overseas because they don't want to spend
Speaker 1: years in Russia like they rather play here in front
Speaker 1: of the fans. Shout Out was the first one to do.
Speaker 1: Y'all don't want to pay me, I'm gonna go back home,
Speaker 1: get a meal ticket, then come back and play. That's
Speaker 1: what she did, so shout out. Feel like we appreciate
Speaker 1: our off season so much like they don't get all.
Speaker 1: They go from this their short season to a long
Speaker 1: ass just mention this full time. Mom Come on, that's crazy.
Speaker 1: Last question U NBA Finals picks and who wins it? Well,
Speaker 1: I know, I know it's funny because it was. I
Speaker 1: went through a period of this season when I was like,
Speaker 1: oh man, this thing is really wide open. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh ship, no, it's not talking by the day, like
Speaker 1: all right, uh, it is pretty hard um to go
Speaker 1: against the Lakers, but the Clippers. I'm gonna beat that person.
Speaker 1: I was just about to say, I like the Clippers
Speaker 1: better than the Lakers, and I feel like their pieces
Speaker 1: really messed together. I think they have more depth. I
Speaker 1: think they have the kind of defensive attitude that they
Speaker 1: definitely lends itself to winning championships, winning playoff series. Um,
Speaker 1: it would be the fate of the apocalypse if the
Speaker 1: Clippers lose. If the Clippers beat the Lakers in the
Speaker 1: Western Finals, like here, I mean, we're in l A,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my god, I'm just worried about the
Speaker 1: clip because you've got their own players saying, man, we're
Speaker 1: not as good as we think. They've been losing some
Speaker 1: bullshit games. But you know it's early. It's the dog
Speaker 1: run right early. So that's what you can't count the
Speaker 1: time they beat the Lakers that we know as players.
Speaker 1: You know, you know as players, we know you know,
Speaker 1: it starts kind of after All Star break, so that's
Speaker 1: when you kind of really start looking in and kind
Speaker 1: of seeing what kind of team. But back to you, No,
Speaker 1: I got the Clippers in Milwaukee, and who wins? Um,
Speaker 1: are the Clippers getting their first one? I'm gonna say
Speaker 1: the Bucks because if you don't, Yeah, that's part of
Speaker 1: what maybe I'm I'm kind of rude for this to happen.
Speaker 1: I mean, he may win when and still be out right,
Speaker 1: but I mean, look, I realized that you know, at
Speaker 1: this point you kind of have like three or four
Speaker 1: teams that have emerged. I don't think Houston's gonna make it,
Speaker 1: you know, um, I know it is. It is kind
Speaker 1: of tough, especially with everything that they that they've gone through.
Speaker 1: But um, you know, right now, whenever I watched man,
Speaker 1: it's like the Clippers, the Lakers, Milwaukee, they passed that
Speaker 1: odd test you know to me, so I know it
Speaker 1: would be a cool story. You know, you have Toronto
Speaker 1: Winny last year. I mean that would be pretty special.
Speaker 1: I think. So. Well, that's a wrap. We want to
Speaker 1: thank our guests. Yeah, yeah, you know, I love you guys.
Speaker 1: I love that you're the fact that you're doing this
Speaker 1: and I couldn't think of two people who were more
Speaker 1: suited to do something like this, sit down and have
Speaker 1: honest conversations and to talk ship with people. This means
Speaker 1: a lot coming from you. There's a lot coming from you.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much everything you've done and stand for,
Speaker 1: so thank you, and we got it back. So when
Speaker 1: the ship started, just no, we're coming. All the motherfucker's smokes,
Speaker 1: all of it. That's a wrap. Catch us Showtime Basketball, YouTube,
Speaker 1: all the smoke and on all platforms, streaming, podcast, all
Speaker 1: of them. We're hearing that some of the Warriors may
Speaker 1: have already made a decision not to attend a potential
Speaker 1: White House visit. Why have you decided that this is
Speaker 1: something you really want to make a big statement about. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't want to go. That's really in your life,
Speaker 1: Your friend, you must have they didn't termination. If you're
Speaker 1: in a racist society and you're being discriminated against, it's
Speaker 1: up to you to do something for yourself. I don't
Speaker 1: allow any party to make you feel you know, is
Speaker 1: there any regret that you got to do a name
Speaker 1: calling situation with the president? No? Always feel and how
Speaker 1: always feel Black athletes who are supposed to be the workers,
Speaker 1: not the owners. They were supposed to be the talent,
Speaker 1: and never the power programs always feel that you were where.
Speaker 1: It's so much more than a game. It's a vehicle
Speaker 1: to push positive social change. At some point you have
Speaker 1: to look in the mirror and say that my part
Speaker 1: of the problem, I part of the solution. Significant signific
Speaker 1: to each of you, Each of you, All these guys
Speaker 1: who stood up every step along the way, they're the
Speaker 1: ones who are the true heroes in our world. At
Speaker 1: that time, it was never acceptable that a black player
Speaker 1: was the best. When you just what you're going to
Speaker 1: be in life as this particular history. If you recognize
Speaker 1: you where you come from, in your background and what
Speaker 1: people have done for you to get there, you're gonna
Speaker 1: get inspired body, and you're gonna do right period living.
Speaker 1: M hm m hm