First Take's Stephen A. Smith on Fame, Kyrie, Iverson, Dating & Being #1 on Sports TV | The Pivot

what up man come on man here you go man i have a um a delivery for one mr a smith is that what they call you could you just give me come on what's up [Laughter] show you how i'm serious about my health let me show you this i got that covered joint all right i'm like this ain't happening i ain't going down you know i was spooked i can't hear them good that's what i'm saying so who told you what stuff to buy i just got i just got uh you know see i really see i really know [Laughter] [Music] watch the games [Applause] so on a sunday it's six different teams i got this and that so i got seven different tvs on at the same time to watch all the games right and if it really like when it gets especially when the cowboy's losing i go this ride with mtv cribs right now [Applause] or we could do it in here and that way you text her and say hey look hey look just look the door open i'm done just come to the basement i'm downstairs i have no comments yeah all right [Music] [Music] i can [Music] well fellas man you know me i got to bring my two worlds together today we got the pivot boys oh channing freddie t i mean we got stephen a smith oh i mean talk about the face of sports television yes sir man got 16 shows bro you got steven a's world steven a universe first take of stephen a you know what i'm saying but he just done a lot man appreciate you letting us into your pad too thank you for letting me wear my shoes yeah you know that's some rc status right there i appreciate it with somebody else you know i mean you know uh you're gonna hear about it from me you're gonna hear about it from me but it's all right man like me and fred you you had us take ours off it's okay you don't know i i love it man i love it i don't want to mess up but even just a few conversations that we were having before we sat down and everything that you do as rc mentioned this guy does so much you know he's pretty much been a sponge when he's been around you man i always tell people he's amazing and he doesn't like when i do this he is i always give everybody her flowers on the show he's just such a sweetheart but it's the truth no it's easy winners he's good people man i mean when we first met we actually butted heads that's how we first met how many times the show started like that that's right that's right we we we butted heads when we first met him then i went on the air and let him know who i was and then all of a sudden he had to come back and let me know who he was and stuff like that and the minute we met face to face man we've been brothers ever since man he's good people and um i think he's one of the best nfl analyst in america right so i'm honored to have him as a colleague and i'm honored to call him a friend let's not brush past that one of y'all too i need to know this i need to know that i need to know that first interaction what happened well he went on the air was talking about my hairline that's what was happening i mean i mean i'm sitting there like i'm home minding my business you know i mean i'm off i'm on vacation and and some brother come to fill in and he started talking smack about how you know about my hairline and you know how you know please i'm sitting in this chair now like he must have forgot who the hell i am this brother this is a rookie a novice he's just getting into this business so i went on the air the next day and checked him and i heard he had an attitude and one of our good friends galen gordon who's now a senior vp at uh abc he was overseeing first take at the time and he brought us together and i was like yo bro i just came back at you because you came at me i got nothing but respect for you and he called me up and said the same thing actually it was over the phone and we've been cool ever since man yeah it was it was one of those things it was the time where it was kind of like the player versus analysting you know and so obviously i was trying to get in the business so you know i came on and the one thing should you learn it from him you can say certain things but the way you say them is how they resonate with people you know so i was like nah cause he said y'all don't have the degrees that y'all can't do what i do and i was young i was like i could do that i was like i got a mass comm degree i was like my headline ain't pushed back yes yes so he go the next time i'm not there i'm thinking this they're thinking me and skip cool skipped and bucked me up to do this right for the show so then steve and they go hard he going hard on the steelers and then he was like as for that he knows what he can kiss and y'all been around me you know i spell curse words most of the time right that was where it touched me but to his credit man like the conversation we got to have for an hour man i stood outside a restaurant for an hour and the first thing he did he came to me like a man i came in like a man we both said you know what there were different ways to handle that but we also got into stephen a some of the things that you dealt with with ai in philadelphia and some of the ways that you've protected players throughout your career why have you always felt kind of that responsibility to look out for the players when that's not really your job well to me it is my job and what i mean by that is that i don't try to protect players from being held accountable for what they do i try to protect players from being characters assassinated as to who they are there's a difference we all make mistakes i've made mistakes everybody in this room has made mistakes and that comes with the territory but what i'm not gonna do as a black man in a position of influence is allow folks to look at another black athlete or another black person who happens to be an athlete because i tried to be y'all he was one ig was one i tried you were what i tried to be but i'm never gonna allow somebody to look at y'all and say this is who you are because of something you did because let's face reality as black men we've been victimized by that pretty much all our lives for generations and so for me to get in that position and forget that inherent responsibility that i believe that i'm supposed to have to speak for those who can't speak for themselves to provide perspective is very very important to me it doesn't mean i have to agree with everything what it means is that i want to make sure to articulate where you're coming from so people can understand that and judge it according to that as opposed to judging it according to what they want to believe about you off that and i've always felt that responsibility to players and i think the thing that's hard in this in today's generation because of the advent of social media and all of that stuff is that people see the headlines and they get caught up in all of that or they'll see you coming at them for what they said or what they may have done not differentiating between that and their overall character and so then they come at you and they're not realizing you're actually looking out for them because i'm tipping you off to what's coming down the pike like i'm in the newsroom i've been in the newsroom for 29 years i'm not asking you i'm telling you this is what they're going to do so if you don't take heed to that and and recognize that reality of course you're going to be bitter but if you smart enough and you shove your emotions to the side for a second and look at it objectively you'll see what i'm trying to do is just tip you off where does that come from like that that whole thought process that whole mind frame you're on top of the media right now archie just said it just your upbringing where does that come from of you you know what i'm saying what you i'm a bluff of six kids i'm i'm i'm no i'm the i'm the youngest of six youngest six my brother passed away in a car accident in 1992 so i've got four older sisters that are all alive and living well here in new york um any of them used to beat your ass because his sister tore him up you know what it was they didn't whip my ass but they slapped me inside my head many times you know and that's why you know especially today's generation this woke movement and everything else you got people they get around a bunch of women fellas scared as hell say a word not me i'm used to it yeah i grew up i was raised by five women i'm accustomed to women coming at me slapping me upside my head telling me what i'm gonna do clean your room take out the garbage do your homework excuse me i mean listen i'll never forget this i tell the story and it's the absolute positive truth i got folder sisters if i bring a honey home this is throughout my entire life i broke a honey home my older sister linda who's the hull just like that day one they're in the living room my sister's like who's the hou my sister arlen she better not be ugly in hearing distance the girl said she could hit him better not be ugly abigail says what's a nice sweet girl like you doing with a bum like my brother and carmen damn another one no they do they they've done this in front of any woman i've ever done here since right there right there they make sure they're here right there since i was 16 years old that is what they have done and they would do it today if they could this is who they are so i'm accustomed to being around women bossing me around slapping me upside my head figuratively if not in my sister's case literally and all of that other stuff but it's all love and it's something that you understand growing up in the streets of new york city particularly with a family like myself and you know what you got to be a man you better speak up for your own but that doesn't mean that you agree with everything we say you think for yourself you're your own man but if you believe it you say it and you stand on it and you stand by it even if it's against the grain and even if there's a whole army of people coming against you if you know you right you don't back up i know you've received tons of threats from players maybe obsessive fans does that ever put you in a situation where you don't say what you would normally say no no no um number one because i'm incredibly confident in what i say meaning that i've pride myself in being a human being i know that i'm not trying to get personal and i know that i'm just doing my job but a lot of fans don't see it there yeah but i don't worry about fans hell with that you know because then the fans are dictating how i do my job you watch me for a reason it ain't the other way around right the fans are watching me i'm not watching them so my attitude is this is my job and that's what the hell i'm gonna do and then i gotta be honest with you man it's kind of yeah me being from the streets is one element but also the company that i keep matters like if you saw me around some of my fellas some of my boys you know they look like a bunch of hood rats you don't know one of my boys is dea another's fbi another dude's a lawyer cats like that you would never know do you look at them be like listen brother's just hanging they they look like they straight off the streets you know what i'm saying but that's not who they are right you know not to mention the fact that at this point in time i'm a commodity so yes do i have security yes you know and anytime that i want to because i'm a valuable asset to espn you got undercover cats following me around and stuff like that and i'll be like keep a distance stay away i don't want people to see you with me just be ready to roll up if something goes down right so there's always somebody around me for the most part steven and i know that go back to winston-salem university yeah with steven you know we they always show that picture of you any time hbcu comes around are we talking about about hooping you just mentioned having to be followed by security or having these undercover people and it's not because you are a bad human it's because of the fame you've created by being good at your job could you imagine could you have imagined at any point in your life you'd be here never never i never saw this coming um did i see myself being recognized as one of the best at what i do yes because i was a damn good beat reporter i started off as a high school writer in new york city i uh 14 months later after breaking a couple of big stories i was hired by the philadelphia daily news because the philadelphia daily news and the philadelphia acquirer were competing for my services in october of 1994 philadelphia inquirer hired me and i got promoted like damn near nine times to becoming a general sports columnist and when i became a general sports columnist in 2003 i was the 21st african american in this country's history according to the national association of black journalists to be named a general sports columnist see it's hard for people in today's generation to understand that because everybody got an opinion now twitter facebook instagram and all of this stuff but back in the day back in the 90s in the early 2000s none of that existed so you had to work your way up through the journalism industry to be given a license to express your opinion you weren't allowed to express your opinion so for me that was a very very big honor and i and i viewed myself once i got into television like i'm going to be the best at this too i establish myself as one of the best beat writers i'm going to establish myself as one of the best commentators and i idolize stuart scott dan patrick bob costas brian gumbel you know keith olbermann and all of these guys the good late great john saunders as well of course chris berman people we work with i idolized those dudes so i've when i viewed myself as potentially being the best i thought i was going to be somebody on that level i never dreamed of my wildest dreams that i would be in a position where i'm walking into arenas and i'm more popular than 90 percent of the players or i got to have security and escorts or i got to make sure i go to a game late and leave early or leave real late just to get out the arena in peace without being mobbed i never saw any of that coming but i understand in this day and age with social media and beyond that just comes with the territory you just got to accept it when you was playing ball at winston-salem mm-hmm he was already writing he was i read for the school newspaper did you did you know you weren't gonna make it was that a plan b like when i when i read about that i was like hell like when we were playing ball ball was it yeah well you seem like ball like you had a you had another one the first year i got to winston-salem i cracked my kneecap in half i went up for a layup and my kneecap split in half and i had to have reconstructive surgery because remember technology wasn't then what it is now so i had to have reconstructive surgery on the knee i didn't think i was good enough to begin with i knew i could ball and i knew i was good enough to have a scholarship and to make some noise on the court but i mean i grew up with cats i mean we're talking kenny smith yeah we're talking about kenny anderson we talking sweet p lloyd daniels i wasn't on that level i knew better but i was the kind of person when i put it up it was that's coach gaines and john mcclendon who basically invented the fast break and learned the game from james nate smith he used to be in the stands watching us practice he looked at me saying you're the only person i've ever seen in my life that shoots a jump shot and actually looks surprised when he misses and it was true because i really felt like if there was a player today that i thought i had the potential to be like it was somebody like a steph curry because i could really really stephen hey stop it no i don't mean i'm not there you're getting wrong i'm not talking i'm not talking on that level i'm saying that i couldn't do anything else but i could shoot i got you and so for me when you young you dumb and you like yeah i could be that yeah i could go up against michael jordan is he if he don't block my shot he done because it's going in you're thinking like this you're not thinking about the opponent you think about yourself and when i crack my kneecap in half i knew because i could never run straight and they told me that i would never walk straight again so once that happened my mother looked at me and she was like okay what's plan b because you wasn't you probably wasn't gonna make it anyway okay and now you know you're not gonna make it what's plan b and so i said literally looked at her and said i'm gonna be on television that's exactly what i said to her and next thing you know i go back to school i'm like well it ain't that simple cause to me when i thought about guys on television i said they're looking into a prompt and they're reading stuff well i don't want to do that because that makes me expendable if you don't like my smile i ain't not smiling anyway ain't george foreman i can't do that what the hell am i gonna do i said all right well i'll write for the school newspaper and when i started writing for the school newspaper i had a critical and persuasive writing class and a professor there looked at it one day and said you're a natural-born sports writer let's go out to lunch and talk about it next week and then next week i thought he was taking me out to lunch and he took me straight to the sports department of the winston-salem journal because he was the editorial page editor of the paper and he was just doing a class at winston-salem the sports editor's name with terry oberle he met with me for five minutes he said oh so when can you start five minutes in i said i can start tonight he said all right see you tonight and that's how my career started and there's some chan somebody from the hbcu made it you say k none will make it ah he did i did athletically i don't think they can do it and i've had a bunch of argument with this well here's what i say to you like charles oakley's from an hbcu okay yancey thigpen who played with the pittsburgh steelers tennessee titans he was from winston-salem state he was playing football while i was on the basketball team he was the star of the team along with the cat broderick graves they used to play running back for them i'm not saying that it's not going to be hard because the lack of pub lack of notoriety resources resources all of those things are true but i think what you're missing is that if you have the talent and somebody spots you who's in a position to provide some of those things they can peel you from that and give you the resources that you need so if you have the talent you have the talent that doesn't mean that what you're saying is wrong in terms of what you need to elevate yourself but all it really takes is somebody noticing the talent yeah and that's the difference and that's the thing now with um with deon sanders um we got hugh jackson at grambling state we got eddie george to tennessee state like and they're bringing that attention right and that's the thing they didn't usually have that attention oh you know what i'm saying i don't that's my whole thing is people think i hate on hbcus i don't stephen they i just know that they're gonna look at university of florida i'm a gator before they look at winston-salem state that's fair that's totally accurate and fair all i'm saying is that times are changing and that name image and likeness that's come into play puts somebody in a position to elevate their level of notoriety you can't ignore the possibilities of that again it's going to be hard there's going to be a more arduous task that you're going to have to take path rather that you're gonna have to why would you go down the rough path if you can go to a power five and take the easy yeah but you're talking about a power five i'm saying what about the rest because everybody that gets drafted eight from a power five everybody that's in the nfl ain't from a power five there's a whole bunch of non-power five players in the national football league they may not be hbcus but they're non-power fives and even though i don't think the name individual likeness issue particularly at hbcus is going to elevate them to a point where they can compete with power five athletes everybody else is open season you got a shot yeah when you think about who you are on tv you know listening to you talk about you know some of the things somebody seeing you at winston-salem and telling you you're going to get a meal and bringing you somewhere where you can now start your writing career the persona you have because we were riding over here and i was like yo he's actually really chill you know i was like he don't talk a ton he's kind of quiet but everybody sees you on tv and they realize holy hell like this dude is a star like you'll walk in to get up some mornings when when you would come early and you'd be like hey yo what's up how are you doing hey y'all what's up how are you doing yeah right and greenie asks you the question and you turn on it's a whole different dude where did you create that persona did you understand you might have to become a caricature in some way or do you understand how to relate to your viewer to your listener to make them feel what you feel it's what i told you years ago um there's nothing about me outside of being a brick on general hospital there's nothing about me there's nothing about me well it's not that's not the ignore the soaps now let's not even know it's so first bro i mean there's when you jump behind the door like this i loved it i did it in slow motion too i loved it i absolutely loved it but but i say this i say all of that to say this look i'm a multitude of things i can be mellow i can be loud i can be bombastic and demonstrative i can be quiet i can be pissed off and mean as hell i can be very jovial and fun-loving it all depends on what the moment calls for none of us are truly truly one-dimensional we all are different things depending on the environment and the people that we're around in a particular moment you know what i would tell you about me on television is this i believe this in my soul i'm a winner bro i ain't trying to lose and in television it's about ratings and revenue and my whole position is who do you want to watch when you flick the channels when you flicking the channels who are you going to stop at to say let me see what this person has to say and in my in in my mind it's always me because i'm trying to show you that i'm passionate and enthused about what we're talking about i can't do that if i'm mellow chilling in my house watching a movie and acting like that's my temperament i'm projecting and i'm asking an audience to stop what you're doing in your busy time whatever it is that you may be doing to watch me how am i going to do that it's similar to what an athlete does in certain respects you can ball you can ball you can ball you're going to do like okay here's what i'm bringing to the table all right i belong on this team i'm worthy of it and because of that i'm going to show y'all it's the same principle it's not the same obviously obligation but it's the same principle you got to have that kind of mindset and then for me it really resonates when i take into account the professional athlete the one thing that i think the biggest misnomer about me when it comes to the professional athlete there's no one i respect more than a professional athlete because i can honestly say even though i never got to that level i know what y'all have to go through because i reported on it for 30 years what would you do i stand on something i've been reporting for close to 30 years i've seen it with my own two eyes i've seen the sacrifices i've heard the stories people have given me insight into what the kind of stuff that y'all have to endure and i feel like the nerve of me to have a platform every day where at any given moment i get to hold them accountable but i don't hold myself so i'll give y'all a perfect example y'all too so this is like two years ago don't get me wrong obviously i'm shooting after coving and everything else but even before colbert damn it i needed to be in some shape but you ain't seen me walking around looking like jabba the hut well why is that because damn it i was getting fat okay i mean and and and let me tell y'all saying right now the nastiest person in the world is a skinny fat person well you ain't got no definition you ain't got nothing but a pot belly you understand even the big fat people all right well damn it they fat all the way around so it makes sense there's some symmetry but when you skinny with a pot belly that's just nasty that's just nasty that's right and so i'm walking there i'm walking in the studio one day and ryan clark looked at me said yo what's up i mean what what you mean mean he said what what's that looking at my stuff what's that i was like oh damn and i go home and i'm like this i cut out the crunchberries i started running on the peloton and the treadmill i'm like listen i'm so busy i can't get in the shape that i want to i need to dedicate myself more but i ain't gonna never look like that because i wasn't mad at him for one bit you know why because you're a professional athlete that takes care of yourself and i'm sitting here and i would be holding you accountable right how the hell i'm gonna do that and i take no responsibility to do that for myself it's something little like that but i carry that with me in anything that i do professionally i think about what i'm asking a professional coach a professional executive a professional player to do and i say am i doing that in my own life that kind of stuff is what i think helps me be a winner it's not because of me it's because of the people that i cover and the fact that their very existence makes me accountable so adding to that being a winner do you have to be able to embrace controversy in order to be the best at what you do i think so i think so because what people's interpretation of controversy varies what's controversial to one group of people may not be controversial to another but if you're not embracing controversy that means you're making a concerted effort to be safe right and if you're making a concerted effort to be safe at some point in time that's going to compromise the realness that you can bring and if you're compromising the level of realness that you can bring what the hell are you doing in this business where where do the execs come in at where do they draw the line in the dirt on how far they let you go well first of all we over fcc airwaves so we can't be cussing up a stone um they do it in that regard and for me personally my personal experience is that and ryan can speak to this i have the trust of the network i think when you think about me at espn i think the biggest thing when people say that's the man they talk about the money the money the money well i just got that two years ago what about the other other 25 years i've been in this business okay the biggest thing that makes me influential is the trust that they have in me see when i'm doing a podcast or i'm on a news network or whatever they don't worry about me the way they would worry about a lot of other folks because they understand that i get the big picture it doesn't mean that i'm going to compromise what i believe nor what i'm going to say it means that i'm constantly aware of the fact that i don't just represent me i represent espn and so as a result i got to take into account what they think and what they feel so even if i disagree at least say look the company don't agree with me on this this is me right here cause y'all have seen me do that on many occasions where you'll see me say and trust me they ain't gonna like what i'm about to say that's my way of saying we ain't on the same page but they appreciate that because i'm not throwing them in a bowl with me because when you're in my position with a company like espn when you utter something out of your mouth and you don't make that clarification people lump them in with you and say it ain't just stephen a of espn they're also saying steven a and espn and you gotta make sure to protect the company from that if i'm saying it then it's me it's not them and that way they can take whatever position that they want but they have to concede that i acknowledged it's not them it's me those are the kind of things that come along with being in the position that i'm in it's understanding that you have a responsibility not just to yourself but the people you work with and the people you work for because you do have an obligation to protect them from you especially if you've done go on roles and that's on a particular issue that's and that's all you've been trying to tell players for years yeah just looking at what we were just talking about how you you know speak to the players right look you have a responsibility don't be out here being a jackass right but a lot of guys would take that as oh steve ray just shut up i'm gonna go do what i want to do but that's a problem that's a black problem white folks don't call other white folks sell out when they disagree with each other jewish folks don't do that to one another you know whatever foreign asian americans don't do that to one another that's a black issue listen i've been very honest i'm on front street the cold colin kaepernick situation i got a whole bunch of people i was gonna get to talk a whole bunch of people call me sellout cool whatever whatever let me be very clear they can kiss my ass and i mean that and i'm gonna tell you why i said the man was blackboard i said the man deserved to be in the nfl i said the nfl isn't doing right by him that you can't find 64 quarterbacks better than this brother in the nfl i said that for years but because i disagree with an approach that maybe him or eric reid took all of a sudden my blackness comes into question right when they were in elementary school i was fighting on behalf of black people i got a career that says it look at my resume google me as shaq and then would say my record speaks for itself on a multitude of issues that i've taken in defense of my people i'm not just a black man i'm a brother to the core and i'll be damned if somebody gonna come along and try to define my blackness because i didn't agree 100 of you all four of us are sitting here in my house we having a good time you trying to tell me we agree lock step on barrel on every single issue that's impossible ryan and our boys we disagree every day every day we got some we disagree about nah steven they i ain't but no i don't believe ryan you wrong about that one boo boo boo love you bro see you later what's the problem but others out there will watch us and if you don't echo exactly what they want you to echo somebody got a problem and i knew that we had a big time problem when they tried to call ice cube a cellar ice cube all right ice cube nwa ice cube nwa ice cube do you have any idea the things that this brother has done to fight on behalf of black folks for decades and because he met with former president trump to broach an idea about how to uplift the black community because that's a man that happened to be in office you had people actually calling him a sellout that that just tells you how you can dismiss that as nonsense and people can say what they want but you got to tell them to kiss your ass and i'm very good at doing that that's great and even talking about that because you have been in trouble you have been suspended yes you got in stuff with the soccer players different situations yeah did you know at that moment as soon as you as soon as something comes through your lips no you know not always that's not true um first of all if you're debating somebody in the moment that you're heatedly debating you might get caught up and going in a back and forth with them and not realizing every single syllable that comes out your mouth now that doesn't mean that i'm not responsible because ultimately i'm paid to be the professional that i am and i'm supposed to avoid all of that no problem um you know when i got in trouble with the shoei otani thing i didn't mean to offend i was trying to say i wasn't trying to say that he's not worthy of being marketed because he doesn't speak english i was saying major league baseball won't do it because of it because they had a history of promoting white individuals no doubt but it came out wrong i gotta own that but my biggest responsibility was to the asian american community like i didn't mean any offense because i'm a black man and i can't stand when other people from outside communities try to jump in and try to tell you who you owe an apology to well wait a minute how do they feel about it let them say that to me and when they said it i'm good because as a black man i know that if i am offended by somebody that's something by something that somebody outside of my community said i don't want somebody else coming telling black people what we're supposed to do we will define what we are offended by and so to me the same thing needed to be accorded to them and at the end of the day here's the reason why i never work first of all there's certain things that people don't realize number one my contract's guaranteed so when people were acting like you know steve is in trouble i'm like okay you know i i do i am going to get paid y'all do know that secondly it wasn't my intent and that's really the most important thing it wasn't my intent and my apology was sincere but third and most importantly and ryan can speak to this from a level of expertise first takes been number one for 10 years i arrived in the spring of 2012 and within 30 days we were number one and we've been the number one morning sports show ever since in that time we do about 75 takes a week which equates to about 350 a month which equates to about over 3 300 takes per year live no seven second delay no debate no cover nothing okay in my ten years on first take i have given approximately 34 000 takes live you're gonna mess up sometime and i've been suspended once yeah who can say that that's a hell of a batting average who can say that that's that's hall of fame nobody nobody really like thinks about like i'm live yeah in a heated debate with somebody else that might be saying some bull crap that i don't agree with him you trying to make a point and you get caught up in in the jolly and back and forth of joslin back and forth and with 34 000 takes two might have gotten me in trouble one got me suspended really people don't remember you had a stint with espn you were gone for a second you come back you're not even doing tv and you've been on first take and y'all have gone through a variety of changes yeah like the show is different than when it started the show had skip and the show has had max it's had carrie champion it's had it's had molly and now you're in the space too where it truly does sometimes like for all of us it's like steven and friends you know like i might be on one day swag is going to be on one day how much responsibility is on you now because you talked about the voice you have you talk about the trust that you have the only way the show can be what it is today and it's still rate tie is because of you well it's been that way for me since skip left if we're being totally honest and that's not to throw any shade on max whatsoever i went to la i supported max being on the show max is a brilliant brother very very smart very educated and has a lot of interesting things to say the point is though the moment skip was gone it was mine just like when i was there it was skips see people don't really pick you skip pick me skip came to me in 2012 and said i need you i cannot do this without you you're the only person that i trust to do this with me five days a week will you please do this for me and the reason he had to ask me that way is because everyone knows i hate getting up early i can't stand it this is my one there's no i'm on my way i just can't stand it i mean i when i think about getting up early i think about rush hour traffic i think about not being able to get breakfast because i'm rushing to get past rush hour traffic i'm thinking about the hustle and bustle that you wake up i cannot stand you i mean pulling me up you ever see somebody just get knocked the hell out and they need smelling salts and everything just to get up and you got to help him up that's how i am in the morning i just don't want to get out of bed now once i'm up i'm up i can stay up until 2 30 the next morning no nap no anything i've always been that way but my god i cannot stand getting up in the morning so when skip asked me i looked at him like really because he i'm like you know you know i don't want to get him no damn morning come on man he's like i need you i need you to do this and i'm telling you you know we'll knock this out the park and then after three years you can do what you want to do you know and so i agreed to do it because i knew the kind of chemistry that skipping i had because we didn't agree on anything the only thing we agreed on is that we liked each other we didn't agree on anything we just ever did everything was black and white but it was one or the other with us and we knew that and so we were number one within a month but once 2016 came those four years that we were together go back and read my clips go back and read anything you've ever heard me say about first take i don't give a damn how much my star supposedly was rising and all this stuff i always made it clear it was skip show because he brought me there and because he brought me then he knew the formula with which the show would work i followed his lead and i became what i became on first take because of him and that's what i always gave him credit for well guess what the same applies to anybody who comes to first take now and feeds off of that success to make themselves into an even bigger personality than they were because just like he set the stage for me i'm setting the stage for everybody you know people talk about you know what he decided to go in a different direction at max max got his own television show and ambach's got a morning show and max got a boxer show did he have any of that before he got on first take no first take helped that along molly molly's a household name well how'd that happen skip and i picked her we hired molly you see what i'm saying when you think of ryan clark you take a swag order they don't have to be on first date they're on first take cause i want them on first take i go to the bosses i need them i need this man right i need ryan clark i need swag goo i need all of these people i need dan alaska i need these people i literally hand-picked every single person that contributes to first take and i did it on purpose and i did it deliberately because i know what i'm gonna bring the question is who are you going to surround yourself with that brings the best out of you because no matter what i think i'm going to break i can't do it without a counter can't pull it off so you're so i knew that you the puppet master well i wouldn't say that no no no no no no no no no let's be honest you just said you make all the decisions you know what you want to talk to him about how swag about dan about no no that's not what i mean no no no you miss you misconstrue what i'm saying this i'm saying the contributors to the show now there's other things that go into the show yeah when we travel that ain't my money that's espn's money see i know the boss but you tell them who to bring absolutely absolutely they leave that to me they trust but but understand i'm not the executive producer of the show and it's not like i don't know that i have to answer the dave roberts or norby williamson what happens is norby williamson and dave roberts listened to my suggestions over the years and said damn he's right because i heard him but because they i heard no from them enough times and they would see i earned their trust see that's that's the important part yes i'm making those decisions but i answer to them it's just that they've seen the results of those decisions so if ryan sits there says to me yo stephen hey i think we should do this and i listen and then all of a sudden it blows up i'm going to be like this well what else you got to tell me because that didn't work yeah so that's what the bosses did with me people interpret that as oh stephen a's the boss no no dave roberts is the boss yeah norby williams says the boss the thing that i have is the trust because they've seen what i've done and so when i say to them i want ryan on this day i want olafsky on this day i want tebow on this day i want mad dog on this day i want this i want this i want that they might question me as to why but i already mapped out the plan i didn't just come in here off of emotion i know this show we've been number one for a reason everybody said oh you know the raiders gonna fall up we'll see because i know what they see i know when i brought ryan clark on damn he didn't get enough time he needs more time i got to get him more time i know when i have swag who on oh he'd have been perfect for this subject i know when i got tebow on olafski damn they would have been perfect for that subject i'm i'm i'm looking at all of this cause i do the show every day yeah the executive's got a multitude of shows they're overseeing they crave a talent that they could say all right man you do that yeah because that's less for them to do because they already got enough on their plate so when they find a talent that they can trust it really really resonates for them it means everything that comes from your point guard days that's right you gotta talk about point guard you're going to shoot with god i would never point guard steph curry i never want to pass i never wanted to man i told you steph curry you you pass it off the swag every night and again but that's curry like our damn show couldn't have that game let's be very clear about it like we we walked in here man and uh and shannon was talking about your crib he took us down to the basement you got like 18 tvs you don't say we had to take our shoes off shannon was trying to wonder like you know what type of bachelor stephen it is how you entertaining here i have no comment you so open about everything else not every everything else you're open about everything else i'm open about professional life i'm open about how i feel about issues i am not open at all about my private life and that ain't changing why not because it's not on anybody's business number one but number two here's the biggest thing i'm the kind of dude do i have a woman of course i do of course i just think yes one one one stephen a one of course the point that i'm trying to make to you is of course it's one i'm serious it's one i mean my playing days are over bro i i did all that before and i'm over that i'm a daddy i got i got i got my four older sisters i got 15 nieces and nephews i got career opportunities i'm pursuing and you know i've been blessed and fortunate where i don't have to be alone i'm good but the point that i'm trying to make is this i don't want to be one of those dudes you see me with a woman and all of a sudden we break up she that's stephen he's that hell no no i don't want to i don't i don't understand how folks in today's world do all of that with everybody in your business i mean we just talking about kanye getting called out by pete davidson that i don't even i can't even imagine something like that happened to me i'd be like who who's she i don't know who you talking about i don't know anything i i'm not admitting because i don't believe and and people who know me included rhino think about it if you really think about it tell me one time i've ever asked you a question about your personal life not one time i don't do it i don't do it i don't ask players about theirs yeah when they tell me stuff they tell me because they know it ain't going nowhere i got nothing to say that's your personal business i knew one star this brother was in chicago one night crying crying because he had to go home to his woman um because he had he had to go home because he had to go because he had to go home he wanted to be on the road he did not want to go home he did not want to go home and when i tell you the level of misery i was like oh my god it was it was unreal you got i can't tell you how many times i've seen situations where people's souls are ravaged yeah because of personal relationships and you know what i come to find out about it 90 of the time it ain't even what happened is the fact that people know yeah that's real it's the humiliation it's the public knowledge of all of that stuff yeah and so my point is i will tell you this and my girl knows this anybody knows this you even utter a word about my personal life you will no longer exist in it i don't play that game you will not be somebody that publicized my personal life and remain in it literally the only difference between you being gone and you being here is the seconds to the minutes it gets me to get in touch with you to let you know that you're gone i don't play that and by the way i don't play that with family now this i'm writing a book and i'm writing a memoir and there's certain things there's a lot of things that i'm gonna say about me personally that no one has ever known but i got permission from my family to do it yeah i went to my sisters because it's really about us and i went to them and it's like and the only reason i wrote the memoir now is because i had been pursued about it for about a decade and my mother who passed away in 2017 got arrested so she's the reason i got this house because i bought this house to move her in here with me because she was ill and she was battling cancer and then after i closed on the house we found out she only had two months and that's how it happened and so but my mother never wanted me to write a book and all she said to me was if you're gonna do it promise me one thing it'll be when i'm gone don't do it while i'm alive and i promised her i would never do it until she passed away otherwise this book would have been written years ago about my upbringing and stuff like that that's the only that might be the only time anybody gets me to talk about my personal life like that cause i don't do it because it's funny you bring up kanye in them and you see pete davis and kim walking the restaurants and all right so pete davis is taking pictures from the bed from the bed i'm just saying do you like do you make an effort no paparazzi can catch you because i've never seen you i'm waiting to see you and your old lady i want to see what you got steven there because i haven't been in my house i would date you if you showed me this house so i need to see your woman i would tell you this i would tell you this i have been seen with women before but you never know who i'm dating and who i'm not because i don't engage in public displays of affection i don't do it oh you ain't the wrong i'm the i don't do that the lower back touch well i don't want to go that far i mean you do that sometimes but what i'm saying is i don't i'm not about that because to me and and and here's the thing i've turned against the women who are and the reason why is because are you with me or you with stephen a why the hell do you need to publicize us for but what what if it's their loving language what if that i'm not buying that bro why not because when i because i i don't give a damn what your love language is in that particular moment in that particular moment i'm telling you nah right because what i'm looking for is who you with right because see this is me this is me right here i'm chilling i love hanging with my boys i'm chilling with good okay me and you is me and you it ain't for everybody and if you have this insatiable appetite to get others involved that tells me you're looking for validation well why are you not being treated well enough are you not getting enough attention are you not being taken care of am i not showing you enough affection what could possibly be your issue i'm looking at something like that because for example you might have i've never been married okay i don't know about you i know those two married i'm married you're married okay so all three of you married now you might have a woman that hey she wanted that public and that public affection was it that way after you married my wife nasty don't start a video she opened up the pants i asked the wrong person come on the only reason i was asking that question is i was trying to make the point that once they're secure you don't need the things that you once needed what i'm saying is because of the life i have when i walk outside my front door i don't need a woman in my life that's gravitating to that i need a woman that says i'm right here when you get off yeah yeah i'm not talking literally i'm talking figuratively yeah even if we outside i you could beat me outside of work but once i leave work i'm with you i'm not trying to do all of that and if you're about that you're not about me you're just about the life that i have and if you're gonna be about the life that i have what do i need you for is it something that you let be known at the beginning of the relationship because you said 34 000 takes right one or two slip-ups people will mess up they'd say it's more slip-ups than that but you got me a real but in life people mess up like you might have a you know just a a innocent conversation with your girlfriend right and maybe it's the girlfriend that she talks to someone else and now it's in the media i don't mean it like that you talking to your friends that's different you got a life too live your life i'm talking public consumption people you don't know you're just playing for the cameras you know people watching you want to be seen i ain't got time for all of that right i don't have time for all of that because guys i got fired i gotta let go you know what it's like for everybody to know you and then everybody to know you fired everybody to know you lost your job that's just hard it's hard and so i learned a long time ago not to say that i wasn't like that even before them but especially after that experience i learned like yo it could be here today it could be going tomorrow i'm not about that i don't want that in my life and anybody that feels the need to be like that they can't be for me i i don't want somebody in my life everywhere i go they want to go i'm going to fight i want to go i want a basketball game i want to go no no i want you to want to be here when i get back yeah i want you to make it that i want to rush home to be with you that i really don't want to be there i got to be there because where i really want to be is here with you i can't feel that way if you want to be everywhere i'm at if you want to do everything that i do that's not that's not life to me yeah and i don't want that you do so much though like you mentioned basketball games uh shoot mma now boxing all of these different things and it almost seems that it would be hard to find and fit in in that life like that a woman who would want to be with you would have to i guess kind of search for time or or fight for time with having your your sisters and you know i know your mom is past and all these people in your family how do you find any balance though bro uh balance to me is overrated you do what you're passionate about doing that's balance to me there are days that i'm very very passionate about work big story percolates big event comes up you want to be a part of that and then when it's over you big about the personal side it's a give and take it's an ebb and flow and each day that passes you learn what level of momentum to attach to that particular day but the cushion comes from no matter what you have to do you always got something in place that you want to do and you find the time to do the things that you want to do maybe not as much time as you like but damn sure enough who doesn't find time to do what they want to do enough we usually do and so when you look at it from that perspective it's incredibly important i understand what you're saying about balance i'm not trying to negate its importance but when you bring up an uh for example with events and stuff like that well look at it guys i'm sitting there i'm going to games and stuff like that but guess what you know what my number one muse is going to the movies i love going to the movies nothing relaxes me more than just sitting back and chilling and watching the big screen i just love it you know i don't want to go out to a club i want to go out to dinner i want to go out to dinner i want to go out for a drink i want to chill out i'm not i've never been a partier i've never been that dude that wanted to be at the club and all of that other stuff i like to go out and i like a relatively mellow environment it's just that the company has to be right do you think though that your personality like recently you kind of talked about james harden and warned against his party we all know like every place he lives the strip club money go up in every city he's playing you know what i'm saying and now he's in philly and you know me and you had a great conversation probably our first conversation we talked a lot about allen iverson right that's when i learned okay how you understood taking care of players but now on your job with your platform whether it's k.d kyrie james you've been very vocal about these superstar players where is the space in between that of saying okay i'm still going to protect these guys i'm going to hold them accountable but i'm also going to do my job because i'm as big of a star in my world as they are in theirs well it depends again on a case-by-case basis like for example i wasn't getting on james harden about the strip club i was getting on them about shooting three for 17 and then going to the strip club there's a difference you can't have kyrie irving roll up in the wells fargo center in philadelphia the brother don't like you he happy that you're going from the team you just left that he was on all right he essentially called you out you sat up there and act like you didn't give a damn that you were just happy and relieved to be away from him and y'all collide for the first time and opening tip off he waves them off i got him and he guards you you got to respond to that damn challenge that's that's a man thing right there you can't you can't back down and then shoot three for 17. now that's bad that's very very bad it's 18 percent that's very very bad terrible okay and i lose by 29. it's terrible but to go out and party after that nah what about billy barry no no no no no there's there's your job and then there's extracurricular activities no there's teachers that do a terrible job and they can go have a good time right there's police officers that don't write no tickets they gonna have why when an athlete who plays bad can he not go enjoy his time well the first order of business is that you got to really want the answer to that question before you ask it because i'm not sure you want i want it teachers don't command an audience of nineteen thousand plus to pay tickets to walk through a turnstile to watch you perform professional athletes do and so what you have to understand is that of course he has the right to do it nobody's questioning that yeah i don't mean kent in a literal sense figuratively speaking it's a horrible look and here's the reason why because the fans have to know you care as much as they do that's the key see when allen iverson was in philadelphia ain't nobody partying more than him here's the difference allen iverson usually performed and the brother had a heart of a lion and we saw this miniature dude going into the land of giants and talons challenging them every single night show out james harden is bigger james harden is stronger he's a four-time league scoring champion he's a former league mvp who got called out by another superstar in the league who called him washed up then showed up in your house and said essentially i'm gonna blush your ass yeah and then did it when that happens to you and you go out partying the fans ain't gonna love you that much no more and what i was saying of james harden was i'm not holding it against you please understand you're less than a week removed from saying i love philadelphia it's my kind of town it feels like home i was saying to him that ain't gonna last if you play like that and you partying so it was a warning to him from someone who knows philly yeah if he was in utah i might not have said that anywhere to party and you can talk to the game uh okay okay i just said i don't know but what i'm saying is i'm just saying listen you can that's gonna be a problem for you and if you don't believe me ask allen iverson ask him he'll tell you he'll look at you and he'll say stephen he has a point steven they absolutely right because i know that town and i'm telling i'm not asking you let that brother play like that again god help him if it's during the playoffs it's a different ball game now with the kyrie situation totally different people have the right to feel how they want about the vaccine tens of millions of people have to take the vaccine i was one of those people walt disney's later steven they need to take a vaccine i was gonna take it anyway i was nervous as hell about it was reluctant about it so i understand his reluctance that's not my issue with kyrie irving my issue with kyrie irving is that kyrie irving finds every excuse under the sun not to show up for work the brother's gone for 10 months he gets injured in february the season gets halted in march because of the pandemic then after that they resume play in the bubble kyrie is a vice president on the committee discouraging players from playing in the bubble knowing that the league owners had this provision called the forced missouri provision that would have allowed them to rip up the collective bargaining agreement thereby rendering all contracts null and void he knew that and was still encouraging them to do it which was ignorant then on top of it all he did it without talking with the president of the players associate at the time which was chris paul we fast forward bubble play takes place lakers win the chip they go to play in december that's 10 months off 10. season starts december 22nd two weeks later kyrie needs time off why because the riots took place at the u.s capitol and he's traumatized are you kidding me have y'all lost your mind you got to be kidding me he's traumatized because of the u.s riots when the riot at the barclays center went a ride in new york city you understand say they they there was a riot at the u.s capitol okay what the hell is next the palestinians bombed the israelis and you gonna take time off because of that it was hurt you know i mean really he's hurt your assistant the war in afghanistan i mean al qaeda comes out of nowhere that's gonna be a reason ukraine we ain't joking about this something you quit i i swear to you my hand my hand on the bible when ukraine got bombed by russia i thought kyrie was going to take off for that oh i ain't lying i thought he was going to take off for that i sat up there i went on first take i went like this i want to see if he gonna take off i want to see if he's going to take off that's exactly what i did i want to see because there's always an excuse and i'm saying this brother is a superstar he's box office and the city of brooklyn the borough of brooklyn doesn't even get to watch him play now he can say it's because of the mandate which is partially true but the other side to that is you elect not to take it you left your brother k.d hanging k.d don't seem to mind i don't understand why that's a separate story but you see the difference harden is a different issue than kyrie the the issue determines how i feel about it on a case-by-case basis i think my last player question for you is you kind of talked about john and luca right john john moran yeah and luke and luke lucas and luca doncic and you've been talking about ai i feel like josh seems to be the next one yes right you mentioned we talked hard in and we talked kyrie all these superstars when you look at where the league is now who do they need to make the face of the league who should stephen a be talking about day by day is john moran can john moran become one of those guys in memphis i think john moran can become that guy i think it's still steph it's still lebron it's still k.d but definitely john morant is a future face of the league you respect mad respect and love for other guys like trae young and stuff like that but john morant can be that dude and luca can't be ignored because he's an international star because he's not american he's an international star and he's beloved and i think that goes a long way so names like that definitely can come into the fold you can't ignore them because to me here's where here's what i look at your performance is one thing your willingness to embrace your stature and accept the accountability and responsibility that comes along with it is another matter again in a roundabout way how does that relate i'm the face of espn do i not show up to work every day understanding that there's a responsibility that comes with that you're damn right i do i understand that i'm not just a any year old employee i understand that anything that i do and anything that i say can come back on the company and i have to embrace that level of responsibility you got a lot of cats that want the money they want the recognition they want to be seen as the star but they don't want the responsibility that comes with it and to me you want guys when you talk about the face of the league you want guys that accept that responsibility my problem right now with somebody like kd part of his responsibility if you go and support kyrie in terms of saying he's his own man and i can't tell him what to do with his own body that's fine but then don't come out in support of him either because he ain't playing at the end of the day your number one priority with him should be having him on the court we know that you don't want him to die you don't want to drop dead you don't want to get sick we know all of that we got all of that that's just human beings but damn are we together because i need you on the court we supposed to be doing this together if you can't hold him accountable for that even privately how can you truly be seen as the face of the league when one of the preeminent faces is somebody you're condoning being off the court any star that you can think of tell me which one of them would have been okay with a star like kyrie irving sitting out half the games tell me one of them who would have been ain't one nobody can't find them you can't find them that's what i'm talking about you have given us like honestly man this was this is actually more than than i even bargained for i thought this was going to be something totally different and you gave us a little bit of the memoir but my question for you is like i watch you every day and i do and fred mentioned it earlier watching you do multiple things has made me want to do more things to show that i had more depth or or more bandwidth than they allow me to sometimes on network tv yeah what's enough for you when is it when do you get to a point and you say you know what i've done enough i can rest i don't need to do anymore i don't know the answer to that question i my my my my initial thought would be when i retire my second thought would be when i drop dead because my attitude is is that as long as i'm living and breathing i'm going for it i'm considered right now arguably the best at what i do i don't look at it that way i look at it as i gotta go in the air tomorrow and prove it again i got mr sas productions i started my own production company i want to produce content and i want to be one of the best producers out there because i know that i know television and i believe that i know film and i can do some things in that regard the podcast world is something i may venture into the list just goes on and on i've always aspired to do late night i hosted jimmy kimmel one night knocked it out the park they said had the second highest ratings behind stephen colbert that night um and that was the first time and the only time i've ever done it it's a mistake for anybody to look at me to think that i'm finished or to count me out because they don't understand how hungry i am they don't understand how bad i want it and it's not about the money of course i want to get paid and damn it i intend to get paid ain't apologizing for that to anybody but i don't want it by default i like the fact that yeah he getting paid but what they really look at when they see me is the man i'm on espn and the first thought that comes up is me you know and so the other thing is it's incredibly important to me and it always has been to reach back and to give to others i can't do this forever ryan clark to me is an heir parent along with a few others out there and guess what when that day comes i'm gonna give y'all a pound a hug and i'm gonna be like i have my time y'all go for it cause i got other stuff to do you know this ain't forever and when you when you don't have successors in place at least in your mind's eye you're really cheating everybody because what you should do if you really really about yourself and you're really about doing what you know to be right and being successful then you want others to come along because they'll remember you and they'll continue what you started and then elevate it and take it to another level the way stewart scott john saunders even mike wilbon and others have done for me that's what i'm about and i'm going to continue to be that way you know i um i wanted to add to that a lot of kids that watch you every day yeah they're going to watch this they're gonna actually they're gonna love this as a matter of fact did you have a relationship with stuart scott how did he influence you nah man stuart scott was somebody that was just fantastic at what he did people didn't realize he was legally blind practically i mean he took off his glasses he couldn't see right in front of him you know i was with him one time where he memorized an entire rundown for a sports center the entire rundown people don't understand how phenomenal he was at doing what he did fantastic writer orator knew what he was doing on television had pizzazz and everything like that the pizzazz that he showed what he brought to television made it easier for them to accept me yeah and this is what people don't realize when you have somebody like stewart scott john saunders was just that professional um consummate professional that knew his job inside and out and taught you about the professionalism the industry required in order for you to elevate yourself stuart scott brought a different dimension from a personality perspective and that personality that he put on display made it easier for the powers that be in the industry to take chances on other black folks on the come up and so now it's my turn for me to go on the air and to be who i am but also do so in a way that embraces that allows them to embrace others on a come up who might want to be stephen a and it continues and it continues and it continues that's what we're supposed to be doing and and bro i got to do it cause i watched it with bermani he brought it up ryan hit you on it yeah we're gonna see you saturday night live hit you on it bro you ever gonna let the hair go i think you know because that they're sneaking back still actually it's not true and i can it is true can i tell you can i prove it okay i looked at a photo of myself from seven years ago my hairline was back this far then have you seen lebron have you seen it have you seen that and you see some of these people i'll be looking back now i mean their hair's leaving them i'm 54 they're in their 30s yeah you see what i'm saying so i'm not saying that listen here's my point i i look ugly enough i'm scared to look uglier but here's the deal i'm going to hold on to this george jefferson look for as long as i possibly can in all seriousness don't sleep on me bro i ain't got no shame in my game i i'll go to your club for a minute you got money too for a minute you're gonna deal with the second you're gonna dion sanders you know i talked to him about it i talked to him about it i i i talked to him about it i talked to michael irving with that damn toupee that he lying about i talked to him i can't rule out anything listen i will go to head club for men and announce it to the world you know the prp's or whatever the hell it is make sure my old hair grows back but will i try it you're damn right yeah don't rule don't rule it out i don't care but but listen listen listen the bottom line is ain't nobody looking i mean the man y'all can insult me women ain't looking at me in the negative fashion i'm good you know what i need to see i i need to see your bad one no that's why i need to see your bow you don't need you don't need you don't want it i need to i'm good i'll show you a picture of my wife right you're married you're married you're married and when i get married you see a picture of my wife too yeah there's your girl my dog man we appreciate you but this wasn't true man we couldn't ask for a better show right no problem proud of y'all man keep doing y'all think man y'all can do big things with this man keep grinding thank you so much [Music] [Music] get my people feeling militant where i'm feeling get me up

Channel: The Pivot Podcast

Views: 2,037,958

Keywords: the pivot, the pivot podcast, new podcast, football podcast, channing crowder, channing crowder podcast, fred taylor podcast, fred taylor, ryan clark, ryan clark podcast, nfl, nfl 2022, football, super bowl, super bowl podcast, First Take, stephen a, stephen a smith, stephen a smith cowboys, stephen a smith antonio brown, stephen a interview, stephen a smith podcast, stephen a smith show, ESPN’s First Take - SNL, espn, first take espn

Id: tBzQyiTPZ28

Length: 73min 36sec (4416 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 22 2022