This is Wins and Losses with Clay Trevis, play talks with the most entertaining people in sports, entertainment and business. Now here's Clay Travis. Welcome into my new long form interview podcast called Wins and Losses. I am utterly intrigued by the degree to which a lot of times in this country today we focus only on the end product, how did somebody end up being successful? We only focus on the success. We don't focus on the journey. Uh. To steal a line from Nick Saban, the process is often more important than the result. And I don't feel like we spend much time on the process, on the journey between wins and losses, and also on how frequently wins are also accompanied by losses. Very often we only end with the result. And I feel like in a social media age where we've got Instagram and we've got cure rated Twitter feeds and Facebook feeds, where people only show the good things in life, I feel like the struggles in life are oftentimes and much more entertaining and much more illuminating and trying to give us a sense of how we ended up where we did. And So today's guest, A guy's a good friend of mine and uh, I am utterly fascinated to hear his full story here Jason Whitlock. You can find him on Twitter at whitlock Jason Jason. I feel like we start these episodes with people who maybe a lot of people know who you are, maybe they don't. I feel like a huge percentage will. But for those who are listening to this right now and don't have any idea, what do you do now? Uh? And what's your day to day existence? As part of that job? What I do now is I host a television show on Fox Sports one called Speak for Yourself. It's a ninety minutes show airs every day and live at noon Pacific three Eastern. I do it in conjunction with Marcelis Wiley. Uh. You know, we try to have the most authentic, most non PC conversation that you can have in sports. We try to keep our viewers ahead of the conversation with big ideas and the analysis of sports in the sports world that you won't get any place else. Uh. And so you know, my day UH typically starts around four am. That's what I wake up and start preparing for the show. We have a conference call at six am where we started laying out the ideas for the show. Between six and nine, I started writing my scripts or the monologues I do on the show. Try to get to work about nine am, meet with you know, the producers on on the team, and then we do the show at noon and it's over at one thirty, and just start my day all over again. All right. I'm gonna circle back around to this because I do find the production of television and all the work that goes into it fascinating myself, and I think a lot of our listeners will as well. So eventually we will get back to how you ended up doing what you do. But before that, I want to go back in time. So where were you born. I was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. Uh. Just a good old Midwest kid. Uh. And brothers and sisters. What kind of you know when you were a kid, what kind of lifestyle did you would you say you had started out? You know, my parents and me and my brother My parents got divorced. I'm the baby of the family. My brothers three years older than me. Parents got divorced when I was about five or six years old, and my dad remarried and I, uh, you know, me and my brother stayed with my mom, but I became close to my dad's second family. And I have a step sister who I'm very very close to. Don't consider a step sister, just a sister, Yealanda. And I also have a stepbrother from that relationship, not as close to him, but you know, a lot of affinity, but just not as close to him. But so, you know, I basically consider you know, me, my brother, my sister. Uh. My dad has since passed away, my mom still alive. But U you know, when my parents got divorced, you know, me and my mom and my brother lived in you know, in a little bit small apartment in the hood. Uh. My mother eventually took a second job and and moved us into a working class neighborhood. And that's why I mostly grew up until my mother moved. Her job got transferred to Kansas City, and she moved to Kansas City, and my senior high school, I moved in with my dad. Alright, So when you were a kid growing up, what kind of student were you in school? Uh? Underachieving one. Yeah, I was more of a social animal. I was more of the class clown, popular guy uh that you know, flirted with a B minus average C plus average in school. I just it's one of my regrets in life, not taking school as seriously as I should have. What did your mom and do You said your mom moved. What did your mom and dad do for a living when you were growing up? My mother was a factory worker for Western Electric that they made phones. Uh. You know, she was high school educated for a factory worker. My dad did not finish high school. Uh. Joined the military, got drafted into the army. Uh. Did that for two years, then came home, started working for the Chrysler UH automotive company, and eventually stopped working there and started his own business, a small bar business in the Inner City. Uh. And so my dad was a small business person throughout most of my life and relatively successful. Ran into some problems with the I R s that you know when when So when I moved in with him my senior high school, Uh, he was on his ass. The I R S had taken his business and everything from him. Uh. And so that was not the best time. But he eventually got another bar later in life, and you know, the last five years of his life. You know, it was a successful small businessman in the Inner city, you said inner city. So how much interaction, if at all, did you have with people of other races. Was your upbringing almost exclusively surrounded in a black neighborhood, black schools or were you schools in Indianapolis? What was your situa ation like as a kid, you know, as a small kid, Yeah, it was all black. When my mother moved us out to a working class suburb, the school was predominantly white. And then in eighth grade, uh, black kids from basically my old neighborhood got bust out to my high school. And so I would say by the time, you know, in eighth grade, I think we were probably around thirty black my my junior high in high school. When did you start playing sports? Oh? I think fourth grade? Fourth grade? I started playing football organized football. I mean I played sports my entire life, so as I could hold a basketball, baseball, or football, but I didn't play or I played organized football in fourth grade and immediately started playing with the fifth and sixth graders. I played a league up because I was I was honestly, I was just too big and too good for kids my eye, so automatically, almost when you started playing football, you were good at it. I mean relative to other kids your age. Yeah, I in in fourth grade, I was probably as good as any fourth grader could possibly be. I think I peaked as an athlete, to be honest with you, in eighth grade, you are dominating grader. Yeah, five star. I was as good as anybody. And then it was just all downhill from there and ended up just you know, being a mid major college football player. Why do you think you went downhill that you've gotten fully? Like, are you the eighth grader with the mustache? Like you were dominant because you didn't have a mustache. But you know, I was six ft two hundred and two hundred thirty pounds in eighth grade, ran on the four by one hundred relay team, played middle linebacker and some running back, and just played everywhere. Uh, and then I just never got any taller. And uh, I just I and not back then, and you know yet I'm fifty two. Back then, I didn't I didn't realize all the extra things you had to do, particularly if you weren't going to be six ft four six ft three. I didn't realize all that. And I worked very hard. I was a captain of my high school team. But I didn't work nearly hard enough, it wasn't nearly discible enough, and so eventually I think more than my biggest grads, Like, damn, if I had corrected my diet when I was younger, I could have maxed out as an athlete. So did you expect then your eighth grade, your dominant Did you think, oh, I'm gonna play in the NFL, like there's no doubt in your mind? Were you thinking that at the time. I wouldn't say there was no doubt in my mind, but I definitely thought I was an NFL player. And I used to practice my Hall of Fame speech as a kid. I used to tell it to my mom. I was, you know, I'm t I was obsessed with football. I used to record the Pro Bowl on audio. You had those little tape recorders or whatever. I would tape recorded and then listen to it back. I would take people's Hall of Fame speeches and listen to it back and practice, you know, because I think back then, they just show you the highlights, like Howard Cosell on Monday Night Football or whatever, show you the highlights of people's Hall of Fame speeches. And I was obsessed with football. And fault. Yeah, I'm as good as anybody, and I'm gonna go to the University of Michigan or I'm the Purdue or wherever, and I'm gonna be this dominant NFL football player. And so you go into high school, your captain and your high school team. You had some really talented guys on that high school team, right, Yeah, I had. We had some really you know. Obviously Jeff George was the quarterback of my team, and he went on to be a Number One draft pick. But you know, I played with a lot of Division one players and we were the first, uh to win a state championship in my high school. And my high school has since gone on to become like a really national powerhouse. Every year we're pretty much nastally ranked and some years will have as many as eight Division one players on our team. UH. But we were the first. I we were the alpha. We kind of got the ball rolling on turning my high school into a football powerhouse. And that high school Indianapolis, what's the name of it for people out there, like Warren Central High School, the Warren Central Warriors, the home David Bell four star recruise headed to produe this year how undefeated state champions and I know you're still you feel really connected to your high school. I mean you watch and pay attention to their games when you can still, right, Yeah, I watched games online. I went back for the state championship game. I'm connected to a lot of the kids back there at the high school. You know, the high school. The football team now is you know, overwhelmingly black, and it's It's funny. When I was growing up, it was conslidered a working class neighborhood, when now my high school is kind of on it's just the hood and you know it's it's a black powerhouse athletically, uh, in football and basketball. And yeah, I stay in touch with those kids, try to help him as best that I can. Uh. You know, it's like the kid Darnell Smith that works on my television show now does our social media segment. He's a kid that grew up in my neighborhood, played football at my high school and played football ball stage just like me. That you know. I've tracked Darnell ever since high school. So this is, uh, this is fascinating. So you said your your mom moved to Kansas City. You're living with your dad in a one bedroom apartment when you're a senior in high school. Yeah, what at that point in time were your dreams or aspirations? Oh man, that's interesting of you know, because by that this is my senior year of high school, I've kind of figured out, well, damn, I'm not going to be this bush or not knocking on your door, begging you, not knocking on my door, not knocking on tru I'm tested about it at this time, but it's it's becoming a reality to me that Okay, you're not gonna be a pro football player. You're a shade over six ft and you're an offensive lineman. You're gonna go play offensive guard somewhere in the Mid American Conference. Uh. And so I didn't know a lot about college. I don't say this to embarrass my family, but my legitimate impression of college at that time was the movie Animal House, and I just thought, well, hell, I'm about to go off to college and have the greatest time in my life. I'll study something, I don't know what, I'll study to something, I'll play a little football, and then I'll get on with the rest of my life. And so my original major in college was accounting. And that's because I had overheard my dad say, when you know, when his bar business going well, that you know, I got to pay my accountant X number of dollars for blah blah blah. And so I said, oh, I'll be an accountant. Uh. I went off to college and then I got in the math class at Ball State and I was like, I won't be an accountant. How long did that did that revelation take? Uh? Literally, it took one math class at Ball State for me to say and then for it really be like, well, hold on, my dad's account was so great, while the hell of the r s have us living in a one bedroom apartment in the hood. But it just I just figured out, like, man, this account sol that's not for me. That doesn't fit my personality. I got way too much of a personality to be an accountant. And so one of my best friends from high school, uh was also I think two years ahead of me at Ball State, and he was a journalism major at Ball State. And he said to me and goes like, dude, man, you read the newspaper every day, you love sports, you should be a sportswriter. Switch your major to journalism. Guy's named Sean for brush and I immediately switched my major to journalism. And so at eighteen and a half, nineteen years old, I was like, oh, man, I know exactly what I'm gonna be. I'm gonna be Mike Royko. Mike Royko was a columnist in Chicago that at one Peep with Surprises. I started reading him. Uh, probably when I was in fourth or fifth grade, And so as soon as I switched my major journalism, and I was like, Oh, I'm to be the sportswriting version of Mike Royko. Now I was also a newspaper reader. And for a lot of people out there, that's gonna be like, who are younger? They're gonna be like, oh my god, you know sports Pacer. Sports newspaper writing is so outdated in many ways. But even now I get the New York Times in the Wall Street Journal delivered to my house. I enjoy reading both every day. How did you come to start reading the newspaper in fourth or fifth grade? What connected you to it? Uh? The Indiana Pacers. H It was. I was a huge Pacer fan. My dad took me and my brother the Pacer games. That was our way of bonding and My dad is a huge newspaper reader, and so the only way I could follow the Pacers was in the inn Appa Star, in in Appa's News, and so that's what I did. You know, they're particularly they play those late night West Coast games or whatever, and you wake up the next morning and read about it in the paper to trying to get up to speed. But it was my love of the paces that made me read the local newspaper. And again for people out there listening, this is how I got into the newspaper too. I was a huge Cincinnati Reds fan, and they would oftentimes play on those West Coast games against the Dodgers, the Giants, whatever. It was too late for a young kid to watch, and so I would get up in the morning and devour the devour the box score, right like what happened? Who got hits? I was a huge Eric Davis fan. Uh you know, he was trying to get forty forty home runs still forty bases in the same season, and I was obsessed with it. So so that was how I really kind of got into reading newspapers, was seeing my dad read the sports section and wanting to actually see the box scores. So you're you're reading then, and I mean it's kind of a window to the world as you expand beyond the sports page sometimes, right, Yeah, I accidentally probably read a different section of the paper, uh, and stumbled across Mike Royko and so he syndicated all over the countries based in Chicago. And my mother again, because I love to read about the Pacers and a lot of times back in those days and they pay all play on the West Coast, the morning paper didn't have the story and it would be the afternoon paper that would have the story of the nights before game. So my mother started getting the afternoon paper because she I was obsessed with the Pacers and reading. And so in the Indianapolis News, they used to run Mike roy Coast columns in the A section of their paper like three times a week. I don't know what made me open up the A section, the non sports section part of the paper, but but I did. Right across some column he wrote that I think upset me. I think I've disagreed with But I just started looking for this guy's work because he was fast, senating, he was entertaining. Its hell, he wasn't pc Uh, he really stuck it to politicians, uh and so, and he just had this common sense view. And so half the time I fault, man, it's the greatest thing I've ever read. The other half I kind of disagreed with and thought, man, I can't believe micro ray Coo said this. But the dude just struck me as honest and authentic and real. And he reminded me to be honest. And I didn't know this at the time, but later I found I was true. He reminded me of the kind of people that hung out of my dad's bar in the inner city. And it's funny because Mike Royko some you know, middle aged white dude. But I come to find out later in life, like, oh, Mike roykos family owned a bar in a in a Polish neighborhood, working class neighborhood, and uh, he just like me. He used to sit on his dad's bar stool and just talk to the working class mail man, factory workers or whatever. And so it started to make sense like, oh, you know, even though there's thirty years different problems between me and Mike Royko, our perspective was kind of the same. We both grew up sitting in our dad's bar, talking to working class people, me talking to working class black people, him talking to working class white people. But a lot of our perspective and just authenticity came from the same place. How much time do you spending your dad's bar and starting at what ages? Uh? I mean, we me and my brother as just little kids, because my dad had a bar called Jimmy's Jay Bar j that was pretty nice. My dad built it, him and his brother and a couple other guys. They built it by hand themselves, and so that's what on weekends when my dad would come get us, we would, as little kids, go help them build the bar, and you know by help me, go get me there, go get me that, you know, turn that music down. Whatever. It was just a way of hanging around with my dad and being around him and so uh once it was built. Uh, during the daytime, any weekend we were with my dad. Uh, you know, we hung out at his bar. Uh and sometimes even at night, but he put us back in his office at night and we wouldn't get to actually hang out, you know, at night. But during the day we said, right on the bar stool and all day from you know, he'd get there at eleven and would open a noon and we might leave at six o'clock. Uh and and so that was a lot of my weekend as a kid. Uh. You know, I idolized my dad. My dad was spectacularly dressed, good looking, Billy Dee Williams knockoff. He was kind of my idol and you know, hanging out at his bar was one of the greatest things that I got to do as a kid. How many hours would your dad work a week? Uh? You know, in the bar business, if you're not there counting the money, trust me, somebody else is taken it. So he would get there at eleven and he would get home about three thirty a m uh And again, I want to keep it all the way. Really, a lot of that was business, but a lot of that, again was my dad was a good looking Billy Dee Williams ladies man, and he enjoyed on on the bar. He loved it. And so but but yeah, my dad worked six days a week, uh at his bar for every day that, you know, except you know, get he win a couple of years where he was really on his ass, except for those two years where he didn't on a bar. But again, at that time. He then he worked for someone else that was that did on a bar. But my dad, as far as long as I know, it worked six days a week and he pretty much worked from eleven am till close. So in some way, growing up with somebody like your dad who had an entrepreneurial spirit and also worked hard, I mean that's a work ethic that you kind of pick up on, right. I mean you said now with starting off the interview, you work a lot of hours too at what you do. Yeah. I think that that's both my parents. You know. My mother was again was a factory worker. Took a second job to get me and my brother, uh up out of the hood. I don't really remember either one of my parents ever missing work. Uh, you know, and it's working and you know, taking care of yourself. Providing for yourself was a big part of both of their identities. You know. After my parents got divorced, my mother was determined, uh, she was never going to be dependent upon anybody ever again. Remarry No, Uh, she did not remarry, and partially just out of her fears independence and she didn't want to make any compromised decisions about her son. My dad was irate with my This is after they divorced. She was irate with my mother about moving us out to uh this working class, uh predominantly white neighborhood and school system. My mom my dad was you know, very very pro black lived, like living in all black environments, like working in all black environments. He thought my mother made a us mistake moving us out to Warren Central High School. But my mother's was like, look, man, I'm not gonna have my kids. Me and my kids are gonna live in some neighborhood where we don't feel safe, and so I gotta feel safe. I'm divorced. I don't want my kids in this neighborhood by themselves while I'm out working. And I mean, look, it turned out to be a spectacular decision, and my father apologized for later in life because that was one of their biggest disagreements in divorce where me and my brother lived. Uh, and you know, it turned into a spectaculars and particularly my father got more comfortable once they started busting in. The school was more even racially. But uh, you know that both of my parents fiercely independent, fiercely hard working, UH just didn't want to ask anybody for anything. I grew up in Indianapolis, move out to the new school. Did you ravel very much as a kid? Did you get did you get to go anywhere on vacation? Do you remember anything where you were exposed to other than maybe the newspaper, television obviously different parts of the country outside of the Midwest. Outside of the Midwest. Not a great deal, but we did. My mother again a hustler to the end. Uh. She took me and my brother to Disney World, probably when I was in second or third grade. Uh. She saved up a bunch of money the first time I ever flew. But we flew down to Disney World in Florida and Orlando, Florida for a vacation. Probably spent five days at disney World. Uh, most amazing experience. I remember. I was so afraid to fly. My grandmother gave me a Bible to hold in my lap uh as we flew down to Florida, and I retrolled onto that Bible because I was scared to death to fly and I thought we were gonna crash. Uh. That's the biggest vacation I can remember. But I can also remember, Uh, my mother was friends with a guy that had a limousine service. And he loaned my mother one of his limousines, and my mother piled up her kids, her sister's kids, and her sister, and I said also maybe, yeah, I think maybe her brother's kids as well. We all hopped in this limousine, probably fifteen of us, and drove the four hours to St. Louis and stay with the Six Flags, uh for like two days a theme park there, and I can remember we all went to some fancy steak restaurant. Uh. So those are the two big vacations that I can remember growing up. But that was about it. Other than that, I don't remember leaving Iniapolus too much. Mom drove the limo herself. Yes, that's awesome. Now, when you're at Disney World, you haven't been outside of Indianapolis very much. You suddenly walk into the happiest place on Earth. You said, you remember it still well to this day. Did it seem like such a culture shock? You're on that airplane, you got the Bible, You're afraid you're gonna crash. You land in Orlando, Florida had to seem like a crazy place compared to in general, you know, Indianapolis, Indiana, just the colors and the vibrancy and everything else associated with it. I mean that had to be still an eye opening experience, right. It was, But I don't know if I had experienced it in that way as an eye open I just experienced it like this is incredible. I get to get on rides every day. At night, my mother would give me and my brother five dollars a piece and we go to a game room because we stayed at the actual theme park and they had some game room, and we take those five dollars twenty quarters and that right for twenty quarters and just go to that game room and have fun every night. We got to go swimming every day. I just remember thinking it was the funnest four or five days I've ever had my life. And it you know, here I am Versuly forty five, forty six years later, and I can still remember. Be sure to catch live editions if I would kicked the coverage with Clay Travis week days at six am Eastern, three am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio. I this is Wins and Losses with Clay Trevis. Here's more from his conversation with Jason Whitlock. Okay, so we circled around there. But I want to go back to you. At you at Ball State. You walk onto that campus in Muncy, Indiana, you start off as an accountant, you decide you're gonna be a journalism major instead on the football field. Were you a disinterested athlete? Were you? They're almost aware, Hey, I want to get an education. Now? What was your thought process at nineteen years old at Ball State? As I said, my Ball process was, I'm about to have the Animal House movie experience. And so I just remember the first weekend there to be quite just getting drunk as hell long and Little King's beers and thinking that, Wow, this is amazing. Uh. And I remember not being nearly as committed to football as I should be. Uh. I came with just the absolute wrong attitude. My high school football team was a powerhouse. We were nationally ranked and in some ways we had better facilities than even Ball State. And I came with an attitude that I was better than this place. I should have been in some Big ten school. And my attitude was just all wrong. I came in out of shape and just had a terrible fresh spend year, but had the time of my life on campus. Uh. Got a one point oh my first semester in college because I barely attended classes because I was quite frankly, just hungover and disinterested in the whole thing. And just my freshman year was just kind of a blur. I was in constant trouble with the football coaches and scrambling to try to make up for a horrible, horribly bad first semester of academics of ball State. But I was just making friends and just having the time of my life. When does that start to shift? Did you ever commit yourself to football at all? Or was it just kind of a one ft in process throughout UH Me and the offensive line coach at that time started a very hateful relationship. I couldn't stand the guy. And keep in mind, and this is what I was there. I was probably their top recruit coming in. They had high expectations for me. Great kid captured this nationally ranked football team, and I was a major disappointment. And so for two years, ME and the offensive line coach just went to war. He left took another job someplace else, and so in my third year as a Red Church sophomore, I got a new offensive line coach, and I just took on a whole new attitude. Now, trust before this guy left. I tried to quit the football team my second year and I called my parents. I called my mom first and and told her I was going to quit, and she said she was living in Kansas City. She said, well, good luck with your dad, because you're sure as hell can't come here if you quit that football scholarship. I called my dad and looked, there, you know, I can come work for you at your bar, and he goes, man, you take you. I asked the kids the city, because you can't come here if you quit that football scholarship. And so that was kind of my wake up moment. And shortly after trying to quit and my parents not allowing it, UH, the offensive line coach left and I got a new offensive line coach, a guy that name of Lawrence Cooley, and my whole attitude and approach changed, and sure enough, a guy that was playing in front of me he quit the team, and the next thing you know, I was in the playing rotation and the next year I was a full time starter, and you know, football kind of took off for me for two years. Having said that, I played my fourth year with a torn a c l UH. That was misdiagnosed by the doctors. Was just stretched blah blah blah. Uh, and so I ended up my fifth year not playing. One of the one of my other biggest regrets of life was not playing my fifth year of college because I was just I was just tapped out on football and I shouldn't have been, and I wanted to focus on journalism and preparing for the rest of my life. It's a decision I regret, but it's a decision and paid major dividends for me. My fifth year school, I was an actual student. I started writing for the school newspaper. My grades skyrocketed. Uh. It's the It's the only real preparation I did for my career was working for the school newspaper. Because again, back in those days, all the journalists they'd start taking internships as freshman, sophomores, and juniors, and really they would have worked for the school newspaper for three and four years. I'm so glad I had that fifth year school where I could do the at and and start get my journalism career on track and get it started. But I really regret not playing that fifth year of football. Uh, because once I got away from football, I realized exactly how much I loved it and missed it. And but but it worked out for me career wise. I don't I think if I had played football my fifth year in college, I'm not sure I would have made it as a journalist. What if your mom or dad had allowed you to quit football, what would you be doing now? Oh? I probably would have went back to Indianapolis and started working for my dad in the bar business. And I probably would own my dad's bar, the Masterpiece Lounge, and in the inner city of Indianapolis. And my dad, you know, my dad's passed on and so I I'd probably still be running a Masterpiece Lounge, all right, So you have that. Uh And and by the way, do you think that would have been a happy life? Do you think you would have had regrets? I mean, what, that's a big difference between having your own television show as you do now on national television and and running a bar in Indianapolis. But do you think you would be sitting at the bar like questioning your decision making or do you think you would have ended up happy as a bar owner too? That that's a that's that's tough. But my dad would probably say, I would be miserable because he would say, like, oh, he that I wasn't really built to run his bar, and and and because and I really was. My bad is one of the toughest human beings I know. And so I'm gonna say a couple of things that some of your listeners probably won't understand. But if you know anything about the inner city, and you know anything about the kind of bar are my dad ran, you had to be tough. People had to be afraid of you, and in order to survive or they were in the inner city where my dad's bar, people are gonna take advantage of you if you were not willing to pull out your thirty eight Revolver with the intent of using it if someone got out of hand. And my dad was that kind of tough and unafraid. I've never I my dad carried his third a revolver every day that I knew it, I wouldn't want. I don't think I was built to be that person to carry a gun every day and know that, you know, things could get out of hand. And again, I don't want to paint the Masteries Lounge to something where something happened all the time, because it didn't the bars open three hundred days a year or three hundred days of a year. You know, some thing may happen once or twice a year, but you always gotta be prepared for those one or two times. And I'll never forget the my when my dad passed away, I threw a big party at the Masterpiece Loue. It was the last day that the Witlocks owned and operated the Masterpiece Louge. It was all illegal. I'm sure if the government's listening, we probably get sued. Because my dad was dead, we didn't have the liquor lis. But anyway, we threw this big party, uh for all. And I can remember when I closed up, when we closed up the bar at three am, in the back behind my dad's bar, right outside in the back, there were like three guys just beating the dog shit out of somebody. We just as I'm about to lock up in the back, I'm just looking at these three guys beat the ship out of this dude. And I can remember a lock up the place and saying myself, yeah, I couldn't deal with this. This is not the life that I was built for. Um. And so you know what, I've been happy, probably not what I found some contentment, probably, but I don't think running the Masterpiece Lounge was what I was meant to do in this life. You graduate from Ball State, it's you got that journalism degree. How did you get your first job and what did it pay? I got my first job basically from begging every newspaper in the country to even consider hiring me. How, as I said, sending out letters like to the newspapers letters, yeah there were, I don't there was no email in and so you're writing letters to damn me, every newspaper in the country, reece your resume. Here's examples of my clips. And basically everybody told me you're not qualified, and they were absolutely right. I had spent one year working for the school newspaper. All of my peers at the newspaper had spent three or four years. They had done internships with major newspapers or local newspapers. I hadn't done any of those things, and so I just kept writing newspapers. And finally the Bloomington Herald Times in Bloomington, Indiana looked at my resume and said, oh man, this guy's a former college football player and all that, and and the blooms In Here Old Times. Their writers remembered me from high school because I was such a dominant high school player. The bloom Canerild Times ran the most prestigious all state team, the Bloomin Herold Top thirty three, and I had been named to that and again we were this nasty ran team was a couple of sports like, oh man, that's at Jason Black and blah blah blah. I wonder we should take a flyer on him. And so they offered me a part time job at five dollars and twenty five cent an hour for twenty thirty hours worth of work a week. So you moved to Bloomington, Indiana. Yeah, and for twenty or thirty hours a week? Where do you live? I lived in a one room efficiency, probably two miles from the office, but you know it's blooming because where Indian University is, And so I just lived like a very poor college student, uh, in a one room efficiency that you know, it was equipped with roaches and everything. I shared it with a few roaches or whatever. But yeah, that's down the street from the newspaper in a one room efficiency. And you do that for how long? I did it for eleven months, and uh, the you know, they were right in terms of my qualifications for a full time job. Uh, but they were also right that I had a work ethic that was going to help me improve rather quickly. And so Bob Hammel, Bobby Knight's best friend, was the sports editor at the time, and I basically just one. I lived in one room efficiency, so I just lived at the office. I chewed up at the office at eight in the morning, and i'd leave at midnight, and you know, i'd go out and do my assignments, and they would mark it all up and heavily at it and try try to teach me, you know, to catch up with everybody else. And I did a lot of work on my own. And uh so they I did a great job there. I had a great work ethic, I had dramatic improvement. Uh. They all loved me, but there was no room for me to be a full time or triter there. And so I the whole time I'm there, I'm writing other newspapers, continuing to beg for a full time job or ask for a bang. It's not the right word. And eventually the Charlotte Observer, because because of I wrote this very impressive autobiography about myself. They asked me to write a story about myself and I did, and that made the Charlotte Observer take a chance on me and offer me a chance to try out for two weeks for a full time job at the Charlotte Observer. So you've never been to Charlotte. Before you get into a car, you get onto an airplane, how do you get to Charlotte and what did you think when you arrived in that city. I flew to Charlotte because it's a two week trial and it's the first time they've ever done a trial. But they said that this autobiore if I wrote was so impressive, and they put me in a little hotel like a Red ruffin for for two weeks, and I worked at the Charlotte Observer and they had with a bureau and Rockhill, South Carolina covering high school sports. And I did a try out there for two weeks and at the end of the trial, they offered me a full time job at four hundred three dollars a week. Four hundred and three dollars a week. So when you tell your parents about you know, your job status, what's dad and Mom's response when you say you're moving to Charlotte, because that's a lot different than you. They're ecstatic. They were proud of you. Oh yeah, this is it's the Charlotte Observer. Back then, you know, the Charotte Reserver had a great reputation. And when you're making five dollars and five cents an hour and your parents are still sending your little spirit change, you know, four hundred three dollars a week, and and what that sounded like a ship ton of money to me and them. All right, so you do that? How long do you what? What kind of work did you do at the Charlotte Observer. I covered high school sports and little league sports. And then because I was a hustler, I recognized that, you know, I can cover these high school sports, and that's one thing. But if I really want to move ahead, I got to find the niche here that's not being covered there will get me some attention. Because when you worked in one of those bureaus, they had their own little section of the paper, like called the rock Hill Observer or something of the York Observers called a local news section that's a supplement to the regular paper. Yes, and the only way to get any attention was to get into the regular newspaper. So what I did is I got there. I was like, well, hold on, man, at this time, rap music is becoming a big deal in American politics. And it's like Sister Soldier at that time got into it where Bill Clinton was talking about her. And then at that time, all black kids, including myself, we're wearing those Malcolm X hats with the X on the hat. And so I started pitching stories to the main newspaper about, hey, man, you should let me write a piece about what does it mean to wear these X hats? Two kids even recognize the significance of the do they know? Is it just a fad or do they really know? And they I started pitching basically black ideas to the Charlotte Observer. They didn't have anybody to execute them, or no one even thought this way, and so I did a story about kids wearing Malcolm X hats. The singing group Jodice was from Charlotte, North Carolina, and they became a big deal when I was there. They didn't have anybody to write about. Jody See this R and B group. I wrote a story about. I got Jody See on the phone, interviewed and wrote a story about him. UH wrote a story about sister soldier Uh Luke, the rapper Luke became a big deal. He did a concert in UH in North Carolina. I went and interviewed him, wrote a story about him. I just started just pitching the main newspaper these ideas that no one else would think of. And it got me a lot of attention. And it it, you know, made me a young star at the Charlotte Observer, and that got me a job in ann Arbor, Michigan, UH, covering the Fab five for the ann Arbor News. And so I was only in Charlotte for like fourteen months. Did the news find you or did you find them? The ann Arbor News contact at me. They they had some editor there I think named ed Petti kevit Uh that had heard about me and the things that I was doing in Charlotte, and so they reached out to me. And so you did you immediately know yes, I want this job? Did you see the Fab five coming? Uh? What? How? How did you make the decision to move from because I'm assuming Charlotte's a young, rapidly growing city. You've obviously got the voice or the ear of of editors there. You're writing interesting stories that no one else is writing. Was that a difficult decision? How did you make the decision to go to ann Arbor? It's very easy decision because and I don't want to exaggerate this, but this is just facts. No young person ever came to Charlotte and did what I did in fourteen months, and I would say hidden months. And it was like, holy cow, this guy's amazing because I came there not a great writer, but they had an editor there and an editing system that taught me and really accelerated my writing ability. Guy named Bill O'Connor. Got to give him credit. He was a hard ass, but he's great editor. My writing accelerated really quickly. I did all these interesting stories. I crushed it. And so after a year of just crushing it, I think they offered me a thirty dollar a week raise. And I remember what I said. It at me. I go, man, you're crazy after what I just did, You're gonna give me a thirty dollar a week raise? And and I remember they were so upset. They were telling what a percentage raised this was, and that I was crazy for my reaction, and uh, and then like two months later, the ann Arbor News offered me the job that they did and it was for thirty five thousand dollars a year, which was I think I was making twenty five thousand dollars in Charlotte. And when the ant Arvor News offered me that job and it was covering the Fat Five, I was still covering My main job was still covering high school sports. When I was in Charlotte. I had done all this other work, but there was no real promotion and it was just and I can't remember. There was a guy and this guy can't stand because I tell this story all the time. Rich Apple was the editor of the Charlotte Observer at the time, and he remember he hunted me down in the main news room to tell me what a gigantic mistake I was making leaving for the ann Harbor News. And I remember just laughing and leaving. But dude, it was covering the Fat Five, the Fat Five. This I covered them their sophomore years, so they were already this huge, storious freshman and then this like bamn, and I get to go to and up and covered these guys. This is my rocket ship to the moon. All right, let me hit here, because I do think this is instructive. We're talking to Jason Wentlock. Appreciate everybody listening. I think this is instructive for a lot of people, because I always say this, Looking for other jobs if you're happy is an interesting decision, but finding out how your current job values you is often instructive in terms of where you can go going forward. Right, And I've been through this situation. I think a lot of people who are listening to us have as well. That raise that they offered you was indicative that they may be thought your ceiling was not as high as you thought it was, right, And so finding out how you're valued by your employer, even if you don't like the dollar figure, is oftentimes very helpful in allowing you to make decisions about what to do and where to go forward. Right. I mean, because that is I think something that everybody in their life, at some point in time, you will think you're worth a lot more money than you're offered, and you'll have a choice, do I can up and take less, or do I potentially go elsewhere. My advice a lot of times is when somebody undervalues you, that's a sign of where they think you can go. Sometimes it's not a bad move to then start looking around, because going back to you, if the Charlotte Observer had doubled your salary, you probably would have stated Charlotte right, probably and probably, but maybe not, because again, me and the Charlotte Observer had a couple of little just disagreements because here they come in with the thirty dollar raise and I get it in newspaper and based on percentage, this is an amazing blah blah blah. But to me, the way I interpreted was, y'all won't come off this narrative that you're doing me a favor. It doesn't matter what work I put in. And because again they made me. Never in the history of the newspaper had they made someone come in and do a two week trial, and so that that was already and so I have no problem. I'll come in. I got no problem, and I knock it out of the park during those two weeks when they sent me down to offer me the full time job. I'm not gonna say the lady's name because she's not a bad person and I'm not saying this to embarrassing, but she tries, she tells me in that meeting. You're an Affirmative Action higher and you know, we really feel good about what we're doing here, and and and literally I'm not making this stuff. I go, hey, hey, hey, I'm not all affirmative Action higher. I just did a two week trial where I just showed you what I can do. So either you're hiring me because I just showed you what I could do, but you're not hiring me because you're doing me a favor and you're meeting some affirmative action quota. And she got all taken aback, no one. And here I was, this four year old in need of a for talk job, talking to her this way, and and she got taken aback and and and pushed back, and I pushed back even stronger. I was like, don't give me no job out of a favor. I just came in here and kicked ask for two weeks. She basically just we agreed to disagree. She gave me the job, and that's what motivated me. I was like, Oh, they think they're doing me a favor. I'm gonna come in here and destroy this place and destroy it with my work ethic, not in a bad way, not called see anybody problems. But they put it after my first year there, they put it in my written evaluation, Jason works too much. He needs to do other things besides work. But I was so instant that they thought they were doing me a favor. I was like, I'm gonna destroy everybody, and that's what I did. And no one can deny it because they've never seen anybody come in one year that inexperience and do the kind of work get all the a one stories they had people working in the main knit newsroom that might get one story on the front page of the Charlotte Observer a year. I did it like five times in a six month period on my as a side job. And so when they come with the thirty dollar raise after I just put on Michael Jordan's displayed for a year, I'm even further piss because I'm like, Oh, they won't come off this original narrative that they're doing me a favor, and they have some little glass ceiling that they have for me, and so I was like, Oh, I can't wait to get up out of here. I'm gonna show these people. You go to the news, a smaller newspaper, right, but you think because of what the Fab five has meant to the culture and the stories of sports in year one, that that's an incredible story to step into for year two. So you walk in to cover Michigan in the middle of the Fab five era, and you walk in and how many beat writers are covering the University of Michigan at the time. Um, I would say day to day five or six. You know, you certainly have the Detroit Free Press and let Detroit News News, the ad Arbor News, and a couple of the other little surrounding newspapers. I would say, covered up on a day to day basis. Are you the only black guy who's covering him on a day to day basis? Uh? Yes, be sure to catch live editions if I would kicked the coverage with Clay Travis weekdays at six am Eastern, three am Pacific, Clay Travis dives deep with Jason Whitlock on the Wins and Losses podcast. So, and you're also young in addition to being black. You're like two years old at this point. So you're not that much older than Chris Webber, than Juwan Howard, than Jalen Rose, all those guys, right, You not at all. So, just from a youth and also from a culture perspective, you probably connect better with those guys than most of the people who are covering them. That'd be fair to say, no question. I certainly the advantage I had is I could hear things others couldn't, you know, in term, there was no slang they could use, any coded language they could use that I couldn't pick up on. There was no body language that I couldn't read. And so yeah, I could read those kids. I felt better than my competition. What was your relationship like with them? Uh? Pretty good? Uh, you know, because it was more of a sparring relationship because I certainly have my point of view, and uh, you know, not all of it did they agree with. Because I remember I wrote a colin It was very popular there. The Malcolm X movie I think, came out during that time when I was there, and I wrote a column what would Malcolm X think about the Fab five? And it wasn't probably the most positive thing you could write. Uh, But those guys didn't mind sparring with me. They were young and had their own thoughts and so, uh, you know. Jalen Rose and uh was certainly a guy that's not afraid to speak his opinion or whatever. But I gotta I remember what I got along pretty well, because I can remember. I wrote a story where I went and played video games at Chris Webber's apartment. I went and played video games with him and his apartment uh in ann Arbor, and wrote a first person story about that of Juwan Howard and I out along pretty well. He had a friend named Juice that I was very tight with. Uh. Probably Ray Jackson as the guy got along with the best. Jimmy King was pretty distant. Uh. But it was a good experience. But you know, even more than that, or even in addition to that, my football coach at Ball State was a long time Bosham Beckler assistant coach, and so my whole Ball State's entire football program when I played there was based off the Michigan football program, and so that gave me tremendous insight also into my coverage of the University of Michigan football team, and so I just I went gangbusters in a and Harbor covering the fat Fire basketball and the University of Michigan football. I had so much interesting insight and so many interesting things to say that you know because they are where they start letting me occasionally write a column and opinion piece in addition to covering the teams, and my column there quickly became you know, must read and the biggest thing going in that area. What video games you play with Chris Webber? Do you remember man I meane I techn Mobol. I don't think it was. It may have been tech Mobile, I I don't remember. I really don't. Do you have any kind of relationship with those guys now? No, it's weird. I think Chris Webber and I had some disconnect, probably because I didn't like the way he handled that Ed Martin situation that got him in trouble. And uh, I think I wrote some when he was in the NBA during his NBA career. I I wrote some things critical. But it's like we follow each other over Twitter. But I don't communicate with Chris. I do communicate with Jalen Rose. I think we have the mutual respected affinity for each other. We're both very close to Isaiah Thomas Um and I'm a I'm a fan of Jalen's media career. I've supported his school to his Detroit Leadership Academy in Detroit. Uh. And when I've seen Juwan back during when the when he was playing with the Heat, and so was Lebron James. We're very cool. His friend Juice passed away and I remember talking to him about that, but I can't say I'm particularly close to any Hum. How many hours a day would you say you were working when you were covering the beat for Michigan and Harbor. Uh. That was very intense, and so I would say fourteen hours a day because that was so intense and so competitive. Uh. They the Detroit News had a guy named Jim Spatiford that covered the team, who was very good, and for some reason, Greg I can't remember Greg's last name, UH covered for the Detroit Free Press. Uh. Greg ended up being a columnist down in Florida for somebody. I can't remember Greg's last Greg Stolda. Uh. Those guys very good, very experienced, twenty years older than me, but they were very good, had connections which matter in the beat now. In those days. Two, for people out there who may not be aware, you would wake up every morning, look the newspapers of your competitors as well as your own, and be like man, I hope I didn't get scooped because the internet doesn't exist, right, and you don't necessarily know what those guys are writing. Yeah, you got those new papers delivered to your home, or you r into the mailbox first thing every morning to make sure you didn't get your brains beat in the day before. Yeah. Do you remember a time when one of those guys had a story and you were like, odd day, I can't believe that. You know, it had to happen right over a couple of years. Yeah, listen, the biggest one. I remember that, and I remember not sleeping for like twenty four hours. Or Jalen Rose got bleusted at a crack house and I think Grigg Stoder broke that story and I had to chase that story for the next twenty four hours. Uh, yeah, that's that's one I remember very distinctly. So you're there two years, I think, right, So you're there and you said you sometimes got to write opinion columns. Did you recognize that your opinion columns were a strength of yours, like you're obviously the goal at that point in time for people who aren't familiar with the the newspaper kind of pecking order. The beat writers all want to be in the opinion business, right, and you have to work your way up too deep all but a lot of them, a lot of them do, uh, And you have to work your way up typically to the opinion business. There's a seniority scale things like that. Was that a goal and aspiration of yours pretty concretely at that point in time? Yea. As soon as I switched my major to journalism of ball State again, I wanted to be the micro roy Co of sports, and so that meant having a column and writing opinion pieces. And yes, as soon as the first column I wrote in Aunt Harbor was uh, Elvis Grback had gotten heard at quarterback at Michigan and he had been replaced by Todd Collins, who played very well. And I wrote a column saying that Todd Collins should remain michigan starting quarterback. And as you got to remember the time, as mundane as that opinion sounds today, that's sounded like the hottest take, the most daring thing you could ever write in the history of newspapers. For someone to write that Todd Collins should replace Elvis go Back as the full top starter in Michigan, that was a really big deal. And that made the people in Ann Harbor have a big appetite for my column, and my column actually became like the steroid, the great equalizer. That's what made me competitive with the other beat writers is that one they didn't have the opportunity to write opinions, and two my opinions were really provocative and different than Mitch. Album was the king of colin writing, not just in Michigan but across the country at that time. And Mitch didn't really delve into opinions. He wrote very flowery game stories that tried to evoke emotion or tried to reset the scene of what transpired. There was nobody really writing strong opinions and that market at that time, and that, um, you know, put med on equal footing with guys with far more experience in me. I should asked this question earlier. Do you remember the first time somebody came up to you and recognized you for something you wrote? Uh, that wouldn't have known you before, right, I mean, obviously in the newspaper office they can say, hey, that's a great piece of work or whatever. But at what point do you remember or at what point did it begin to occur where people might come up to you and say, hey, I read what you wrote and have an opinion on it one way or the other. I I don't the strongest memory I have of that isn't a direct answer to your question. When I was in Charlotte, I wrote one opinion piece and it was mc hammer was coming to town and he was the biggest deal in rap music at that time, and I wrote as I wrote a column saying mc hammer was a terrible rapper and started talking about all the rappers who were better than him, and the local radio station in Charlotte nearly had a heart attack and called me and had me on to interview me about the piece. And they just thought that I was a shiny Martian from out of town. I can't believe this guy wrote this blah blah blah, And so that I remember that more so than anyone ever stopping me on the street and saying anything. What was the reaction that the first time you really went on the interview for an opinion piece that you had given the m C. That's actually really interesting. MC hammer is a bad rapper, which, by the way, you were correct. I don't think people right now are like, hey, who were the greatest rappers of all time. I don't think there's ever been anybody who's like, I think it's mc hammer. It's just amazing that. Again, in newspapers back during that time, they had no one to write that, and that created such an opportunity for me, because rap was this really big gun. They had no one on staff who could even remotely cover it. And so I can remember that just the reaction at the newspaper and people calling in the newspaper upset or like, man, I can't believe this guy wrote this, and then for the radio station to call me an interview with me. It was. It was an amazing time to be a black journalist with balls back then. All right, so we're gonna circle back around to this, but the Elvis Grback versus I think it was Todd Collins. I can't even remember that that debate. After you write that column, you walk into the Michigan Football Complex the next time after you've done it, could you feel the attention being different than for other things that you had written before that, No question, I was radioactive, and it's like, again, people didn't do that at that time. I mean, that was just like people who don't understand this is still a big deal. But like, you don't question in the hometown of the newspaper that aggressive very often, you know, sometimes you say like the beat writer has golden handcuffs, like yes, you're there, but you can't really go that far because you've got to show up every day and ask questions and and your job is in some way predicated on access right, no question. But I've never been an access to journalist, even even though I would create something and again I went to Chris Webber's apartment Man Harbor and had the ultimate access. But I've just never been that guy. And and that's from it goes all the way back to my days as a kid Readeem Apple Star. I used to always be upset with the writers because I was like, Oh, these guys are writing these stories for the coaches and the players. They're not writing them for me, the reader. And that was one of the things that when so as I switched my major to journalism, other than thinking about Mike Royko, was I was like, Oh, I'm always going to write for the reader. Screw the athletes and screw the coaches. And so you know, I can't remember all the things that I wrote that but Steve Fisher, the head coach of the Michigan basketball team. This dude couldn't stand the sight of me mad, So, I mean, he tried to manipulate everybody to dislike me and be afraid of me. Investment. So just imagine Steve Fisher whitlock is it Chris Webber's house playing video games? And I hate this guy, But those guys had to also trust you to bring you into the house and let you play video games with him, right, I mean on some level, at least back in that time, in or whatever year that was, Chris Webber is not having a lot of other reporters. I bet over to play video games at his place. Yeah, No, he definitely trusted me and definitely moved that. I didn't care that his he lived in this plush apartment, right, and I certainly wasn't there to write about how plush his apartment was or whatever. Uh, but yeah, there was a look, man, kids, young people are attracted to rebellion, and I was very rebellious and I upset, you know, the teachers and the head coach, and so that's going to end up making me more attractive to the acts to the athlete. There's no doubt about that. All right, So you're at You're at Michigan for two years, you're having success and your goal, as you said, since Mike Royko's columns, you decided when you were in college you wanted to do for for sports what he did for sort of politics, general interest in the city of Chicago. I think it was right at the time. Um so how do you end up getting that first column? This job, the work that I did in Ann Harbor and they reach out to you. You start getting requests from other people who are seeing your clippings. At that point in time, the Internet doesn't exist, so you get picked up in other newspapers. Your name kind of starts to grow a little bit circulate in journal is m circles, and you start to get inquiries from other newspapers. Not I can't look two years is particularly back in that era, that's not a long time on the radar. Yeah, And so I did do a lot of great work that got a lot of attention. And again it's like, uh, Dick Bital would reference my work while broadcasting a Michigan basketball game. All that kind of stuff is big in terms of raising your profile. But someone and you can't remember. My mother lived in Kansas City for a time being and someone, a friend in the newspaper business, said, hey, man, I heard they have a columnist opening in Kansas City. You should apply for it. And again, because my mother had lived there for ten years, I was familiar with Kansas City. I applied for the comments job and sending my clips and a letter explaining and sure enough, you know the sports are the knsee started dale By. He was looking for a columnist who would come in and shake things up and kind of duplicate what I had done in ann Arbor. Just come in and be an outspoken voice and a guy that was fearless. Uh. And so I probably sent him the letter and heard from him a week later. They probably flew me out for an interview a week after that, and probably a week after that they offered me the job. How did you get the offer? I was at my dad's bar, the Masterpiece louds and uh, how that I'm trying. I must have picked up a voicemail off my home phone because I called dale Because I called dale By back from the Masterpiece lounge, and he offered me the job sixty five thousand dollars a year, and I can remember shouting to my father's daddy, he just home for me a job at the Kansas City Start and it was I because I'm an asshole like this, and this is one of the most exciting days of my life because I'm just I am who I am. I remember I told dale By Man, I'm not paying me enough, but I'm gonna take this job anyway. And so you come back out tell your dad and he says what we We have a celebratory drink at the Masterpiece Loungs and we just we just think I've died and gone to heaven. You know, his son is gonna be a columnist here you are. My dad's a big newspaper read Yeah, so I'm gonna be a columnist at seven years old. He's gonna make sixty five thousand dollars just doing will never ask me for another dime. I'm happy. So at this point in your life, your rise is like meteoric, right, because you have gone, in the space of roughly four or five years, from part time work at the Bloomington, Indiana newspaper to now becoming a columnist at a major newspaper in Kansas City. I mean that's unheard of. I mean, that is that media. I mean for people out there who might not understand that rise, how would you classify it? How would you quantify it? Because the newspaper business is so much different now, A ton of people who are listening to us right now might not really understand that trajectory. Clay. In May of n I graduated from Ball State and I am legitimately unqualified for full time work in the newspaper business. For years later, I'm a highly qualified columnist for the Kansas City Start. It's you know, it's an unbelievable so many people Bob Hammel, Bill O'Connor, uh dale By, you know, so many people to think who took a chance on me? And I worked really hard? Uh? Why am I thinking of Jeff Larkam, the ed pet of cabs. People took a chance on me in Ann Harbor, and it's it's incredible. In four years again, I put a lot of work in and I didn't I don't think I did anything for four years other than work. Uh, but you know it paid off. And so from May nine to September. Uh, that's a hell of a run. And you know, I get to Kansas City in It's like I'm going to get to live out my dream of being the microy Cole Sports A year in is I mean, did you think that's like that's like unbelievable money. I thought I was under paid, just like I told Bill By so Uh. I again, I came there supremely confident. And it's because the two years of what I had done in ann Arbor, I really know. I just said, Oh, if I just do this all over again, I'm going the results are going to be incredible and and literally I think so. Yeah. September, in April of nine, they called me in at the Kansas City Star and said, hey, man, we've made a mistake. Uh, we want to pay you a hundred thousand dollars and we're gonna pay you a hundred twenty five thousand dollars in next year and a hundred and fifty year after that, and that I didn't ask for it. I didn't know they're want to do it. They just brought me into the office. But from September until April nine, I just I questioned. I mean, I just I just I questioned. I set that city on absolute fire, writing about primarily the Kansas City Chiefs, the Chiefs, the Royals, the Kansas City, Kent, University of Kansas basketball and football, uh, Kansas State, and the University of Missouri. So by set it on fire for people out there who don't understand, like you're writing calling how many days a week that time four or five a week and and I mean it's I'm like, it's it's like a machine man every day. I'm again, you gotta understand how sleepy that market was and just how sleepy the newspaper business was for the most part. And it just they just hadn't seen anything like that. And uh, it was funny stuff, serious stuff, uh, football questioning things. Uh it was you know, it's funny. People sit up and and say, oh man, you're really hard on the Brian James And I just amaged Carl Peterson, the general manager of the Cannessee Chiefs. He has to be laughing. He's like, because I was so hard on this dude and and crushed him just repeatedly. And now I would also praise him when good things happen. But it's like I laughed at people to think like I'm hard and critical of Lebron James. They should go ask Carl Peterson, Marty Shot and Hiro what I did to them, and it's but and again not in in my view, an unfair way, not in a malicious way. I had respect for those guys, and they were really good at what they were doing. But like everybody, you know, they make mistakes and I was there to pound. So you are driving, I'm assuming almost entirely at this point in time, the conversation among sports fans through your column in the Kansas City Star, what is your what? What is your approval rating in the city at that time, because a lot of times columns, you know, fifty degree disagree. That's literally the job, it's to be strongly opinionated. Were people favorable in reacting to you in the city of Kansas City? What did other people think of you? What was your existence like in that city at that time? It was awesome? Uh, look, I can't There were a lot of people that had strong negative reactions to my opinion, but there were just as many people that absolutely loved it. And even the people that disagreed with me, I think just enjoyed the process, like, holy cow, what's we're not gonna say tomorrow morning? And it became an event to go get the newspaper to see what you were gonna be talking about at work the next day. And particularly like the Chiefs games really didn't end until the next morning until you had read my column on them. And uh you know, I was hugely popular in Kansas City. Uh you know. We started having events two for me to meet readers the interact with me. Uh you know, me and the Star started putting them on where you could win a lunch with Whitlock, where I would take thirty forty readers at a time out to lunch and just converse with him. Uh you know, I was, for lack of a better describe, was a rock star in Kansas City. And you know, yes, we're there people there that you know couldn't stand me, absolutely, particularly if you were someone in power who didn't want to be questioned. Yeah, you didn't like me. But if you know, a lot of people there, the mayor Manuel Cleaver there was awesome to me. Uh mentord me while I was there. Ali Gates the Barbecue Barn, mentord me while I was there. Uh Buck O'Neill, the Negro Luis baseball star mentord me while I was there. And we had a new Mayor Kay Barnes, very good friend of mine. Everybody. I used to throw a Christmas party every year. I bring my mother in and we cooked for everybody. And it started out it was in this condo I had, and it started out it was like people. By the end of it, fifteen years later, it was six hundred people at at the eighteenth and Vine Jazz District, at some restaurant where I'm feed and drinking. Six hundred people at Christmas. It was you know, it was a great time. I loved my time in Kansas City. So are you going to basically every game? You're going to all the Royals games yourself? You're a columnist, Now are you writing those columns inside of the inside of the press box? Primarily I'm going to every Chiefs game. I'm going to twenty Royals games a year. Look, I'm just gonna not the most passionate Royals fan or baseball fan. I'm sorry. And then too, and you would have to have been in Kansas City at this time. I was too rough for the Kansas City Royals at that time in terms of the Kandascy Royals. For about the first ten years I was there. Euen Kaufman had passed away and a trust fun was running the Kansas City Royals. Didn't have a lot of money, and my criticism. You almost had to treat the Royals like a charity, and they couldn't handle my level of criticism. And so I stood back and didn't do as much with the Royals as I could have. And then after about two years uh me being in Kansas City, I think in nine seven or so, the Star hired Joe poz Nancy as another columnist, huge baseball fan and expert, and I kind of let him be the Royals guy. Uh and I would again. But my last three or four years in Kansas City, I probably went to ten Royals games a year. Uh. But you know that I just I stayed. You just couldn't be as former world that they were treated like some little charity organization. If you said anything too serious, everybody go winding and crying to the editor and there's up there. But so so what I went to all the Chief's games, all the big Kansas basketball games, any of the colleges they played. I went to a college football game pretty much every weekend. Uh. You know that you went to the Chief's practices you know everything face to face. I'm curious on the process of writing. You get to go on the road, you're everywhere else. Did you have a pager? Did you have a beeper? Like? There aren't cell phones for the early part of your career, How did you get in touch with people? Oh? I think and we may have to hop on the internet, but I think by ninety four, I do think cell phones are out there and available. But when you're covering the the Fab five, did they have cell phones? I'm trying to I didn't get my first cell phone at all, not the Fab five, But I do think by the time I'm in Kansas City, Yeah, I do think I'm having a cell phone. And you're communicating a lot over cell phone, all right, so, uh the Internet doesn't still exist. Then. All of this so far has been about the impact that you can have as a part of the written word, other than the MC hammer on the radio rap rap discussion. When did you start breaking in with radio? And do you remember the first time you did it consistently? And what about TV? Well, as soon as I got to Kansas City, Uh, you know we had sports talk radio there. Yeah. We had some old guy, uh named Don Fortune, who was, you know, fit the sleepy town uh as much as the newspaper did at that time. And so Don Fortune had an instant reaction to me, an instant negative reaction to me. And he did the daily sports talk radio show, three hour talk show drive time in the afternoon. And it was probably the third column I'd written in Kansas cy second or third column I'd written in Kansas City, and it was it was am a comedic column about mocking Kansas and Kandas State football were playing in a ESPN football game that was gonna be televised on ESPN and Kanada State may have been ranked twenty three four in the country or whatever, and this is in this is right win Bill Snyder in Kanda State football are really starting to elevate their quarterbacks some kid I think the named Chad May at the time. And so I wrote a piece, uh talking about kind of sarcastically saying what a big deal this game is that? Uh, you know, Kanada State fans are gonna put on their best clothes tonight and you know, belt buckles, little be twelve ins. It was just something just mocking them as country and hill billy and you know, Kansas is kind of the elitied school, and it was mocking them as elite and the I'm not doing it justice. It was a hysterical piece. Don Fortune acted like it was the worst thing in the world. And how dare The Kansas City Star published this and he called me to have me on his no no, no, I was driving to the game. I take it back, and I'm listening to this guy on radio blast me and I can't believe the Star and published this, and so I called into the guy's radio show as he's land basting me, and we had a big on air argument. Uh uh yeah. And so that started a rivalry between me and the Don Fortune guy. And then that started some young people and younger people in Kansas City to say, man, we need a competing radio station to this Don Fortune. And a guy named Chad Bolger and Kevin Keatsman, I would say, within a year or two launched some little small signal competition to this Don Fortune fifth I think it's called a m and they started doing an afternoon show to compete against Don Fortune, and that I think the next move was high me to do a morning show on that station, and so we ended up building this fifteen ten into a competition for this Don Fortune who worked for Intercom, the national syndicate Intercom Radio that's all over the country. We started competing against them, and then that turned into another station that they acquired, and Kansas City ended up being a city that had two competing radio stations, and I think eventually they fired the Don Fortune and basically and then hired me to go over and compete against the station that I had helped create. Uh so, yeah, I was a part of the launch of sports talk radio in Kansas City. Hopped in it with both feet. Continue to write my column do the Radio Deal? How how many hours were you on a day on radio? When you started? You said you were on in the morning. Were you on every day? Yeah, Monday through Friday. It was a three hour radio show, six to nine to ten or six six to nine him. Were you hosting it by yourself? Initially started off doing it with a guy named Chad Boger, the guy who helped lost the station, and then eventually it turned into Jason Whitlocks neighborhood and I hosted it myself. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at Fox Sports Radio dot com and within the I Heart Radio app search f s R to listen live. The Wins and Losses podcast with Clay Travis continues with special guest Jason Whitlock. Al Right, so you've never done any radio you know that that I'm aware of, at least other than being a guest. How much different was doing radio? Did it help your column? Hurt it? What did you find as you expanded into a new medium? Uh? Help her? Hurt my cow them? I think to be a thousand for said artists. The only thing I could say is that it would hurt my column because again, at six to nine in the morning when I started out, and I'm still going to sporting events that ended night and waking up and so it's just a lot of work. Uh. But it did help elevate my profile. People freaking love reading my column in the morning and then tune it in my radio station the radio show to tell me what they thought of my column. And so I think it overall helped me and you know, the Jason Whitlock brand, overall, I think it was good for that. Uh. But you know, and again I did talk radio in Kansas City. I think for eight years, and I eventually got out because I and I moved to afternoons with was better for my life. But I eventually decided that it hurts my number one passion and that was sports writing, and I felt like if I doubted back and just focus more. And you gotta remember, by this time, I think I'm writing a column for ESPN dot com, I'm appearing on the Sports Reporters, and I just think that local radio, Uh, for the amount of money they were paying me, they were paying me relatively well. But I just felt like if I focused on the writing, I would eventually make back up the money. So again, the rise continues to be pretty pretty astounding. Um, when did you go on television for the first time? So you're good at right? First of all, let me just say this. It's rare that people who are good at writing are also good at radio. And it's rarer still that people who are good at writing and good at radio are also good at TV. You're good at all three, but you don't really know if you're any good at TV until you get to do it. When did you start to do television? How did you get your first opportunity? I think my first opportunity came right there locally in Kansas City. I can't remember the year, but the ABC affiliate had me come on and do sixty ninety second commentaries. Uh, in their sportscast. Why did you write it and then tape it? Like? Did you get that? Howe written? I would write it, then we tape it, then it would air later that day. Did it once a week, Uh, And wasn't very good at it, just to be quite honest. Starting out, I couldn't. I couldn't master it. But again it was a training ground. So I probably did it for a year the station, and then I became a bit inconsistent because again I was doing radio at the time. I was doing my Kndasee Star. I was doing this writing for ESPN dot com, and I was appearing on the Sports Reporters, and my delivery of it for the local station became inconsistent and we just decided to end it. But it did doing that. I did that probably for about ten months, right before I started appearing on the Sports reporters in two thousands. How did you get the invite to do the sports reporters? Uh? Jeremy Schap, Dick Shap's son, was a fan of my column in Kansas City and told his dad that, hey, you guys should have Jason Whitlock on the sports reporters UH and so that, and you know, Mike Luprica. I think if I didn't say this, will will be upset because he likes to take credit. He like to say he was the person that UH invited me to come on to sports reporters. And I'm sure he had something to do and he had to approve everything UH into in some capacity because he had that kind of relationship with the producer Joe Valerio. But it was Jeremy Shapp telling his dad that I would be a good fit on the sports reporters for people who aren't familiar. And I think there will be a lot of people listening right now with the sports reporters. What was it? Why was that significant? Well, the sports reporters at that time, UH was the premier thing a sportswriter could do. It Only the best of the very best got to be on the sports reporters at that time. There there weren't all these There was no part in the interruption, There was no first take, there was no undisputed there was nothing. There was the Sports Reporters and Mike Luprica was on it, Bob Ryan was on that, Mitch Album was on it. Uh, you had Tony corn Hiser, Mike Wilbon. It was the place for the premier sports journalists in America to talk on TV about sports. If you got invited onto the Sports Reporters, that was that was a signal like, oh my god, this guy is one of the best sports writers in the country. And for me in nineteen ninety or in two thousand, I think I'm thirty years old at the time, or uh is everyone around thirty two, thirty three years old at the time, And to get invited to particularly be from in the city, because everybody on that show was from the East Coast basically except for Mitch Album, who was at the Detroit Free Press. And so for them to get someone from the Midwest to come on that show, uh that was a Mitch album. It was just a very big deal. Uh Yeah, I was. You know, when I started out, I was good. Five years later I was great. I was. To be honest, I was actually too good. And that's what got me a cross ways with uh Mike Lupaca and basically got me run off the show. It's you know, Mike Luprica is the star of that show, or was the star of that show, and you know he Mike disagreed with my narrative on steroids, and because you know, they wanted to demonize Barry. Mike wanted to demonize Barry Bonds as if he was the only athlete in the world on steroids and if we just routed him out, you know. And my narrative was like, no, no, no, no, you guys are missed freeding this. If there's money involved, all these guys will use steroids. Then it ain't just very violnes it's pervasive. And as things started playing out as what was the cyclist landing Donovan, No, no, that Lansam from the other guys before him, the side before Lance Armstrong got busted, there was another guy that got busted. I don't even remember that guy. Yeah, even if I'm gonna, I'm gonna look it up at as we talked, but he got busted. Then it just started becoming all these different athletes and other sports and it became crystal clear like my narrative was right. That irritated Lupaca and uh, we had a big confrontation on my final episode of of of the Sports Reporters and this is on air your confrontation, and Joe Valerio told me to go f myself. Was it on air, the conversation, the blow up, Yes, oh yeah, it was everything. It was. It was steroid related and Mike said something about, well, it's all just the w W E or whatever, and then and I was like, hey, man, I said something about, you know, the E and ESPN stands for entertainment and so at the end of the day, that's all this is. It's and again it's it's my narrative hasn't changed. And you know, I keep saying on speak for yourself, it's all just a television show, and I go, that's what money has done to all of these sports, and you're applying all of this integrity and all this other thing. It's just a television show. But yeah, we had a pretty It was a great conversation, to be honest, and it was fascinating TV. And I remember the Pete, Jim Cohen and other people with ESPN like man, that was one of the greatest moments on The Sports Reporters. That was great TV. And I was like, oh, I agree with you, I go, but that ain't the way Mike Lubrica and Joe Valerio see it. They're done with me. And you know I was right again, it just at that time it did not pay to uh disagree with Mike Lubrica on TV, so they tell you to go fund yourself. Do you have any relationship with them at all? Now? No? Uh, since that conversation thirteen or fifteen or whatever it was years ago, you guys basically just ended your relationship. Yes, I've I've certainly. You know, I reached out to Joe Valerio at the time and he was all upset and never you know, hadn't spoken to me since, and uh, Lubrica made it quite clear that you know, I was disloyal. And look, I don't want a bad Mountain Mike lub because everybody knows what Mike is and what he's been and but but I do want to just be facts. I mean, there were times on that show. Anybody that's been on there could tell you, like, if Mike had a segment where he didn't look the best, he would just make you redo the segment because the show was taped. So I just didn't read all the bad signals in terms of and again I was deferential with Mike and all these guys that are older than me to a point, but I was not going to a being in my opinion that hey, look we're making a mistake trying to single Barry Bonds out here. This steroid thing goes well beyond Barry Bonds. And I just wouldn't back off that point. Mike wanted me to. He wanted that to be the point of view of the show. And you know that cost me my spot on the Sports Reporters And that would have been what what year, roughly two thousand five over six And that show was once a week on a Sunday. Is that right? Once a week on a Sundays. And then so it gets uh, you're off television then, and you're off radio, I'm assuming by this point too. So you just plug yourself back in full time to the newspaper writing business in the newspaper. Uh. At that time, I'm still doing ESPN dot com. But shortly after my blow up with Mike and and those guys is when I did the interview with the Big lead that ended my initial relationship with ESPN dot com. I'm writing for page two and how did you page two? A guy named Meal Scarborough was the editor of ESPN dot com at that time, and he hired me, uh to write for page two. I would say in N. I can't remember the exact day, but that's a huge collection of talent they have at the time, right because they got Hunter S. Thompson, They've got to I mean they had a wiley. Yeah. That was that was And that was me recognizing that the Internet was going to be a factor. Do you remember a time when you recognize suddenly, wait a minute, the Internet is gonna matter? Was there, Aha, crystal ball moment for you? Not really, I just knew that I saw very all men, this pays two things. It's kind of cool and if you want to be a player, you need to be in that lane. And look at the freedom and the ability to talk about national issues and blah blah blah. And and already by newspaper by then was already doing what newspapers do that they just start fighting creativity and just want to be safer and safer and safer. And so I could already feel at my newspaper they had already I used to write these hilarious Sunday NFL Picks columns. It was just me making sarcastic jokes and did making a game prediction or whatever. And my newspaper took that away from me. And so I was like, Oh, if I'm gonna be creative and funny, I gotta find a venue for that. And that was page two. And so I just wanted to be over there just because I could get another side of my personality out. And so then you write do an interview with the big lead and I remember this vaguely. What did you say in that interview that was so controversial? I said that Mike Lubrica was a mean spirit of mean spirited busybody. And I said that Scoop Jackson was bo jangling for dollars or whatever. I was critical of Scoop Jackson, who was writing columns for ESPN at that time, and they, for lack of a better describe, they just worked very well written, they worked up to standards or whatever. And he was writing some provocative things about race that uh weren't very well thought out and it irritated me and I thought it was but need the ESPN and and uh, you know, did you know? What did you know? What the funt that it was? That an email interview? How did you write the like to get your It was an email interview was going to be provocative at the time, without question, and I knew that it was gonna cost me my opportunity to write an ESPN at the time. So you at that, Yeah, at that time, I was book ahead done what he had done to me at the Sports Reporters, and ESPN was leaning into the Scoop Jackson deal and I was irritated. And there's some really talented qualified uh African American journalists that they could have been leaning into and uh I was irritated and said what I said in the interview, and you know it is what it is. Was that the first so your your career from I think it was when you start working at the at the or nineteen nine nine, sorry the Bloomington News to all the way up to that interview with the Big Lead. Is basically like if you were charting it, it's like a stock. You just keep rising, right, everything is going really well. Was that the first time? The concept of this interview is wins in Law says, You've had a lot of wins at that point. Obviously, didn't necessarily have a lot in your athletic career at Ball State, but I mean in terms of your professional career, it's all wins. Was that the first time you really hit aggressive, you know, a situation where you could be described as losing a battle. Yeah, I certainly lost that battle. Uh, But I'll say that it was a battle that I was willing to lose because I thought I really just wanted to lean back into being a journalist in two thousand and six, two thousand seven, and I felt that I was a bit stymied at e scre uh and there were other things going on politically at ESPN. And when I say politics, I don't mean politics, just office politics that we're going on that we're limiting me. Uh Neil Scarborough, who had hired me, there had been one out of his position. And so uh Neil is now by the way at Fox right for people who do and you work with him and see him on a regular basis at Fox, Yes, he had been one out of his position, and so there was nobody getting credit for my success. Therefore there was no one interested my success. And which is another good, by the way, business lesson for everybody out there listening. Yeah, and so I needed to take this l and I needed to uh find a different avenue to express my creative activity and work with people that would get credit for my success. And so I had a dispute with ESPN about the worth of my column to page two because I was getting paid much at the time, I was doing it for the access to the platform. And so I just I made those decisions, did that of here with the big League, knowing that okay, things here with the espater over for now. And and I kneel at that time had gone over to a O. L Sports at that time, and I knew that he understood the value of my column because when he saw the clicks, he saw the engagement rate and all that other stuff. And so I would imagine, I don't remember exactly, but he I think he paid me about ten times more for my column than he SCN did uh at A O. L Sports And uh and so and this had that happened around two thousand and six, two thousand and seven, because it was while I was with A O. L Sports, I wrote a column in the Kansas City Start with that don I miss Rutgers basketball thing happened and that's probably, uh the highlight of the peak of my writing career as a journalists. Uh you know that that column. Oprah Winfried liked that column where I talked about how uh black people needed to be more concerned with what we thought about each other, more so than don Imus, the guy that we don't really care about or know much about. Oprah like the column had me on her show talking about that issue for two days, and that column and some other ones were packaged together and I want to National Journalism Award for Commentary from Scripts Howard that was. That was in two thousand seven, and so that was the peak of my journalism career. All came within the year of me leaving ESP. I don't know if you remember this. We didn't know each other at that time, but I read that column. If you have, I don't even remember what your email address was. I think it is an A O L dot com email addressed back in the day, but I wrote you an email if you still have access to any of your archives before we had ever met, saying that I thought it was one of the best sports columns I'd ever read. And and I think I also said hey, and I enjoy I think you were guest hosting every now and then for p t I at that time. Yea, and I wrote saying I enjoyed when you set in for Krnheiser and Wilbon. And you wrote back and said thanks, but you probably don't even remember that. But that is before we ever had met. I had read that column and I'd said, wow, this is a really well done, well thought out column. So that's in two thousand seven. So, uh, you have now been writing for a long time as a daily columnist since and and I think this is interesting for people out there listening. At some point you kind of hinted at this. You want to get and be able to expand your writing universe. It's great to be in this same thing for doing local sports talk radio, but after a while you feel like you've said everything about a local sports market, or at least I did, like you can only talk and I didn't local radio in Nashville. Eventually you get tired, I think of talking about who a certain team is going to take in the NFL Draft, which you do for two months on the radio, right, I mean, that's just kind of the natural outgrowth. So did you feel as if you know what I'm ready for a change. How did you come to leave Kansas City? No, I did not. I am a I love newspapers, yeah, and love feel like newspapers back then, and particularly in the nineties two thousand's during that time, I felt like it was patriotic to work for a newspaper, and I thought it was a contribution to the good of the country. And so I and again, I wanted to be Mike Royko, who was the voice of Chicago for thirty years, and that's what I wanted to be in Kansas City. What it ended up happening over the next three years from two thousand seven to two thousand and ten, is that newspapers just started swinging in a direction that didn't feel like what I got in it for. And you know, newspapers and particularly the Star at that time, we're so concerned about these awards and these annual A. P. S. C. Awards and all this other stuff, and just didn't seem prepared to transition into this new world that we're living in where the Internet is king. And I suggested a bunch of ideas uh to the Kansas City Star about how we could pivot and what we could do on the Internet, and they just weren't interested in them, and that made me reached the conclusion that there was no future for me in newspapers. And that was again. That was a two or three year process that ended in two thousand and ten when I left the Kansas City Star moved here to Los Angeles to work full time for Fox Sports dot Com. What'd your mom say when you left Kansas City? I think she was disappointed and concerned. I think, you know, and keep in mind, by this she had moved back to Indianapolis. Wasn't in Kansas City when I was during my career, she was back in but she still she would come out for events like yeah, for like when you had the parties at the end of the year and things like that. She loved my life in Kansas City. Concerned about me moving to Los Angeles, but uh, you know understood, You know that that she understood. I think she was concerned. Though. What was the reaction when you told him you were leave in the Kansas City Star? Uh? Uh, Well. I did a three hour radio television simulcast called The Explanation, Explaining My decisions James of you, Yes, explaining my decision to leave and Uh, the reaction was, you know, pretty controversial, while because of that three hour explanation was pretty controversial. While but you know, I think I think the candidacy star was ready for me to go in in terms of I don't think my point of view at that time fit where newspapers were headed. My point of view is very independent and outspoken, and American newspapers aren't very independent thinking anymore. And I just I just didn't sit. Be sure to catch live editions about Kicked the coverage with Clay Travis weekdays at six am Eastern three am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio. This is Wins and Losses with Clay Trevis. Here's more from his conversation with Jason Whitlock. Al Right, so I want to ask you this question. We focused almost entirely on your professional life so far. You've never been married. Did you date, did you have serious girlfriends? Did you ever get engaged? Did you ever think like, hey, I'm ready for a domestic life or were you so committed to work and obviously you are working almost full time for many of these jobs that you just didn't never have any time for that. What was your life like in the limited amounts of time that you were not spending working. I certainly dated. Uh, I was briefly engaged in Kansas City. Uh maybe two weeks? Two weeks did get the whole? Uh? Did she call it off? Or did you call it off? No? I called it off. It was it was a horrible decision. Somebody my family and friends liked a lot more than I did, and I got talked into it more than I wanted to do it. Uh it you know, me and the woman probably dated backup forth for ten years. Was a long time, and so but you know, it was a bad relationship. I should you know, I made some awful decisions relationship wise that have haunted me. Uh you know, and because who knows. I doubt you'll ever hear this, but who knows? But I I missed out on the two women I should have married because I was you know, on again off her a game relationship with this particular person and could never get all in on the two women that uh I met in Kansas City that I probably one of them I definitely should have married, uh and the other one I think I should have but uh, it just in Kansas City. Yeah, I certainly had a long term relationship that uh wasn't wasn't the healthiest. It's fun, uh, but wasn't the healthiest and just wasn't the right fit for me. Mom pressure you to get married, she used to, Uh, but you know doesn't now. Uh, it's it doesn't now. I it's kind I did not realize you're gonna ask me to as you and so literally I just had a five year relationship just just end over the past week. Uh. And so you're you're you're you're catching me at a at a at a different time. But my philosophy on relationships has it I don't I think been the healthiest. I think if I really did an analysis on why I didn't consummate or didn't go full steam on the two relationships that probably would have ended in marriage. Is just I'm so committed to this career that, uh, I don't know if I I don't know if I'm the best relationship partner, um for for someone who's right for me. And so uh it's something to get you catch me on a weekend. What I've been doing a lot of introspection and a lot of uh trying to figure out why I keep doing the same things over and over again, and how I'm not gonna do it again. And there are better decisions I want to make. So I just my career has been and and an obstacle for me relationship wise and my decision making, because I mean, when you think you said you wanted to be Mike Royko, you've done it. Did you ever think I want to get married and have kids? Do you still think at some point I'd like to get married and have kids. I certainly thought I would have kids by this time. Uh. I certainly wanted to have kids, but I think at my age now, I'm not sure if that would be right for the kids. Uh. And so yeah, I would say, you know, if this podcast as wins and lawsuits in order for me to win career wise, I think I have sacrificing things personally. And you know, I wish that I had better balance, and I've been trying to have better balance unsuccessfully, uh for the last few years. All right, let's go, Um to l A. You moved to l A. You start writing at Fox sports dot Com two thousand, two thousand ten. Sorry, how did that go? It went very well? Um. I work with a guy, uh, Steve Miller and Ed Brunnle and two thousand and ten and they let me just run wild. David Hill was in charge of Fox at the time, and Uh, if you know anything about David Hill, he loves to push the envelope. And so I was on Fox Sports dot Com pushing the envelope in every direction it could be pushed. Uh, and it was phenomenal. I you know, I think if you look from two thousand and ten to two thousand thirteen, I think I did my best work as a sports columnist. Uh it was you know. And again, the stuff I did in Kansas City, I think was phenomenal. And you know, it was good enough to win me national awards and give me on Oprah Winfrey. But in terms of getting my full personality on the play, you know, Steve Miller and Ed Bottle and the people running Fox Sports at dot com at that time, they got the best of me for three years. Then ESPN Fox is getting ready to launch a new uh, a new network FS one Fox Sports one. ESPN and John Skipper decide We're not going to allow Fox to get good talent. We're going to compete for everybody. And they decide, even though you kind of left in not the best terms for me ESPN based on that big lead interview. How does that process work that they end up bringing you back? Yeah, John Skipper wanted to launch The Undefeated or or we didn't know it was The Undefeated at that time, but wanted to do a vanity website for African American generalists. And I think he accurately said, well, I think the Black Sports Journal was going to do it, and he identified me to do it. Uh, And then I think and so he offered me the job in two thousand and thirteen. And again, if you understand FS one is starting their television network, they don't have at that time a full vision for me and what I would do at that time. And John Skipper at that time had a full vision of what he wanted me to do and accomplished and it it played to my strength at the time, which is sports writing and writing and starting that website. And so I moved back over to ESPN to help them formulate and launch, uh, The Undefeated, not knowing that I was stepping into a political ship. Store all right, So this is like up to that point, Um, I think maybe you sent the Jeremy Lynn tweet at some point while you were was that When did that happen? That was? That? Was that Fox? When I was at Fox sports dot Com probably in two thousand nine or I'm sorry, two thousand eleven, twelve, somewhere around there. Is that up to that point the most controversial thing you had found yourself in the middle of. No, the don Imus thing was the most constiut But you didn't you didn't. You didn't cause the don You just had an opinion on the don iMOS thing. Yeah, but it was a very controversial opinion that literally, if you really look at my ski at my career, uh, that don Imus column is the one that marked me as a target of the left. But in two thousand seven and they, you know, come back came back to haught me in two thousand and thirteen. But yeah, the Jeremy Lynn thing was controversial and certainly a mistake on my part. All Right, So I want to circle back around to the Oprah thing, Like you go on Oprah. Oprah and now has become super woke, right, but she is a you know, at the absolute apex of her powers at the time that she has you on to talk about the don Imus controversy, and she was in agreeance right with very much of the tone of your column. If I remember correctly, then am I am I thinking about that wrong? Yeah? Oprah basically had me on to represent and again this is not what she told me, but it was clear by what she did she had me wanted to represent her point of view. Again, it's it's one of those the Oprah in her spot, she let off signals for years that that was her point of view, but to argue it in full, in detail, she couldn't do it and keep her job and to stay non polarizing, and so uh with that Imus thinging hit, it was like, Okay, Whitlock, we're representing my point of view and he'll argue my my side of it. And I probably I contend she still feels the same way. I don't think she's changed on that. I do think corporate America and you know, what they're willing to support has possibly made Oprah appear more woke than what she asked what she actually is. Let me say this too, because I bet there's some people out there who are listening to us that are young, because I forget how old we've become now, who don't know anything about the don Imus controversy. So I just pulled up on Wikipedia and I'm reading off of this. On April four, two thousand seven, during a discussion about the n C Double A Women's basketball Championship, I must characterize the Rutgers University women's basketball team players as quote rough girls commenting on their tattoos. Again, this is Wikipedia that I'm reading from. His executive producer responded by referring to them as quote hardcore hose. The discussion continued with I must describing the women as nappy headed hose. Uh. And so that was an immediate outrage, right like um and and so that just kind of blew up into a massive for people out there who eleven years, twelve years after this maybe weren't aware of that story or don't even really remember that much about Imus. This turned into a huge cultural flashpoint. Yes, and my opinion was that he, look, din Imus is an idiot. What he said is stupid, but he has no relevance or traction in our community, the African Americans community. Most people will need to explain to them who died Imus is. And I was like, what we need to be concerned about is how we feel about each other. And I go. You can turn on any rap song and here far worse said about African American women than anything don Imus just said. That was my opinion, man, is still my opinion now, and that was a very controversial view that in my view, Oprah agreed with and had me on the show to talk about. But you think that opinion, which is again the Jeremy Lynn thing, you made a joke. It's on Twitter like and you know that can blow up, as these Twitter controversies do, but you think that it was more than don Imus opinion that really kind of put you in the for lack of a better term, like in the purview or the target range of left wing people in America question and put me in the crosshairs of the left wing because I'm someone if you look at the national journalism wars I've wanted, if you look at again being on the sports reporters out of the Midwest and what that conveys at that time, the Clay, It's a very short list if there are any any sports writers who were ever on the Oprah Winfrey show. Maybe Mitch Album promoting one of his Tusie with Marie type books. But Oprah Winfrey during her Heyday didn't have sportswriters on her show, and so I was being raised to a level of importance and had a message that the left just doesn't want black people to hear, and so something had to be done about it and done about me. And so I want to go back to Oprah for a minute, because I do think that a lot of people are gonna be curious on this. Going on Oprah at the time that you went on Oprah was like being crowned by you know, like the king or Queen of England, right, like being night and you were you. I mean, that was like bestowing up on you the ultimate and cultural relevance. And you had a really good performance on Oprah, right, It wasn't like you were Tom Cruise climbing on the couch like losing your mind. Like you made a cogent case. It was well received and like you said, your profile skyrocketed as a result of that. Were you aware of how big that was gonna be when you were doing it and and what was it like to come out of that Oprah interview and suddenly have basically at the time, every woman on the planet was watching Oprah Winfrey, right, Like I mean, you it was impossible to have almost more of a cultural impact on a talk show. Yeah, I knew it was a big deal. I was naive about, uh, the ramifications. I knew it was a big deal. I was very naive about the level of animus that would be directed by way out of just pure envy, spite, and fear. So you come out, So you go to ESPN. It's two thousand thirteen. Now you're developing a new website that's going to be called The Undefeated, and this it is very fascinating. Now you definitely became a target of the website dead Spin, which it seems to me decided that they wanted to destroy you. I don't, I don't. I don't think that that's an exaggeration. I mean, I think much like later hul Cogan would file a lawsuit against Gawker over you know, the publication of their of the tape involving Hulk Cogan, it seems to me that the people running dead Spin at the time decided, I want to destroy Jason Whitlock. I think that was a conscious decision. Yeah, I think that, Uh, they were paid to do just that. Yes, so you are the subject now, I don't know how many different articles they started to write at dead Spin and this for people now who again, it's twenty nineteen and we're doing this. You may be listening to this in twenty twenty five for all I know, because the goal with this Wins and Losses podcast is that people can listen to this for years and and glean whatever lessons or interesting stories might come from it. Dead Spend at the time was a very powerful website. Right. This is in the wake of their Leni Kakua uh you know, sort of coup want probably the biggest uh story by far that they ever did. Um. They are a cultural force, certainly in the world of sports media, and they trained their train their attention onto you as you were going through the process of developing this new website for ESPN. Yes, they took uh a writer, the Greg Howard guy, who, by the way, he has disappeared. Where is Greg Howard? Now? Do we know? No, we don't know. Un't. But you were at the process, for people who don't know, on the Undefeated, you were in the process of recruiting a lot of writers to be on this new website. It was gonna be similar somewhat to Bill Simmons the Ringer, right, I mean, or whatever it was called at the time, Grant Lyn Yeah. Um. And so you're out there recruiting, trying to find people that you think have the ability to write at a high level, uh for this uh, this particular website, the The Undefeated, and as part of that, you come into contact, obviously with a lot of guys. Because I want to say this for people out there listening. There's a lot of people who put on a big show about trying to provide opportunities to young people. And you kind of hinted at it a little bit talking about your relationship with kids from your high school and kids from your college at Ball State, but you actually walk the walk like you have surrounded your show now uh sports speak for yourself with a lot of young, smart kids who, let's be honest, probably would not have the opportunity to work on a show like yours without your advocating for them. Right. So, there are a lot of people who talk the talk in the world and don't actually follow through it. You have lifted up a lot of people over your career and continue to do it right now who maybe wouldn't have gotten opportunities without your advocacy absolutely, uh. And you also, by the way, let me say this, you don't get attention for it in the same way that other people who do less do I and you don't have to to preach for yourself here. But for people out there listening, Uh, this is not a great secret internally in the world. But there are a lot of people who are the wocust on Twitter that don't do a lot of work for people who might be able to benefit by their quote unquote wokenus right, And that's just I mean again, there's a lot of people who talk one way and walk another. So you actually follow through on the ability to try to lift other people up. Probably and you can speak this better than I can, because you feel like there weren't a lot of people to lift you up when you were necessarily twenty three years old in this industry. Well, I'm gonna be honest, there were people who lifted me up and who supported me, including you know, Ralph Wilde was a good friend of mine. And that is probably one of the reasons why I bend over backwards, uh, trying to help others and and so it's just part of my core life philosophy that you know, if you if you create a platform or you have success, that it's incumbent upon you too. You know, use your power in your platform to provide the opportunities for others, uh, to elevate themselves and to take advantage of the opportunities provided them. And so again, Darnie L. Smith, the kid from my high school, uh, you know, has a role on my show, and that we got a kid named Jay Hawk. I know him as Jay Hawk Mark. His real name is Mark Donald's, but I call him jay Hawk Mark because when I was in Kansas City and had my own radio show, there was a thirteen year old kid named Jay Hawk Mark that used to call my radio show every day and some little black kid and you know, idolized me. Well, now he's seven years old, and you know he works for my show out here in Los Angeles. Uh. And so I just think that that's important to provide young people, particularly if they show any initiative and good values, provide them an opportunity. Be sure to catch live editions of would Kicked the Coverage with Clay Travis week days at six am Eastern three am Pacific. Clay Travis Dives Deep with Jason Whitlock on the Wins and Losses podcast, So we talked about wins and losses. You've had a ton of wins up to this point. Getting the opportunity for the biggest sports media company in the world to build a part of their website around your vision is maybe the biggest win of all. You had the one loss, but you've now canceled out because you got this endorsement. Uh and and obviously there are different wins and losses along the way, but now you become a target. And I don't know how many articles Deadspen was gonna write, but they had people secretly, you know, recording you, I think audio wise, Like I mean, this was like this was like you had the FBI and the c i A and the n s A all of a sudden out after you initially, did you just brush off the the impact of the coverage or when did you start to realize how pernicious it really was and maybe that this wasn't just some story, that the goal was really legitimately this website trying to destroy you. Now. I recognized early on what they were doing and what they were up to, but my survival plan was always the work that the work would see me through. I've always felt like that was my best and only defense is to produce great content. There's no other way to survive. And so I thought that if I just got to produce enough content that that with silence or nullify the critics, I actually think it it ended up working in reverse because you know, the the there was a lot of resistance internally, well beyond dead spend to my hire at ESPN, and just the point of view and what I represented wasn't going to be uh progressive enough for some people who think that the only pro black thing you can ever do is be progressive or liberal. I don't happen to believe that, and so I recognize that, you know, I needed this work. But actually, when we produced some great work, and I think if you look at we did a profile on Charles Barkley, Jesse Washington did it, and it was one of these stories that we were putting out there to let everybody know this is the level story we want to do and where we want to operate at. And that actually worked in reverse because that just made my critics double down even further, like holy shit, we gotta stop this guy. He's just edited helped formulate a story that is one of the most provocative, best things, well reported research thing that could ever be done, and it doesn't reach the right conclusions. And again people think I got an accused of being polemic, that I have some point of view that I'm dogmatic about and bah blah blah, which is untrue. I went into the Charles Barkley story as an editor with a completely different narrative about where this story was gonna land. I had told Jesse Washington that, yeah, I say, I think Barkley it's like he's going down to rush Limball Lane. He's just saying wild, crazy stuff to heighten his brand, and baba, that's what I thought told Jesse the story was gonna be about. But I told Jesse, We're gonna go wherever the reporting leads. And so once Jesse got into the reporting of it, the story led a completely different direction. That Barkley is actually just true to his upbringing in Alabama, and that he's actually like a modern day booker T Washington, uh, and he's reflecting of the culture from which he grew up in the church his grandma, his grandmother and mother had him in and blah blah, we explained Charles Barkley in a way that had never been done before, and it made perfect sense, and it was beautifully written and researched and blah blah blah, and people had a ship storm. John Skipper loved the story originally, and then he listened to all these idiot critics who talked him into, oh, the actually the story wasn't that good, and it was they screwed up the history, and they just all just went batshit crazy trying to beat down this story. And and so the actual quality and the high nature quality of what we did actually just made my critics double down and go after me even harder. And you know, eventually they went to even greater lens. As you said, was uh, you know that they part time secretary that I hired and getting hurd of tape things, and just it just it just got crazy. And it just became crystal clear that the political left was going to attack me and anybody who supported me at the SPN until they got rid of me at the STN. And and I don't blame John Skipper for giving up on me, because from his point of view and what he was dealing with internally there at the ESPN, it just did. It wasn't worth the sustained fight in his mind. I think it's a mistake. I think that the Undefeated is you know, was made impotent by my removal. Uh, and that you know, it's a site that publishes a lot of sidebar stories and doesn't do any real high impact things. Uh, it's not. It doesn't meet the grand ideas and vision that you know, we originally had for it. But on the plus side, you know, there's thirty to fifty African American journalists that have jobs because the underfeat is there, and uh, that is a plus. But I just I wish that the site was far more ambitious than what it's being allowed to be. How much of your and I'm gonna get back to Deadspin in a minute, but how much of your struggles came from suddenly being a manager? I don't think, and again I don't think those were my real struggles. It my my struggles, to be quite honestly, We're just there were people that just didn't want to do the site. And I'm talk about people that mattered within the ESPN, and they were out to get you from the moment you think that basically you were given this job. I didn't. I wasn't allowed to hire anybody for a year. I mean, I just that wasn't my choice. That wasn't from a lack of people wanting a job. That wasn't uh people weren't interested in working with and for me, that was I just wasn't allowed to period. And uh, you know, I could sit here and and there is no first time manager of anything who doesn't make mistakes and who doesn't need help managing things. Uh, So I don't think I was remotely unusual in that aspect. The struggle was just like, for a year, you didn't allow me to hire anybody. We sat back and played the role of hey, dead Spin can say whatever the hell they want about you. Our strategies are gonna be don't respond and so and if you do respond, it's a sign that you're not the right person for the job. And so I was silent and then allowed other people to take control of a narrative about who that who I was, and they ran wild with it, and uh, you know, it was just just running out the clock until you had enough excuses, uh to fire me. And and they did, and the final piece from dead Spin came out on April two thousand and fifteen, which I believe is on your birthday. And then the dead Spin editor called it a head shot. He went on Twitter and called it a head shot. Look, yes, the whole thing with dead Spin was very personal for them. Uh. And again they had a job to do, destroy me and destroy my opportunity to run The Undefeated. And again, just if you understand my journalistic perspective, resume brand The Undefeated would be far different from what it is today if I were running it, and they were not going to allow that. There's a there's only one way the left wants African Americans to view their situation in America, and the only they want everything to be white people are in control of your lives and you must fix white people for you to have any success in life. That's not my view. No, no, and and again it goes all the way back to the beginning of my conversation. If you know my mother and father, they weren't sitting around going, well, let me fix white people and then I'm gonna fix my situation. That That's just never been their view. I'm gonna go out and get and do for me that time, going to fix my problems. When my father was on a job at Chrysler and he was reading the autobiographer Malcolm X, and the manager complained, how come you reading the autobiographer Malcolm X. My father made it up in his mind, Oh, anyone gonna tell me what book I can read. I'm going to start my own business so that no one ever again questions me about what I'm doing with my spare time. And so that's my mentality. That that's how I was raised. My father, it was like the thing you do in America is create your own little plot of happiness. And again, he liked being in an all black community. Uh built a brand new house in the black community, had his business in the black community, found contentment and happiness there. And again, does does that mean you put up with all sorts of abuse and unfairness in the world. Absolutely not. But running around doing stories about bs inconveniences, Oh, someone did a hand signal behind me at the Cubs game. Therefore, let me write two thousand words about it in the New York Times. Again, that's the kind of stuff that I would have no interest in publishing that the mainstream media has an interest in publishing. And I'm talking about Doug Glanville, and the PC just wrote in the New York Times, uh this week. Uh. That's the kind of journalism I don't believe in because I don't think it's representative of what poor people, poor Black people. Someone hold a little okay thumb hand signal when Doug Glanville is doing a TV shot. That's not the issue impacting poor black people. That's not the oppression they face. And so I don't want to spend any time. I'm certainly not giving up two thousand words for anybody to write about that. That's a Doug Glanville elitist problem. Someone did a hand signal behind Doug Glanville. That's not Black America's problem. And so I just I believe America is the land of opportunity. I believe America has sinned like every other country and every other human being is put on put on the planet. But I believe America is the land of opportunity. And you have an opportunity in America unlike most other countries across the globe. Two fix your problems and build yourself some happiness and opportunity in this country. And I want to be respectful of that and I just think too much of the mainstream media UH takes that opportunities we have here. For granted, UH has a very dumb down, UH illogical discussion about race, and I would have wanted no parts of that. And I think that's what, you know, eventually got me removed at The Undefeated. That's a loss. A when is where we started with? Which is you now have a show an hour and a half every day on FS one which debates and discusses these issues in a very intelligent fashion, probably for a bigger audience than you could have reached at The Undefeated. That show is called Speak for Yourself. You Marcellus Wiley and a host of regular guests, for ninety minutes every day try and advance the conversation. And people don't always agree with you on the show. In fact, some of the best parts of the show are when people disagree with you. Uh. What are you attempting with the show and what have you been able to achieve so far with the show? Well, I'm certainly trying to show that there is a conversation to be had that I think that people are yearning for, which is a more authentic, non PC conversation that is you know, and again, the decisions aren't based in race. But the reality is, I think that there is a conversation that black people have about sport. And again, our conversation is an exclusive to black people. But Marcel's and I certainly are black, Darnell's black, Offle Jimmy's black, a lot a lot of the guest athletes we have all our black. I'm trying to have the most authentic, real conversation you can have about a lot of these issues in sports that are fun, that are inclusive. But I'm trying to do it from a black point of view without being off put into the mainstream audience, because we certainly want the mainstream audience to watch us. Uh. But you know, I think I'm trying to do a television version of what I wanted to do at ESPN with The Undefeated, because I think it's a conversation everyone will be attracted to. Every One will feel like they're a part of. Uh. But you know, I'm trying to do it, I guess from a black point of view. I think we're you and I aligned, and we align in a lot of different places. Is in skepticism of there being a right idea and that if you don't have that right idea, you shouldn't be able to share it. Uh And that may be oversimplifying things a bit, but it seems that there is a predominant right idea that is allowed to be voiced in the world of sports, and that if you stray outside of those lines, there will be consequences for you in a way there aren't if you have the quote unquote right idea? Are things getting better or worse? First do you agree with that concept? And second do you think things are getting better or worse in terms of the fullness of conversation that is allowed as it pertains to sports. Uh and and and more of the of the issues in the country than just sports. I certainly think that social media, particularly Twitter, has demonized certain opinions that are unworthy of being demonized. Uh And I think I think that's impacted all of the mainstream media. And I think so many executives for a time lived in fear of Twitter and these gend up managed Twitter controversies, and I think that that has dumbed down and censored the American discourse. I think things are starting to get better. I think that when someone like Bob Iger uh ceo CEO of Disney for people who might not know who he is. Yeah, and and he's critical of Twitter and social media and Silicon Ali and and saying that. I think he said that social media is a place that Hitler would find uh inviting or whatever or good or something like that. When things like that are happening, when people like Bob Iger are waking up to what social media has done to American discourse, Uh, I think that's a good sign. I think that we're about a year away, I think from the true breaking point where uh people feel completely liberated. Uh. You know. And so I think in our lane and the sports media lane, to see again, Bob Iger and e SDN figure this out. I think it's good for all of us. I think that Over at Fox, I think that Rupert Murdoch and Eric Shankson figured it out a long time ago. Uh. But you know, Fox Sports isn't doesn't have the sway of ESPN at the moment, although I think that's starting to change. Uh. And so yeah, I do think we're headed a better direction. Uh. Jason Whitlock on Twitter at Whitlock Jason, We've talked a long time today. Is there anything that I have not asked you that you wish that I had. You've asked me some things that I wish you had not. I think that I was not prepared to talk about relationships today. Uh So, but no, I I I think we've covered a lot. We did cover a lot the goal and I want to give you the last word here on the show. The goal of this show is to discuss wins and losses as people experience them in their career. You've had a lot of wins, You've also had a lot of losses. What have you learned more from? Uh? Probably the losses, you know. I think the experience in ESPR uh sharpen my focus and made me more resolute in who I've been raised to be and more I wouldn't because I've never been uncomfortable, but it just maybe even more comfortable that uh, you know, and confident about who I am and what my point of view is and what I believe in. And so it's it's probably been the losses that have helped me the most. Uh. But you know, it feels better to win, It's it feels better to be, you know, on a TV show that's starting to have some success and starting to cut through. Uh. That feels a lot better than laying in bed wondering why the world is against you. It's been Jason Whitlock at Whitlock Jason, go follow him on Twitter. I'm at Clay Travis. If you enjoyed this, let us know on social media, And if you enjoyed this podcast, share it with other friends. There's gonna be a lot more of them coming down the line. Again, this is Wins and Losses and I'm Clay Travis. Be sure to catch live editions about Kicked the Coverage with Clay Travis weekdays at six am Eastern three am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio I