On Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark
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Ryan Reynolds here for, I guess, my 100th Mint commercial. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, honestly, when I started this, I thought I'd only have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much?

I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming here. Give it a try at midmobile.com slash save whenever you're ready. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes. See details. Here we go. This is the Skip Bayless Show. Episode 59.

This is the Un-Undisputed. Everything I cannot share with you during the debate show that is undisputed. Today, I will give you my deepest thoughts on Angel Reese versus Kaitlyn Clark. Today, in honor of the Masters, I will tell you why I am so obsessed with the game of golf. Because it is the complete and cerebral opposite of golf.

Bowling. Yes, bowling. I will answer your very clever questions about Michael Jordan, Zeke Elliott, and if I have ever overslept through my 2 a.m. alarm out here in L.A. every weekday morning for Undisputed. But first up, as always, it is not to be skipped. I have a whole lot to say about what went down between Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark.

But first, some context about how my racial point of view was formed from childhood up. As I've told you before, the primary maternal influence in my childhood was provided by a woman named Katie Bell Henderson, who was black.

She worked for my grandmother, but not because my grandmother was wealthy, she wasn't, or because my grandmother wanted a servant right out of the help. She did not. I'm talking about, you know, the equivalent of a plantation slave, which Katie Bell was the opposite of. My grandmother traveled for her work and Katie Bell ran her household with a free hand and an iron fist. She was treated like family.

not condescendingly, but like family. She had Christmas with us. She celebrated all the holidays with us. She became the most powerful figure in my childhood, more of a mother to me than my mother ever was. My home was broken, as I've mentioned to you before. Both my parents were problem drinkers. So I got left at my grandmother's with Katie Bell many, many days and nights.

Katie Bell pretty much raised me, taught me everything I know about right from wrong. She was a tough woman, the big easy laugh, born in Alabama, raised in some of the meanest streets in Chicago. But now she had come in my childhood to Oklahoma City to find work and better weather. I will never ever forget the incident that occurred when I was maybe seven years old while staying at my grandmother's with Katie Bell.

My grandmother was rarely there. Cousin of mine was there for the afternoon and one thing led to another and he and I got into it. He was one year younger than me. He was no match for me. So he got mad at me and within earshot of Katie Bell Henderson, my cousin called me the N-word.

I'm talking about that word that I have always considered the most evil word in the English language, the one ending in the hard ER, the one I wish we could abolish from the English language. I was horrified. I, of course, heard the word on, I don't know, grade school playground. Oklahoma City was still segregated at that point until my senior year of high school.

And while I never considered Oklahoma City to have near the sort of racist mindset or backbone that I would encounter in the South when I went away to school at Vanderbilt in Nashville, the N-word was alive and hell in Oklahoma City in the 1950s. Katie Bell Henderson marched straight over to my cousin. This was the angriest I ever saw her, ever saw her. She grabbed my cousin by the shirt collar with both hands. She lifted him up off the floor.

She went nose to nose with him and she said, don't you ever say that word again. I get chills when I say those words again. I can relive that moment like it was yesterday because it sticks with me to this day. Katie Bell passed when I was in college and I miss her to this day. Quick footnote,

A couple of years ago, my wife Ernestine talked me into trying a reading with a shaman that she had come to know and to believe in, a black man from New Orleans now living in New York named Joseph. I didn't believe in any of that, but Ernestine convinced me to just give it a shot with an open mind. Joseph, not into sports, not a sports fan, knows nothing about my life or background. And after we had prayed to open the session, he is God-based,

He said to me, this is on the phone, "Hmm, someone wants to join us. It's a black woman." Joseph described her to me on the phone. I said, "Katy Bell?" He said, "Yes, it's Katy Bell. She wants you to know how proud she is of you." Nothing that has ever happened to me meant more to me than that moment in that phone call with Joseph in New York.

So it was, as I grew up, that every summer we played twice against an all-black team in baseball. Did this all the way up into high school and through high school. And I, in a shock to some of my teammates, became friends, weirdly, with several of the black players. It just happened very naturally. We talked before games, during games, after games. And I got to know T. Penn Darvis and Terry French.

and especially my friend Jimmy Edwards, who also played on my AAU basketball team and then on my American Legion baseball teams. And understand, please, it wasn't that I was trying to be black or act black or be one of the black kids. I was just me. They were just them. And yet, I got to tell you, I felt at least as comfortable around black people as white people, probably because of Katie Bell.

First poster I ever put up on my bedroom wall was of Muhammad Ali, right after he beat Sonny Liston the first time in 1964. Second poster I put up on my wall was of Joe Namath, obviously a white quarterback, but that was after he and his Jets had shocked the heavily favored Baltimore Colts in 1969 in Super Bowl III. To me, Joe was the equivalent of Mick Jagger of a band that I loved, second to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones.

Joe was breaking all the conventional rules. He was wearing white low-cut cleats, letting his hair grow long and flip out from under the back of his helmet. I loved against the grain. As I rose up through the media commentary ranks, a majority of my best sources turned out to be a lot of black players.

And it seemed like most of my biggest battles were with white players and white coaches and white executives. See Troy Aikman and Tom Landry and Cliff Harris and Bobby Valentine and Jerry Krause. And I could go on and on and on. And when it came to analyzing basketball, it right away became pretty clear to me that black people were just generally better at basketball than white people were.

Now the movie White Men Can't Jump wouldn't come out until 1992, but that was pretty much from the start the mindset I had, and I think a lot of people shared. I have talked about how much I loved a white player named Pete Maravich, but he was a six-foot-five-inch freak who could do magic tricks with the basketball, the likes of which I hadn't seen this side of Meadowlark Lemon played for the Globetrotters.

I did, through my early days through the 80s, watch a lot of women's basketball, league basketball, the WBL, actually back in the early 80s, in large part because Lady Magic, Nancy Lieberman, lived three doors down from me in Dallas, Texas. There were some white women in that league in those days who could just flat out play. Machine Gun Molly Bolin, Carol Blaise Jowski, and Lady Magic for the Dallas Diamonds.

Also, I would later do a radio show in San Francisco with the great Rick Barry, also white, who at six feet eight inches tall was a better all-around basketball player than Pete Maravich was, just not as flashy. Rick was the second greatest white American player ever. That's above Bill Walton and John Stockton. Rick Barry, Maravich, and then there was this six foot 11 inch Bill Walton. They could jump, those white men.

but they were exceptions to the rule. Rick's son Brent, you might remember, would win the NBA slam dunk contest, and two of his other sons would also make it in the NBA. Which brings me to the greatest white American player ever. Heck, the greatest white player ever from any country, and it ain't even close. Never been anything like him. Larry Joe Byrd from French Lick, Indiana, who could not jump. But since Larry Byrd, there's never been...

a white American player, even close to Larry Bird. So the first Final Four I ever covered was Bird versus Magic in March of 1979, Salt Lake City. This was the first time I'd gotten to watch Bird's Indiana State team play. But that Saturday, that semifinal Saturday, I was far more captivated by Magic Johnson's charisma

in Michigan State's 101-67 annihilation of poor Penn. Much more captivated by that than by Bird's two-point win over Mark Aguirre's DePaul. It wasn't until the next day, which was Sunday, the off day before the championship Monday night, that I wrote about Larry Bird. It would be the single wrongest column I ever wrote. Why did I write that Larry Bird would not make it in the NBA?

Because in those days, Gil Brandt of the Dallas Cowboys always ran a hospitality sweep for college coaches at every Final Four, a football executive at the basketball Final Four. Gil occasionally drafted or would try out a college basketball player, starting with Pete Gent, you might remember, out of Michigan State, who wound up writing the notorious book, North Dallas 40, that became an anti-cowboy movie.

But mainly, I think Gil just wanted to be the godfather of college football and college basketball, wanted to know every coach, be the one who pulled all the strings with ADs and presidents that got them all bigger and better jobs. So it was on that Saturday night that I visited the Cowboys hospitality suite at the Final Four, the media headquarters.

And Gil Brandt pulled me aside as a Dallas columnist and said he had spoken to all the top college basketball coaches who weren't obviously playing in the Final Four, asked all of them about Larry Bird, and here was the quote from Gil Brandt. Gil told me that all the top coaches said he was, quote, too slow-footed to make it in the NBA. Well, obviously this perfectly fit my perception that black people are generally better than white people at basketball. So,

I wrote that a source told me that many of the top coaches at the Final Four believe Larry Bird is too slow-footed to make it in the NBA. I do not doubt that many top college coaches did think that. And that Monday night, matched up against Magic and Gregory Kelser, if you recall, Michigan State, who was drafted fourth overall, Bird did look a little too slow-footed to make it in the NBA.

What I did not understand, comprehend, grasp was that Magic versus Bird had finally put the Final Four on the national map because Larry Bird had become white America's great white hope. Not hype, hope. White America had gone crazy over Larry Bird, this country boy who

who definitely was Magic Johnson's college basketball equal and legit rival. How dare a white columnist from Dallas, Texas burst that bubble by writing that Byrd wouldn't make it in the NBA? Well, that next week, I had a previously planned speaking engagement at Richardson-Berkner High School in the Dallas area, North Dallas, which was attended by many parents.

who were all over me during the Q&A session. I got roasted. How dare you? I was basically being accused of being a reverse racist. And maybe that's what I was at that point. I don't know. I just say what I see, and that's what I saw, and that's what I was told. I am now hoping that

Kaitlyn Clark versus Aaliyah Boston in South Carolina. Then Kaitlyn Clark against Angel Reese in LSU in Sunday's championship game will further help launch the popularity of the women's Final Four just the way Magic versus Bird did the men's. Maybe it's for all the wrong reasons, but I still hope it launches. I told you in last week's podcast that the women's Final Four would be far more interesting than the men's, and I think I was way right.

because Sunday's Iowa-LSU was by far, by far the most watched women's game ever, a mere 103% up from last year's championship game. But once again, for the record, LSU started five black women, Iowa started five white women, and obviously America was choosing sides probably based along racial lines.

It's only in America, race-based. Sports battles have always sold. You can go all the way back to the first great heavyweight champion, Jack Johnson, fighting white guys. People would pay to watch that. Heck, remember Conor McGregor against Floyd Mayweather? Did it ever sell? Sure. Was it a white guy against a black guy? Yep, it was. It still works and probably always will. Ain't that America?

Four years after I wrote that about Larry Bird, after a Celtics shoot-around at the old Reunion Arena in Dallas, I apologized to Bird for what I'd written about him. He pretty much just shrugged me off. He didn't care what I thought. He didn't care what anybody else thought. He was afraid of no player of any color. He was 6 feet 9 inches tall. He was supremely skilled with an all-time great feel for the game, as you probably remember.

He would tell black or white defenders what he was about to do to the black or white defender and he would just do it. He was one bad M.F. Yet what was I told on an All-Star Saturday at Reunion Arena, 1986 All-Star weekend in Dallas, Texas? A Maverick source I trusted, knew very well, who was in the locker room

while the three-point shootout contestants were putting on their uniforms, told me Larry Bird walked in and said to his four black opponents, "Which one of you ends is gonna finish second?" I was told that Larry Bird said the most evil word in the history of the English language, and I was stunned and outraged. I wanted to write about it, but I could get no confirmation from any of the black contestants. I'm pretty sure

At that point, they were afraid of the great white Hope Larry Bird. I assume they were also afraid of the league and the commissioner and the owners and society in general at that point. It was 1986. Bird was a god to white fans, MVP, NBA champ, in a league that was, as you well know, mostly black. That was 37 years ago. And by the way,

my debate partner on Undisputed, Shannon Sharp, favorite player when he was growing up as a kid, rural Georgia, Larry Joe Byrd. There is no way a white star could get away with what I think Larry Byrd got away with that day in Dallas. I'm pretty sure we've at least come that far, which brings me to my next recurring theme as a commentator over the years,

I began to notice that teams kept wasting lottery picks on seven-foot American white centers who turned out to be giant stiffs and busts. This crescendoed the day of the 2012 draft when, back on ESPN's first take, I said there was no way I would take the Illinois center Myers Leonard with a lottery pick. Portland took him 11th overall.

Myers-Leonard hasn't been a bust. He has lasted 10 seasons in the league, in large part because he learned to shoot threes at a 39% career clip, which is pretty great. But in 10 seasons, Myers-Leonard has averaged 5.6 points and 3.9 rebounds and 0.3 blocks per game, not exactly 11th overall numbers.

I took a beating from bloggers that day before that draft. Bloggers who were offended, I even brought up race. There was an ESPN PR woman who called me and said, "How could you make this about black and white? It was just so unnecessary." And I responded, "No, it was necessary. There has been a long history of American white sinners overdrafted in the lottery, and I detailed all the failures to make my point."

By the way, you can also go back to the Jimmer Fredette draft. Another great white hype. I took a strong stand and I said there is no way I would draft Jimmer Fredette. Especially in the lottery. Heck, I wouldn't have drafted him in the second round. Being reverse racist? I don't know. Just calling him like I see him. I just said he can't play in the league. Nice to watch in college. Nice college player. But great white hype. He went 10th overall.

clay thompson went 11th hawaii went 15th jimmy butler went 30th bust jimmer bust i'm sure he's a great kid no nothing personal bust again and again i've been told to leave race alone on television it's just too sensitive it's just too dangerous and again and again i have dared to talk about race topics with my black debate partner stephen a smith and now shannon sharp

Obviously, the onus and the pressure is always on the white guy in these discussions. I'm always the one most in danger of stepping out of bounds, and this has never, ever bothered me. Maybe I'll blow it. Maybe I'll screw up. Maybe I don't understand. I don't pretend to understand everything. Mostly, I'm listening to the man across the table from me. But I've always been fearlessly confident in these situations, but around the

that Jimmer Fredette draft, 2010-ish. I quit reading my Twitter responses and my mentions. I got tired of reading that I was an in lover. No, I'm actually just a people lover. I believe, maybe idealistically, that we're all just pieces of God, no matter our color. You can say that's cliche, not realistic. That's what I believe. Which brings me to Angel Reese.

and Caitlin Clark. First time I carefully watched Angel Reese, I was sitting with my brother Lil Wayne at his place here in Southern California on a Saturday. Wayne, obviously from New Orleans, loves LSU, and he had fallen in basketball love with Angel Reese. So I sat with him on his couch watching Angel do her number on Tennessee. They ended up losing the game, but she was sensational.

And what immediately captivated me about Angel was what got me early on about Magic. She just plays the game so passionately, with such charisma, with such personality. She's having so much fun that she makes it fun for me to watch her dominate. So I began to root for Angel because I knew how much she meant and that team meant to Lil Wayne. Now to Caitlyn.

Let's frame all this with the fact that as reverse racist as I might have been in the past about white players, I was sold a year ago on Kaitlyn because she is just so rare. As the LSU coach Kim Mulkey told her in the handshake line after the game, you're a generational talent. As Alexis Morris, who actually outplayed Kaitlyn in that second half, has been

Alexa said after the game, she's changing the way the game is played. Kaitlyn has Steph-like range. She's a once-a-generation passer. Her quickness in creating her own shot, just turning the corner and attacking the rim, is underrated and I think mostly underestimated.

Now, she has turned into a turnover machine, way too careless with the ball. She had eight against South Carolina, but they got away with it. She had six more against LSU, and it hurt Iowa's cause. But the point is, I don't care what color she is, she can just flat-out play. I think anybody of any color who watched her play would agree she can just flat-out play. The 41 she scored on Friday night against America's best defensive team

in leading a double-digit underdog, Iowa, to a monumental victory over undefeated South Carolina. It was just very special. But Caitlin Clark does have some Larry Bird in her. I'm talking about in her makeup, even though she's only six feet tall. The bird in her is her attitude. She has some arrogance, some good arrogance. She has some distinct edge.

She has some cold-blooded basketball killer in her. That's what makes her who she is. That's what it takes to be as dominant as she is at just six feet tall. You could see it all along the trail. Pardon my language, but you talk shit to her, she will respond with dismissive disdain. You remember Haley Van Lith for Louisville? Said something to her late in the Louisville-Iowa game regional final.

And Kaitlyn turned to her and said, "You're down 15. Shut up." Okay? And after she scored 41 against South Carolina in her on-court interview, I don't know if people caught this, but with fairly dismissive disdain, and I'm just going to paraphrase her response, she said, "I couldn't believe they kept guarding our post players out so high while they were setting picks for Kaitlyn out high."

Because it allowed me to turn the corner and go uncontested to the rim. So in effect, she was taking a bird-esque shot at the South Carolina coaching staff, I guess starting with Dawn Staley, for whom I have huge respect. Because all she's ever done is win. And yes, you know what she did against South Carolina? Their game plan was there were a couple of the

South Carolina shooters that they were just going to dare to shoot. So at one point she just waved her hand at one of them, turned her back. Remember what Greg Popovich did to LeBron in 2007, then again in 2013 in the finals?

I distinctly remember Greg Popovich standing up and screaming at his defenders, get away from him, let him shoot, to LeBron James. Dare him to shoot those shots. They wanted him to shoot threes because he's never been very good from three, and he still isn't. And yes, as we all know, Kaitlin, first against Louisville, did the can't see me in front of her face. Did I have a problem with that? Obviously not. Did I have a problem with her waving at the

South Carolina shooter, no, no, no, I did not. Now, did she aim her can't see me at a certain player or do it in the face of another player who's trying to guard her? No, she didn't do that. She just did it in general, almost to inspire her Iowa rooting section. So against LSU, did she deserve the game-altering technical foul that she got? Absolutely she did. She was still ticked about the third foul that was called on her for pushing off

near the end of the first half, it was a bad call. So she disrespected the rest by tossing the ball behind her back out of bounds under the basket. It was a subtle disrespect, but it was disrespect nonetheless. It was a bit of a sarcastic diva move. I would have already been called for one delay a game. I would have called that tech on Kaitlyn Clark. I also was just fine with the way Angel Reese taunted Kaitlyn at the end of the game. To the victor go the spoils.

she earned the right to do exactly what she did. The "can't see me back to Caitlin" and the "I got a ring and you don't" by pointing to her finger. I have no issue whatsoever with either of those taunting celebrations. But I will say this, and I'm still not sure enough was made of this. If Angel did yell what some lip readers believe she yelled at Caitlin in that moment, if she did call her "that," a term I'm not going to say,

That is over the line. That was not necessary. That, to me, crossed the line into straight hate. That got personal. That, if in fact she said that, lost me. So remember, just for the record, Caitlin didn't call out Angel before the game, didn't challenge her, didn't say anything but nice things about LSU before and after the game that I know of. Yet Angel said she doesn't take disrespect lightly.

that Kaitlyn disrespected South Carolina with the hand wave and disrespected Alexis Morris, who did guard her for much of the game. I'm not sure what Angel was talking about there. I'm just not sure about it. I didn't hear anything about it unless it was just muttered under breath. Maybe it was. Maybe I missed it, but I don't know anything about it.

Is it possible that Angel Reese went Michael Jordan and invented or exaggerated some slight that really didn't exist? Jordan was notoriously successful doing that. As you know, I might be the world's biggest Jordan fan. Looking forward to the movie. Now for what really concerned me. Look, Angel Reese is just a kid. We know that kids live on social media. Heck, I live on it in different ways.

but I fear she's taking Twitter way too seriously. As I've said many times, I have watched Twitter ruin the careers of several media members I have worked closely with. They could not quit reading what people were saying about them on Twitter, couldn't quit taking it straight to heart, even during commercial breaks of shows I've been on.

All of a sudden, somebody I was working with started acting scary different, got weirdly angry, started responding out of character. I'm pretty sure because somebody on Twitter, just one somebody on Twitter, had just written to them and they had just read that they just got their ass kicked on national TV or that they sounded like a fool who had no idea what he or she was talking about.

Twitter is a hate platform. To me, for an athlete or a media member, no good can come from reading Twitter. I've said it a thousand times and I'll say it a thousand more. Yet after the game, Angel Reese said she loves reading Twitter comments, that she has been saving her screenshots all season long. She said, and I quote,

All year, I was critiqued for who I was. I don't fit the narrative. I don't fit the box that y'all want me to be in. I'm too hood. I'm too ghetto. Y'all told me that all year. When other people do it, y'all don't say anything. So this is for the girls who look like me, for those who want to speak up for what they believe in. It was bigger than me tonight, and Twitter is going to go into a rage every time now.

End of quote from Angel Reese. Now, in general, in a vacuum, taken completely out of the post-game context, I loved and appreciated what Angel had the guts to say. I am with her in principle on everything she uttered right after the game.

I am very quick on Undisputed to agree with my man Shannon Sharp when he rages about the double standard. When white athletes talk trash, taunt, let their emotions spill over, it's passion. When black athletes do the same thing, it's classless. Thank you, Angel. But wait a second. In this case, who said Angel was too hood or too ghetto? Who exactly said that? Any of Iowa's

Five white starters? No, they didn't. They didn't say a thing. I'm pretty sure people on Twitter said that. Nobody's becoming somebody's fueled by keyboard courage. It's the farther franker rule. The farther away, the franker you can get. So who exactly are these people Angel is responding to?

Are some of them, I'm just throwing this out off the top of my head, some of them KKK members? Are they Proud Boys? Are they far, far right racists? No way for me to know, to gauge, to judge. Did three people say these things to Angel over the course of the year? 30 or 300 or 3,000 or 3 million? I have no idea. I don't know. Maybe Angel has some idea better than I do, but I'm not even sure she does.

Are these people she responded to representative of white America's racial attitude in general? God, I hope not. Are there still way too many racists in our midst? Obviously there are. But have we made some progress since 1986? Maybe I'm being dangerously naive, idealistic, but you better believe we have.

Did Angel's black followers fan the flames of hate for mostly white Iowa? Did Angel read again and again on Twitter, "You cannot let this white girl show you up. This is our game." Angel probably read comments like that. That's Twitter, where nobody spewing hate can have direct and immediate contact with stars, actually can influence and even control the psyches of stars. Talk about dangerous. I have never seen anything like this.

I believe that in a way, Caitlin Clark became a target of Angel Reese's Twitter-inspired animosity. I didn't think Caitlin deserved quite that much of the vitriol. I felt like Caitlin Clark became the white embodiment of everything Angel rightfully has come to hate via Twitter. To me, Twitter isn't real. Caitlin Clark's game is real. So is Angel Reese's.

LSU deserved to win that game. LSU shot it better, rebounded better, defended better. Yet, as you well know, here came our first lady fanning the flames of black suspicion by saying it was such a great game that Iowa should also be invited to the White House. I'm sure much, if not all, of black America jumped to the conclusion that

that Jill Biden felt sorry for poor Caitlyn having to endure such shameful taunting from Angel Reese. Poor Caitlyn deserves to be celebrated too. Let the white girls share the White House stage with the black girls. Come on, Mrs. Biden. Please wake up. You just played right into the stereotypical white person who just doesn't get it.

I realized our first lady was just trying to celebrate the success of Title IX, the rise of women's basketball. But even I sighed and said, "See?" And obviously, I'm not even black. Here we went again with another white person who just can't help himself or herself from falling victim to a racist mindset that they don't even intend. It's unintentional. It's unwitting racism.

My final thought on this is more of a confession. As I watch Caitlyn, excuse me, as I watch Caitlyn Clark dominate, especially undefeated South Carolina, I couldn't help, and I was surprised to find this, but I couldn't help rooting for her. I mean, the girl's got game. She's the truth. But the truth is I started feeling guilty for rooting for the white girl, like this was somehow racist. And again, I fought reverse racism, trying to be objective. I don't know.

It all gets murky to me, but as much as I wanted LSU to win Sunday, because I knew how much that would mean to my brother Wayne, I just, once again, I couldn't help rooting for Kaitlin Clark to at least play great in the losing cause. And once again, I couldn't help feeling even more guilty. In the end, at least a women's basketball game made us all sit back and think about exactly where we are

how far we've come, how painfully far we have to go. I was very happy for LSU. I was very happy for the women's game. But I couldn't help thinking in the end that the biggest winner was Twitter.

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at Indeed.com slash Bayless. Just go to Indeed.com slash Bayless right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash Bayless. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Let's get to your questions. This is Cole from Florida. Why do you handwrite your notes? If you're watching, I'll show you a handwritten page here. As I call it, hand scribbled, illegible, except by me.

I always joke, at least Shannon can't cheat off my notes across the table because I can barely read them. But it's funny you should ask about this, Cole, because the opening topic you just heard was the second time in 59 episodes I tried composing by typing. Now, especially on more delicate and controversial topics, I pretty much

write my script from top to bottom, every last word, just so I choose every single word carefully without just winging it off the top of my head, blurting an opinion or a perception that isn't quite accurately stated or that I might regret. I almost always hand scribble these scripts. But when I tried to type the Angel Caitlin script, it just didn't work. It actually was slower than

then I can scribble. Even though I type, I don't know, I used to type 80, 90 words a minute. I don't know what I type. I remember I typed on deadline my whole life. So I can type fast, but I can't create fast and type, not in this context. I suddenly just felt completely out of rhythm, just completely out of whack. I felt no flow, no momentum.

I can go faster and I can get hotter hand scribbling. I don't know why, just when it comes to this. Obviously all the columns I used to write for newspapers, all the pieces I wrote for magazines, all the books I wrote, I typed at the keyboard. But there's something about this vehicle that my psyche is telling me it's better to hand scribble. I don't know, it's just how I started and how I'm going to continue from this point forward. So...

Everything you hear from my mouth from this point forward was created by Blue Ink. Another question, this is Jazz from New Jersey who asks, "Do you still have an emotional attachment to Zeke Elliott?" Yeah, once upon a time after his rookie year, I had such an attachment we did a commercial for Undisputed and you could see on my nightstand a picture of Zeke.

But unfortunately, Jazz, this is a funny, sad question for me. No, I no longer have an emotional attachment to Zeke. Zeke slowly but surely killed my love for him. Just ran it right in the ground, one yard in a pile of dust. Want to know the truth about Zeke's cowboy career when you really stand back and look at it? The harder I look, the more it comes clear to me

that Ezekiel Elliott was pretty much a one-year wonder. Seriously, a one-year wonder. His rookie year was by far his best year. Remember the Cowboys went 13-3 out of nowhere with a rookie back and a rookie quarterback. They secured home field advantage throughout the playoffs to the Super Bowl.

They got a week off before their home game, obviously against Aaron Rodgers and the Packers that they ended up losing narrowly. Dak was Rookie of the Year, Offensive Rookie of the Year. But trust me, if you look hard, Zeke deserved that award. Zeke was first team All-Pro at running back. First team. Zeke led the league in rushing yards, in touchdowns, in carries for first downs, in average yards per carry.

and average, obviously, yards per game. These numbers are just extraordinary. They just leap off the page when I look at them. 1,631 rushing yards, 15 touchdowns, 95 rushes for first downs, 5.1 yards per carry, 109 a game. Now that was a season, and yet Zeke played six more seasons for my Dallas Cowboys,

and never topped a single one of those numbers, not a single one. And as you Cowboy fans know painfully well, his yards per game went consistently down each of the next six seasons. Down, down, down, all the way from 109 a game in his rookie year to 58 a game last season. Remember the playoff game that Dak did win against Seattle at home after the 2018 season?

Zeke was huge in that game. I always give Dak the most credit, but then I looked and I said, wait a second, he went 26 times for 137 yards? That will work. Which brings me to the following playoff game, which was the beginning of the end of the Zeke I knew and loved. Remember the game against the Rams out here at the Coliseum? This is after the 2018 season. There was one play in that game that became the flashpoint

of that game, the turning point, you can argue, of Zeke's career. Remember this one? It's 23 to 15 Rams, so it's an eight-point game, touchdown, two-point conversion. Cowboys have it fourth and one at the Rams 35 as the third quarter ends, and so they have a whole commercial break between quarters to decide how to attack the Rams on fourth and one from the 35, fourth and one.

I had no problem with the choice they made. They made the simplest, truest, rightest choice. You just give it to Zeke up the middle. He runs through brick walls. You want to talk about a warrior? Fourth and one, unstoppable. I don't care if it's Aaron Donald or Leonard Floyd. I don't care who's up there. For the Rams, they're not stopping him, and they stopped him cold. They stonewalled him for no gain. I was stunned. That was basically the game.

Remember, next offseason, Zeke holds out. He's working out down in Cabo, and he came back on time for the season to a big new contract from Jerry Jones that made him, by far, the highest paid running back in pro football. And when the game started, he looked like he was still running in Cabo sand. Zeke hit the wall that he had so often run through. And it's, for me, it just became harder and harder to keep loving a player

who could no longer play. And another question from Marcus from New York. You have a chance to ask Michael Jordan one question. What do you ask him? It's a good question. If I could, I would ask him this question. Michael, is the speculation true that the NBA commissioner forced you to take almost two seasons away from the NBA in part because you

you like to play golf and cards with and against professional gamblers, and that the year you played minor league baseball in Birmingham just gave you something to do while you were effectively suspended. Now it's back to me and my turn in honor of the Masters, my favorite sports event of the entire year. Listen, I get even more excited for Masters Sunday than I get for Super Bowl Sunday.

In honor of this golf tournament, I'm going to do something we almost never do on Undisputed, unless Tiger is making miracles. I'm going to talk about golf. Hey, it's my podcast. I'm going to talk about what I'm obsessed with. I'm going to tell you all about my psycho obsession with golf, a game I play maybe a couple times a week if I'm lucky, maybe nine holes here, maybe 18 there. I play mostly badly.

And golf is a game that never ceases to torture my psyche, to keep me awake at night, to humble me like nothing else in my life even comes close to. So I begin by talking about golf and bowling. Bowling? I do this because people who have never played golf almost always

cannot fathom, cannot understand why anyone would like to play golf or especially like watching golf on television. I had a producer friend my days up in Bristol, Connecticut at ESPN who once said to me, "How can anybody watch these boring guys slowly walking up the fairway then taking all this time to figure out how to hit their little white ball?"

I bring up bowling because just about everybody has bowled at some point in their life. The other day, a colleague here at FS1 asked if I wanted to participate in a staff bowling outing. I've been asked to participate in these over the years. I said, "Look, I bowled quite a bit when I was a kid. I wasn't bad, but I never liked it because it's the cerebral and complete opposite

of the game I love, which is golf. Bowling is just so mindlessly robotic. You just keep repeating the same arm swing over and over and over again. I guess that's the point. You just sort of escape into mindlessness. Okay, so you leave yourself a 7-10 split.

You pick it up by doing exactly the same thing over and over and over. There's no creativity. There's no imagination. There's no invention in bowling. You just keep doing the same thing over and over and over. Maybe you drink some. Maybe you eat some. Maybe you have a great time. It's not for me. My all-time favorite country western line, and I'm not a country fan, but this one got me and sticks with me, is...

I don't know whether to kill myself or go bowling. Golf is everything bowling is not. In golf, every shot is a whole new challenge because every shot is as different as a snowflake. You can be standing uphill or downhill or side hill uphill or side hill downhill. This is called your lie. And I ain't lying. Downhill lies.

make it virtually impossible to strike the ball solidly and to get the ball airborne. You should try it sometime. It's virtually impossible, at least for me. It's also off a side hill uphill lie for me, and I hook the ball naturally. It's virtually impossible to keep from hitting a wild, wicked, out of control hook into the woods. And if you have

any of these not flat lies in the what's called rough where the grass is much longer and much deeper and at the course I play much stickier. Good luck extricating your golf ball very far and keeping it on line toward the green and the flag. Then there's this thing called wind. It can blow in your face and it can force you to wonder if do I need to use two more clubs as in from a six iron down to a four iron?

wind can blow sideways it can make your hook hook out of bounds it can make your slice slice into the water it can just gust behind you and it can lift your little half a swing wedge from 120 yards right over the green into the lost ball jungle rain or sweat can make your grips on your clubs ungrippable

With your irons, you have to understand you have to hit down on your irons to make the ball go up. And when you're in the sand, as in sand traps or bunkers, you have to hit maybe two inches behind the ball to make it fly over the 10-foot-high bunker lip that's rising above you, stuck down in the bunker. And with your driver off the what's called tee, your tee ball, you must hit up on your driver because it's teed up.

None of this makes much sense. Most of this is mind-boggling. Every shot in golf requires four or five big decisions, any one of which can lead to what's called a triple bogey, which can absolutely ruin your round and can wreck your psyche and your confidence. And finally, don't get me started on putting. It looks so simple, but in reality, it is so maddeningly hard.

especially at the course I mostly play, which is Brentwood Country Club out here in Los Angeles, not far from where LeBron lives. At Brentwood, the greens are harder to read than Tolstoy. Optical illusions are everywhere. You think it breaks two feet to the right. What? It broke to the left. You're convinced that you're putting uphill. Whoops.

It's actually an optical illusion. You're actually putting downhill and it's lightning fast and your ball will roll forever and forever all the way down the hill off the green. Now you got a chip back onto the green and you're going to make a triple bogey. I dare you, try making a three foot downhill side hill putt with, I don't know, 20 bucks riding on it or dare I say the masters riding on it. Try choking your guts out.

Humans try these grips because you can't figure out how to keep your putter blade going square to the ball and down the line. It's just impossible. It comes and it goes. Golf, to me, is by far the world's hardest game. It's not even close, let alone when you play it for money under big pressure. Remember, the ball doesn't move until you move. It just sits there, at least in tennis.

You can respond to the ball that's hit back to you by your opponent. You can react, but in golf, you always have to preact. The ball is just too little. The hole is just too small. Understand, if your club face is one-tenth of an inch closed or sort of pulling to the left at impact, the ball's going to hook 10 yards to the left. If your club face is at impact a little open, as in

sort of pointing more to the right, your ball is going to slice at least 10 yards to the right. Depending, of course, on the wind and the lie and the temperature, it's one thing after another. Golf just keeps messing with your mind, wearing on your psyche, torturing your soul, creating demons that will never, ever leave you alone. Just when you think you have it, you don't have it. It has you. Golf, to people who don't play it, just looks so simple.

And it's so mind-crushing complicated. There's so many questions. Is your grip strong or weak? Do you take the club back inside or outside the line? Do you stop your backswing before parallel or past parallel? These are all huge, important questions. Do you sway backward when you take the club back like I do? It's the bane of my existence. Do you fire your hips too quickly?

Do you compress the ball at impact or do you look up a little too quickly to see where it's going and you top it or dribble it about 50 yards? Trust me, just when you think you've found your true swing, your rhythm, your timing, you can just completely lose it in the middle of a round. I don't know whether to kill myself or keep playing golf. I quit golf at least once a month, but never for good. I am, I'm capable of getting hot. Occasionally I break 80.

And I'm just as capable of falling completely inexplicably apart, feeling like I've never played golf in my life, right in the middle of a round. I'm capable of shooting 95 with nine three putts and five lost balls. Golf is mystically hard. And the most mystical place golf is played is Augusta National, side of the Masters, a golf course that was built on what used to be an exotic nursery.

The great Ben Crenshaw once told me in a magazine, this was for a magazine story that I wrote once upon a time back in the 80s, he said that those towering pines, they are towering pines, they look like the Jack and the Beanstalk pines, but all those pines down there around Amen Corner, 11, 12, 13, the back nine at Augusta, Ben said, you feel like you're in a mystical cathedral. I concur.

The pressure on Sunday at Amen Corner is suffocating. I covered 20 straight Masters. I've walked that golf course, I don't know, hundreds of times. I know every step. I know every shot. I know every risk, every danger. Hey, you can eat those two par fives on the back nine, 13, 15. You can eat them alive, but they are a high risk, high reward, and they can just as easily die.

eat your lunch, and then dinner. Hole number 12 is the world's trickiest par three because of the wind. In that shoot, you have to hit through, hit your tee shot through on 18. It looks like a keyhole. I've stood on that tee. I've played the golf course. It's just impossible. Nowhere in sports is there a more revealing crucible of pressure than Sunday's back nine at the Masters.

Remember the other three majors are played on rotating great courses, but never the same ones in back-to-back years. So golf fans know every shot via TV, even if they haven't been to the Masters, they know every shot in every hole. That's why it's so great. So quick story, the first day I ever met my man Lil Wayne was at ESPN Bristol, Connecticut, 2008.

School is back and Dick's Sporting Goods has what you need to win your year. We've got everything from cleats to sambas, dunks and more. Plus the hottest looks from Nike, Jordan and Adidas. Find your first day fits in store or online at Dick's dot com. He was there early for the show. We had a pre-show meeting, big conference room. I didn't know him, but he loved the show and I appreciated that. I appreciated that he came in after doing a concert the night before and just stayed up all night.

bust all the way to Bristol. So this was the week of the Masters and somehow we got into an across the table discussion about how much I love Masters Sunday. And I said, hey, to me, it's the best sports day of the year. And Wayne just lost it. He said, what? Golf tournament? Masters Sunday? I said, yeah, because of X, Y, and Z. He thought I had truly lost my mind. So it was in 2018.

that Lil Wayne attended his first Masters. He loved Patrick Reed, who's from Louisiana, who was about to win his first Masters, and off Wayne went to follow Patrick Reed. And he hasn't been back since, but I asked him for a quick thought today, just before I came in to tape this show, and I'm going to read you his text back to me. I asked him about the Masters,

And he said, and I quote, "That was the only time I attended, but death is indefinitely won't be the last time!" Unforgettable and unmatched sports experience. Coming from someone who's been to Super Bowls, Final Fours, Stanley Cup Finals, and World Series, it was so relaxing and entertaining at the same time. No one bothers anyone, which allows you to enjoy it the way you choose.

I felt like I was wearing a MetaQuest Oculus device. So with that said, that means the people there play a huge part in the whole allure, which is unique but appropriate. More deep thoughts from Lil Wayne, who's now hooked on the Masters like I hook my tee shots. The same Lil Wayne who across the table said, what are you talking about? Well, now he understands.

Does Lil Wayne play golf? I don't think so. My producer Jonathan asked me just before we started tape. I don't think he plays, but he knows and he loves sports and he loves competition at the highest level and he will go back. He's on tour right now, but he will go back. So to me, you can have bowling. No problem. I respect it. You can disengage your brain. You can bowl your life away, but give me golf.

Give me an unconquerable challenge. Give me a game I hate so much that I can't stop playing it, chasing it, finding it, losing it, loving it with all my heart and soul because it's so damned hard. Yes, it takes way too long to play. 18 holes in four and a half, five hours sometimes. Yes, it's too expensive. I give you that.

Yes, if you don't play, it can be very boring to watch on TV unless you have tried to actually play golf. I dare you to try. Back to your questions. This is Marshall from North Carolina. Have you ever overslept your 2:00 AM alarm for Undisputed? The mere thought horrifies me, but never ever have I overslept. I always set two alarms, maybe

Maybe twice in the seven and a half years that I've been with Shannon here in LA on Undisputed, maybe twice I've been so tired after sleeping only three, three and a half, four hours that I did sleep through the alarm on my phone and I was awakened with a jolt by the electric alarm on my nightstand. But only once in my life, only once in my life have I completely overslept

and it nearly derailed my career before it ever got started. This was a quick story on Saturday, December 6th of 1969. Saturday, December 6th, 1969, two days after my 18th birthday. I was supposed to take the SAT test at a private high school in Oklahoma City called McGinnis. It's a 20-minute drive from where I lived. But I figured I was going to the University of Oklahoma like everybody else.

I'd already taken the ACT for state school admission. I'd aced that, no problem. But my journalism teacher had entered me in a scholarship competition at Vanderbilt University. Never been to Vanderbilt, couldn't imagine going there. That scholarship competition required that you first get accepted to Vanderbilt, no small task, which required taking the SAT for out-of-state schools.

Test was given to my knowledge only once a year. That's what I was told. Did I prep for the SAT? Seriously? No. Did I have, I hear the kids today have tutors for SAT. Are you serious? No. Did I take the SAT at all seriously? Stop it. I thought I had zero chance of going to something called Vanderbilt University. So,

My high school football team had an away game. I think it was the final game of the season that Friday night before that Saturday. And it was about a two hour drive from Oklahoma City. And I went with a carload of my basketball teammates. We didn't get back until I think around midnight. And I was so wiped out, I managed to fall asleep without setting any alarm or any backup. Faithfully, I woke up.

and I remember it like it was yesterday at 10 minutes until nine. The test started at nine sharp. I risked my life and other lives to get there at 9:05 to McGinnis High School. The nun who was presiding over the test gave me a look that could have killed me, but she shook her head and she handed me the test and the pencil that it required and she motioned me with her head

to the one empty desk among the kids who were already feverishly taking the SAT. Would you believe I sat down and aced the SAT? I did. I have no idea how, maybe because I felt no pressure and maybe because of just pure panic that I wouldn't be able to finish the test in time, the time allotted because she was going to call time at some point.

maybe it just sent me into some sort of supernatural kind of zone. I don't know what happened, but I still think to this day, to this day, I think about how my life would have changed if I'd overslept all the way through that test and missed my opportunity to escape Oklahoma City and my home life and to attend the best school in America. Thank you, God.

Last question comes from Nikolai from Chicago who asks, who is the most influential person in your life? Okay, let me make the question first past tense, as in was the most influential. As mentioned earlier, number one on this list is Katie Bell Henderson. And as I just mentioned, number two on this list is my high school journalism teacher, Liz Burdett, who forced me

to come into journalism and write about sports, write sports columns, when I had zero interest in writing or in journalism. Zero. Neither of my parents even graduated from high school. I never saw either of my parents read a book, and neither of my parents really cared that much about sports. Liz Burdett saw something in me that I certainly didn't see. Not only that, but

She entered me into the Vanderbilt Scholarship Competition. She sent Vanderbilt samples of my writing. She was the reason I won a full ride to Vanderbilt called the Grantland Rye Scholarship. I was the first winner from west of the Mississippi. Without Liz Burdett, I seriously doubt, I can just virtually guarantee you I would not be sitting here right now. Thank you, God, for Liz Burdett. May she rest in peace.

Now, present tense, who is the most influential in my life? Well, this is a no brainer because sometimes I don't have any brains and my wife, Ernestine, saves me from myself. This is from the bottom of my heart. I cannot imagine there is a more loyal human being on this planet than Ernestine is to me. And I cannot fathom a more dependable human than she is to my world.

She is fiercely loyal, fight you loyal, and she is forever utterly dependable. I cannot tell you how valuable those two qualities are to my existence. Those two qualities, fiercely loyal, forever dependable, are why I'm still sitting here right now. Have I ever been blessed? Trust me, I do not deserve her.

That's it for episode 59. Thank you for listening and or watching. Thanks to Jonathan Berger and his All Pro team for making this show go. Thanks to Tyler Korn for producing. Remember, Undisputed every weekday, 9.30 to noon Eastern, The Skip Bayless Show, every week.