Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
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come right here on this show. He can join me via Zoom or he can come into studio. I don't care. And he can have as much time as he wants to make all of his cases against me, but I will respond. Here we go. This is
is the Skip Bayless Show, episode 115. This, as always, is the Un-Undisputed, everything I cannot share with you during the two-and-a-half-hour debate show that is Undisputed. Today, I will tell you what a fraud Draymond Green is. Today, I will tell you how I got to witness firsthand
Bill Walton's greatest achievement, his transformation into the Bill Walton that you probably came to know and love. Today, I will go very deep on the hardest game to play in the world and how it victimizes those who play it at the highest levels. And finally, today, I will answer several of your probing, provocative questions. I love your questions.
Love them more by the week. But today, such as, do I ever pray for a Cowboys victory? And today, do I shower before bed or in the morning? And today, I will answer, what's my record for diet Mountain Dews in a single day? But first up, it is, as always, not to be skipped. Draymond Green took another shot at me the other day. No shock.
Draymond called me a flat-out hater for hating on LeBron every single day. This, of course, was calculated on Draymond's part because Draymond has been a longtime business partner of LeBron's, and I'm sure that as Draymond segues into his career post-basketball, he wants to continue and to grow that business relationship with LeBron James.
Again, I say this, as I've said it many times on this show, Draymond Green has an open invitation to join me on this show anytime, any week of his choosing. I'm not hard to find. Draymond can come right here on this show. He can join me via Zoom or he can come into studio. I don't care. And he can have as much time as he wants to make all of his cases against me. But I will respond.
That's why Draymond will never join me on this show. He knows what would happen to him. I know too much, and I'm not afraid to say it. He knows I would chew him up and spit him right out for all to see. So here to me is the highly amusing irony of Draymond's shot taken at me the other day. Why did Draymond get suspended for Game 5?
of the 2016 NBA Finals. Hmm. Well, it was in part because of several cheap shots he had inflicted upon opponents during that playoff run. But the final straw, as you might remember, was Draymond, fourth quarter of that fourth game, as his team was going up three games to one over the Cleveland Cavaliers, his Golden State Warriors. At that point, Draymond...
loudly called LeBron James a bitch. You're a bitch. And then promptly went down to the other end of the floor and kicked LeBron James in the privates. But I'm the hater. Could have fooled me. You know, LeBron James occasionally can be a bitch. So Draymond actually yelled out the truth. And by the way, just a quick point of order, nobody ever thought to or dared to call LeBron
Michael Jordan a bitch? Are you kidding? Nobody would have called him that because he didn't have an ounce of that in him. And for Draymond to call LeBron that very publicly, very loudly on the floor during game four of the NBA finals should actually disqualify LeBron from ever being considered even a part of the GOAT argument? Are you kidding? A bitch? Over and out.
But here's the bigger shock to me. About a month later, I nearly fell off my chair when I read that Draymond Green was now partnering with LeBron in his uninterrupted. What? That's LeBron. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. LeBron effectively bought some insurance from Draymond, effectively bought
He bought Draymond's support. He bought his loyalty. He bought the Draymond who recently condemned me as a LeBron hater. I've never told anything but the truth about LeBron James. Great and bad. Great and bad. Nothing but the truth. Now, here's the astonishing truth about Draymond Green. In my career, I have never seen anything like this phenomenon. Draymond Green is...
No exaggeration, the dirtiest player in NBA history by far. The dirtiest player in NBA history by far is Draymond Green. I dare you, right here, right now, well, please stay with me for a few more minutes, but I dare you to go on YouTube, call up and watch those low-light tapes of the cavalcade of
of Draymond Green's dirtiest plays over the years. His dirtiest plays. Just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Just get the magnitude, the overall impact of the cavalcade of Draymond's dirtiest plays over the years. The cheap shots, the low blows, the dangerous plays. Draymond is the all-time cheap shot artist yet.
Everybody loves Draymond. Not Raymond, Draymond. Everybody loves Draymond. Somehow his perception is his reality. I've seen that happen before. The perception of Draymond is he's such a nice guy. He's so fun. He's funny. He's glib. He's witty. He's loquacious. He's just so entertaining, that Draymond. Now, the truth is,
Draymond Green is just a great actor. At his core, at his core, deepest down, he's always been a dirty basketball player with one or maybe two screws loose. Since he entered the league, Draymond Green has been ejected a league high 20 times, 20 times. He's been called for technical fouls 151 times. That's barely second to Russell Westbrook.
at 153, so it's 151 to 153 in the time they've been together in the league. This is the same Draymond, that great teammate that's Draymond, who sucker-punched, of course, his teammate Jordan Poole during practice. We got to see the tape. Somebody released that tape because somebody wanted Draymond outed. Somebody inside the Golden State Warriors organization said,
wanted the world to see the real Draymond Green. That happened, obviously, just this past season. Draymond Green got suspended twice for dirty plays. Five games for the headlock that he put on Rudy Gobert as he dragged him away. And then 16 games for that psycho MMA-style kick that he gave Nurkic. Remember that over in the corner? I never see anything like that during a game. Never seen anything quite like that.
Yet Draymond Green is the first player I can ever, ever remember to be hired full time by a network to commentate on the sport he's still playing while he's still playing. I mean, that is a great achievement by Draymond Green. He is really good on television. But but seriously, the dirtiest player ever is doing that. The most ejected player ever.
at least in the time he's been in the league, is getting to do that. Really? He pulled it off. He pulled the wool over a lot of people's eyes. Draymond's even doing a really good IKEA commercial. I'm sure you've seen it many times. I've seen it way too many times. It's really a good commercial in which he smiles down a snarling wolf to retrieve his daughter's basketball. You've seen it.
This is the world we live in. Perception is far more powerful than reality. Draymond is such a nice guy. No, he isn't. Draymond is, so many people think, such a great player. He's such a great player. He's such a crucial part of that Golden State Warriors dynasty. He's Hall of Fame bound.
Well, here are Draymond's career numbers. He's averaged nine points and seven rebounds and six assists. The seven and six are pretty good, but he shot 32% for his career from three. That's pretty bad. And 71% from the free throw line. That's pretty bad. So if I submitted to you a blind resume saying,
Of these numbers, 9, 7, and 6, 32% from three, 71% from the free throw line. And I said, is this a Hall of Famer? You would laugh out loud in my face. Yeah, you got me on this. Draymond was once the Defensive Player of the Year, and he plays great defense. High level, smart, high IQ defense. And he sets a lot of great picks, smart picks, high IQ picks for Steph Curry, the greatest shooter ever. Yet the perception persists that
that Draymond Green is the guts and glue of that Warriors dynasty. He's the enforcer on a finesse team. No, not really. He's a sucker puncher. He's an ambusher. He's a cheap shot artist who will get you when you're least expecting it and not looking. I mean...
Just think about how Draymond Green has cost the Golden State Warriors. I mean, you can make a case he's cost them, what, three championships? You could make that case. Let's start back in 2016. As I mentioned, I thought I'd never see the day that a starter for an NBA Finals team would get suspended during the Finals. It's just impossible because you can't do that to a team. You can't take away a starter mid-Finals. They were up three games to one.
But Draymond was so out of control, he was so over the edge all the way through the playoffs that the minister of justice at that point, Kiki Vandeway, sitting courtside, heard him scream, bitch, at LeBron, saw him kick LeBron in the man region and said, that's it. I've seen enough. He's done enough. He's gone for game five. Did that not turn around that series?
I mean, Golden State had two of the last three at home up three games to one, but they looked lost without Draymond. That team loves Draymond. I think that team wonders about Draymond, wonders a lot about Draymond. So they began to crumble. As you remember, they lost game five at home to LeBron and Kyrie.
Game six at Cleveland to LeBron and Kyrie, and then they blew game seven at home. Draymond actually played great in that game. I'll give him that. That was his, you could argue, his greatest game ever. Steph Curry was horrible in that game, especially in the fourth quarter, but horrible for the whole game. LeBron had the chase down. Kyrie had the game winner, and that was that. So I can trace it right back to Draymond for playing so out of control, being such a dirty player.
He got himself suspended, and that was the beginning of the end of the 2016 Golden State Warrior finalists. You could argue he cost them that. Now let's move ahead to November of 2018, a game out here in Los Angeles against the Clippers. Golden State at Clippers. Do you remember what happened? KD and Draymond got into it. Warriors coming off back-to-back titles thanks to Kevin Durant.
Finals MVP back-to-back, taking over two game threes, back-to-back game threes in LeBron's house in his palace up in Cleveland. KD did that. And then Draymond did that to KD. He called KD a bitch on the bench because they'd gotten into it over who should bring the ball up. Called KD a bitch. And it was the beginning of the end of KD in Golden State, even though...
They, so to speak, kissed and made up in time to play Olympic basketball together. Even though they're now back to being besties, KD did not like that. KD felt ostracized enough by the Steph-loving Dub Nation, and he was gone, gone to Brooklyn, and that was the end of that. Could they have won that year? He obviously played the rest of that year, then he tore his Achilles in the finals, but
But maybe they should have, could have won that year if Kevin had been healthy. But that was about to be the end of that because Kevin Durant saved that franchise. There's no way that Steph, Klay and Draymond could have overcome LeBron as we saw them lose to LeBron in 2016. There's no way 2017, 2018 that they could have overcome them without Kevin Durant doing that.
So Draymond calling KD a bitch that started that downfall, which led to October of 2022, the sucker punch of Jordan Poole. Remember, they were coming off a championship. He was fine for that, but he was not suspended by the team. He just got outed by whoever upstairs released that tape of that sucker punch.
The defending champs proceeded to go 44-38 that year to struggle to finish only in the sixth seed, lost to the Lakers in six games and went lifelessly. That season basically ended with that sucker punch. They were never quite the same after that sucker punch. But what did Golden State do? They turned right around and gave everything.
Draymond Green, a big new deal the following offseason. Four years, $100 million to Draymond Green because they thought they couldn't live without him when I was saying, no, you can't live with him. And then came this past year, the first suspension for five games. As I mentioned, the second suspension for 16 games, about a month of the season.
Golden State went 11-11 without Draymond. He was supposed to go get counseling, go get help. I doubt that he did, but whatever. Back he came fairly quickly. And Golden State proceeded to finish 10th in the West and to be one and done, losing a play-in game at Sacramento. Wow. So 2016, that cost them. 2018, that cost them at least maybe two more championships.
with Kevin Durant, a happy Kevin Durant, and then coming off the championship October 2022. Did that cost them a back-to-back? Maybe. Draymond cost this team a lot in his time. Draymond Green, to me, is summed up even by, remember the game? The game won at Memphis a couple of years back. This sums up Draymond, the showman.
The Clown, what a clown show that was. Remember he got ejected at Memphis and took an insane lunatic victory lap. Remember just acting like a lunatic, yelling and screaming at the crowd, took a whole victory lap all the way around the arena floor. Did not stay to speak to the media, went straight back to his hotel room and set up the podcast to go live. That's the Draymond I know and find hard to love.
But Draymond's a great guy. He's great on Inside the NBA. He is. He's great. What a lovable character is Draymond. Hey, he can smile down a snarling wolf. Has Draymond Green ever fooled the world? But that's the world we live in now. I'm here for you, Draymond, anytime you want to join me to discuss any or all of the above.
I'm old enough to know what Bill Walton once was. Maybe you are, maybe you aren't. Probably you're not. What he once was, Bill Walton's very, very different than what he became. The beloved Bill Walton that you surely knew. I'm old enough to remember Bill Walton when he despised and distrusted the media. The Bill Walton who rarely spoke to the media.
who was viewed by the media in those days when he played at UCLA and early on for the Portland Trailblazers, as this towering, glowering, long-haired, bearded, hippie radical who despised and protested against so much of what the United States of America stood for in those days. At UCLA, Bill got arrested for protesting the Vietnam War while being...
Three straight years, the college player of the year. He went first overall in that draft to those trailblazers. And as a young trailblazer, he and his wife brought in and lived with, up in Portland, Jack and Mickey Scott, two extremely outspoken anti-government radicals who had sheltered Patty Hearst when she was on the run. Patty Hearst, you might remember, was abducted and then killed.
actually experienced a conversion into the Symbionese Liberation Army, with which she then participated in a bank robbery. It was never, ever quite clear if or how well Bill Walton knew Patty Hearst, granddaughter of the newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst, if you know the movie Citizen Kane, and I certainly do. But to me, in those days, Bill Walton was...
not a lovable character. No, he was more of a mysterious, extremely controversial superstar athlete who sure didn't act the way superstar athletes were supposed to back in the 1970s. But he was also the MVP of the NBA. He was also the MVP, was Bill Walton, of the NBA Finals. He was the greatest passing big man I had ever seen.
He was Jokic way before Jokic. Bill Walton played basketball with this dog chasing a frisbee kind of energy, with this kid-like joy. Maybe basketball, playing basketball, is the only place during which he was truly happy. Bill obviously became a vegetarian. Then his feet began to fail him, and he went to war with the trailblazers over the use of pain-killing drugs.
Then he held out. Then he disappeared, dropped out of sight. And along with him, his career disappeared until he resurfaced in 1986 with the Boston Celtics. Won sixth man of the year, won a ring with those Celtics. What a great team that was. Then he pretty much disappeared again. So you can imagine my shock in, I believe, 1990.
I'm doing a radio show on KLIF radio in Dallas, Texas. Late afternoon, sort of early evening radio show daily. I didn't know Bill, just knew of him, watched him very closely at UCLA and in Portland. And out of the blue, I got a call from Bill Walton, a message to call back Bill Walton. And I certainly did.
Bill seemed very different on the phone than what I remembered of him. Very humble, very open, very open-hearted. Told me that he was offering his services to be on my radio show all during the month of March Madness. Said he'd come on every day, didn't need to be paid at all, just wanted to do it because he was trying to see...
If he could do radio and do television because he had suffered his whole life with a stuttering problem, he stuttered. And the first time I spoke to him, there were a couple of catches where he stuttered a bit to me on the phone. But he said, I need to do this. I want to do this. Would you give me the opportunity to do it on your show? Now, I don't believe I don't know this for a fact, but I'm assuming Bill said,
called radio hosts in several cities and tried to get gigs in several places so that he could just immerse himself in trying to defeat his stuttering problem and to bring out the voice that he knew was somewhere deep down in him that he had never deployed. And I said, heck yes. Heck yes, Bill Walton. I think we paid him whatever the going day rate was. I don't remember. I probably didn't know.
But all during the month of March Madness, we had Bill Walton on the phone, not in studio. He just did it from wherever he was, I think in San Diego. And he was very good. He was extremely prepared. He knew his stuff. He knew the eighth, ninth, and tenth men on the littlest, most obscure teams that made it into March Madness, on the veritable slippery rocks of the field. Bill knew it all.
Bill really knew basketball. But what amazed me right away was, because I've worked with so many athletes and I continue to work with so many ex-athletes, all of whom played at a very high level, Bill was the only one, the only one who never referred to when I played. He never resorted to when I played. He didn't want to talk about when he played. He wanted to start over and start fresh. This was the new Bill.
A new life, a new direction. He left basketball completely behind. He was very proud of what he did, but he did not need to talk about it on the air. Not once did he ever say, back when I played for UCLA or when I played for the Portland Trailblazers, I mean, he was the three-time college player of the year and the NBA MVP and the finals MVP, and he never brought it up.
I was impressed with that. He wanted to stand on his own two feet and talk about the new basketball that he was watching. I was amazed at Bill Walton because we went through that whole month, day after day after day. We'd have him on for usually two segments of maybe 10 minutes each. Not once did Bill ever stutter. Not one time did he ever sort of get caught. Not once. I was amazed.
He stood on his own two feet and he spoke. It wasn't the Bill you later came to know. He was just being analytical Bill, but he was very well-spoken and incredibly well-prepared. And I was incredibly impressed with Bill Walton. So you can imagine my shock as from that point on in March of 19, I think 90, as I watched this Bill Walton turn into president,
This zany, wacky, wildly entertaining goofball on television. He became appointment TV for me and anybody else who didn't really care about the Pac-12 game he was doing late at night, but just to listen to him analyze the game as only Bill Walton could analyze. This ex-hippie in a tie-dyed t-shirt,
who looked like he had just come from a Grateful Dead concert, and sometimes he probably had. What a shocking transformation it was from the Walton I knew on the radio on KLIF 1990 into that. It was the most shocking transformation of a superstar athlete I had seen this side of George Foreman. When I first watched George Foreman, I was covering Ali Fights.
I did not attend the rumble in the jungle. I did pay to watch it on closed circuit and I did write about it. But remember that George Foreman? Talk about towering and glowering. That George Foreman rarely spoke to the media, seemed to despise the media, which despised him, viewed him as this monster who might devour poor Muhammad Ali in Zaire. Remember that? There were those in Ali's camp that night.
ahead of the rumble in the jungle who truly feared for ali's life against a george foreman who had battered joe frazier battered him he might die that's what i heard from insiders in the ali camp he might die tonight no ali did a number on george foreman's psyche that night if you remember the rope-a-dope tactic it was the greatest strategic move i ever saw ali rope-a-dope big george
stood up against the ropes and let George flail away at his midsection, which he had trained to perfection to take that kind of pounding from that six feet, four inch, 220 pound monster that was George Foreman. And Ali just kept asking George, is that all you got? Is that all you got? And George punched himself out and got knocked out. And that was pretty much the end of that George Foreman. The next thing I knew, I look up and George Foreman says,
has returned as this big, lovable, almost pastor, like preacher of a character. I think he was a preacher. I think he still is a preacher. And before I know what's happening, George Foreman is so popular, he's so charismatic, he's just so downright lovable that he's selling George Foreman grills to America, and I bought one. I did. I bought one. Loved it. Loved him.
in his second stint as a boxer. Loved him. Bill Walton went George Foreman and transformed from that glowering, towering radical that he was at UCLA under Coach Wooden and in Portland into one of the most beloved figures in the history of sports television. America fell in love with a guy named
who once fought against so much of what America stood for in those days, some good, some bad. But this was only in America. And yet, America didn't fall in love with Bill Walton because of his views, because of his courage to speak his mind. No, it's because Bill finally just shared what was locked up deep down inside him in those days of rage. He had a great big heart, did Bill Walton.
He decided, "Well, I really can't change America, but I can change every person, every single person I come into contact with every single moment of every day. I can help make them a little happier and maybe a little better." That's what Bill Walton did till his dying day. As you know, we lost Bill the other day way too soon. But what a life that man lived. What a transformation he underwent.
What days those were, sitting in my seat in that KLIF studio in Dallas, Texas, listening to Bill Walton defeat his stuttering.
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This question comes from Colin from Fort Lauderdale. Does Hazel go with you every time you go out of town? For those who don't know, Hazel is our quote unquote daughter. My wife, Ernestine, and I have a daughter, except she's I can't even say the word what she is because I never say the word around her. She's a seven year old Maltese. So, you know what that you get that.
But we don't call her the D word around her, no, because she's not. She's one of us. She is our daughter. But Colin, Hazel never, ever goes with us when we go out of town because Ernestine and I no longer ever, ever, ever go out of town together and leave Hazel behind because we can't, in part because we're just too attached to her.
in part because I for one can barely live without her. I'm sorry, it's sad but true. And because there's no way we're going to leave her with the vet in a quote unquote doggy hotel. There is no way, not Hazel. I've mentioned this before and it only gets worse and maybe it's my fault, but our daughter Hazel is a 10 pound terror. She is fierce and she is fearless.
And she is a handful for even me when I take her out. Every Saturday, we take her to the mall. I wear my baseball cap and sunglasses, and I get recognized here and there, but not too much. Hazel loves to people watch, but I have to be very, very careful with Hazel. She will attack, and she will bite.
As long as people walk around us, she's very content. But if anybody so dares to take a step toward especially Ernestine, you better look out because you're going to have to deal with Hazel. And I'm going to have to deal with trying to control Hazel either on the leash or if I have her in my arms. She is a handful for even me. I have to hold on with all my might. Even the other day, we were at the mall on Memorial Day.
I went home, I lifted weights, and then we went to the mall because we had missed going to the mall on Saturday. I'll get to that in just a second, but we're at the mall on Monday. It's a holiday. It's crowded. It's a parade of people back and forth. We always go over to a few outdoor tables at the mall here on the west side of LA, Century City Mall, and we get a spot.
that's great people watching spot, but away from the people. And I hold Hazel in my lap with both arms around her and she watches the people come and go. If anyone so dares to come toward us, if any, everybody's got their dog there on a leash. If any dog wanders over toward Hazel, I have to hold on with all my might. Doesn't matter how big the dog is. She's going to kill it.
That's Hazel. Maybe it was my fault, but with me at home, Hazel minds. She's extremely loyal. She's the greatest dog you could ever have. I just called her the D word at home, but we didn't socialize her early on. That's our fault. She loves me. She loves Ernestine and she loves Ernestine's sister, Joyce, period. End of story.
So we're at the mall on Monday and I look up and two very close friends of ours are there. Oh, we didn't see him until it was too late. It's our man, Dr. Jimmy Feroze and Lexi. And they're up on us before I could notice. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. And I'm wheeling away. We were sitting down, but I jumped up and turned away. I said, no, no, no. And I barely held on for dear life for their lives because I
Hazel did not like their approach. Ernestine had to text both of them later and apologize. It just wasn't a good time because we weren't very friendly. We'd go to dinner with them occasionally. That's a whole different scene and vibe and feel. This wasn't that. Last Saturday, we went out to visit my brother Lil Wayne, Ernestine's brother Lil Wayne. She's like his big sister.
We went out, it usually is about a four-hour trek because it, well, it's a little more than that. It's usually 40-ish minutes out. We always come back faster. I don't know why. 30 minutes. We were there for three hours. So we always get Ernestine's sister, Joyce, to babysit Hazel because she has terrible separation anxiety. If we ever leave her even for an hour, as soon as we shut the door, she begins to howl in anguish. Oh, ow!
And it's like, oh my God. So we leave her with Joyce and she's okay for those, whatever it takes, four or five hours when we go out to visit Wayne. But that's our Hazel. Love her when she's at home, but take her with us? Are you kidding, Colin? No. One time when she was a puppy, we took her out to Palm Springs. We went out for a week and about two days into that trip, she was just a baby. We realized this will not work.
So occasionally, Ernestine goes by herself to visit her friends in New York. And once a year, I go by myself to visit my high school, junior high school, grade school friends in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. And when I'm there, I miss my hazel.
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Why golf is the hardest game in the world, a cruel game, a vicious game at the highest and lowest levels. I play it because I'm addicted to it and because I know, as they said in the movie Bagger Vance, you can't win golf, you can only play it. Golf controls you.
I know if you've never tried, you say, "It's a silly game. You just whack around a little white ball." No, it's not silly and it's not easy. It's the opposite of. Just when you think you've got it, you don't. Just when you think you're about to master the game of golf, it rears its ugly head and masters you. I've got it. I figured it out. I just broke 80. I shot 78 in my course here in LA, Brentwood Country Club.
And I go out the next day and I don't got it. It's got me. What just happened? I lost my swing. I don't know what just happened. Well, this happens to everybody who plays golf at the highest of levels. Highest of levels. I sit watching golf on the weekends. I watch David Duvall on the Golf Channel. I watch Ian Baker Finch on CBS. They're both great at what they do. They were really great players. They both won a British Open.
ian baker finch in 1991 david duvall 10 years later and then they completely lost it they lost their games they lost their swings they couldn't drive the ball in the fairway to save their lives and both had to give up golf in favor of broadcasting it happens just lately
I'm reading about some of the game's greatest players today changing coaches on the fly just when I thought they'd figured it out. Colin Montgomery, wait, he changed coaches again? He went back to his first coach? Really? I thought he was doing great. Victor Hovland dominated last year, and now he's changing coaches because he's lost it and he's going back to his original coach. Really? Rory McIlroy, thought he was on top of his game. No, he just went to Butch Harmon for a lesson.
especially with his wedge play. He was losing it. It just happens. So it was a couple of days back. I look up and wait, Lexi Thompson is retiring at age 29. Well, she's been out there and at it for a long time because she qualified for the U.S. Open youngest ever to do so when she was 12.
She was the youngest ever to win on the LPGA Tour at 16, but she's out at 29? I watched her media session, her announcement. I watched her cry. She talked about how hard it is. Golf is just hard. It's too hard. She said it's so lonely out here and she just broke down crying. She has a dog, constant companion named Leo. I'm sure she wants to spend more time with Leo.
Golf takes so much time to practice and to play. It takes so long, and I love it so much. And so it was, watching the Colonial from Fort Worth, a tournament I covered for many years when I was in Dallas, Hogan's Alley. I knew Mr. Hogan. He once wrote me a letter congratulating me on a piece I wrote about him, Ben Hogan. Tournament dear to my heart, and they opened the telecast on Sunday morning with the announcement that Grayson Murray...
He's passed away. Later, his family announced that he took his own life. Grayson Murray was a really good player. I used to hear about him as a junior. He was the best player in the country as a junior golfer. Started out on the Korn Ferry Tour. Won back in January at the Sony Open in Hawaii. That's big. Finished 43rd at the PGA, which qualified him top 60 to play at Pinehurst in the upcoming U.S. Open. Shot 68 in the first round at Colonial. Then second round,
He was five over, he'd bogeyed three straight holes and he walked right off the course and he took his own life, 30 years of age. He'd struggled with alcohol, anxiety, depression. Maybe it wasn't just golf that drove this poor man over the edge, but I'm sure golf had something, if not a lot, to do with it because golf is hard. Grayson Murray was great at golf and then it would leave him
and it would drive him crazy just like it drives everybody crazy. Grayson Murray was a good man, Christian, so dedicated to the game of golf, and now he's gone, and God rest his soul.
This is Derek from Chicago. Are you rooting for the Cowboys to fail this season? If you happen to hear my show last week, I talked about how I've just seen and heard enough of these Dallas Cowboys, but I am absolutely not, not, not rooting for them to fail.
It's just that, Derek, I've always prided myself on never being a blindly loyal Dallas Cowboys fan. I've always prided myself on being an objective fan, if that's not an oxymoron. Not for me it is. But look, Derek, I can't control what's happening. I have zero input into drafting, signing players, obviously.
I loved that team a year ago. One year ago, I said, that's a Super Bowl team. And now I see a team that will not make the playoffs, not even make the playoffs. The Philadelphia Eagles, those no-good sorry Eagles, have gotten so much better than the Dallas Cowboys through free agency and drafting that they are going to run away with the NFC East this year. And I'm stuck reading stories about our one free agent signee
the household name Eric Kendricks from the Vikings, who is reuniting with his former coach in Minnesota, Mike Zimmer, now our new defensive coordinator. And I had to read a story about how Eric Kendricks, three years ago, blasted Mike Zimmer, who was then the head coach, blasted him for trying to motivate by fear, fear-based motivation. He didn't like it. He spoke out against it. And I'm thinking, wow.
We signed this guy to play for that guy? Really? Of course, Eric Kendricks walked it back, tried to put it in perspective. I was over-emotional. It was a terrible time, blah, blah. You've heard all that. But even Eric Kendricks doesn't love Mike Zimmer the way we were led to believe that he loves Mike Zimmer. I don't care what he says lately.
But will I will I root for my Cowboys this year? You better believe I will. Will I root against myself to be proven dead wrong about Cowboys missed the playoffs this year? You better believe it. Deep down, I'm hoping that I'm unjinxing the team that I jinxed last year with my Super Bowl. Here we come prediction. This is Denard from Baltimore who asks, have you ever prayed for the Cowboys to win a game?
That is a deep and interesting question. Denard, not once have I ever prayed for the Cowboys to win a game, nor will I ever, ever, ever pray for them to win a game. That is simply not how I believe that prayer works. I do not believe you can pray for worldly benefits. Please, God, give me the money to buy this house and I'll give up Diet Mountain Dew at least for a week.
Please, God, give me just one NFC championship game and I'll do whatever you want me to do. It just doesn't work like that. It doesn't work for one team to out pray the other team or that one team could out pray the other team all the way to winning a championship, right? Doesn't work that way. You know it and I know it. I once wrote, you could probably look this up, an editorial for the New York Times about this phenomenon, this praying phenomenon.
for games phenomenon. I do believe in collective power of prayer to help someone heal from an illness. So I do pray for health. I pray to give me the strength to heal an injury that I've suffered through overuse, which seems like every other week. I always pray to be used for God's good. I pray for the strength to be the best I can be, that God will help keep me on whatever path He intends for me.
put me in the places I need to be to help influence others to be the best they can be. But, Denard, never ever have I or will I ever pray for a Dallas Cowboy victory. This is Yanni from New York City. What do you consider the biggest break in your career? I've mentioned both of these before, but I will sum them up for you, Yanni. It's an interesting question. And speaking...
of God being good to me, He has been very, very good to me. I have been blessed twice in my life by my sophomore in high school English teacher who was also the journalism teacher who read a first week of school book report that I wrote on a sports book, ripping it to shreds for being, at least feel like it had been written overnight and one night.
She demanded, did Liz Burdett, that I come into journalism and write sports columns for her twice a week. I'd never written a word beyond my name. I couldn't imagine I had any writing talent. And she said, you have talent. You're coming into journalism whether you like it or not. I said, I have no interest. She said, you will. She was right. She set me on my path. And my second huge break happened.
Came back in 2004, the summer of. I was back in Oklahoma City for my week with my childhood friends. They were all downstairs eating breakfast. Of course, I was upstairs on the treadmill, flipping around on the TV, trying to find something to get me through my hour of treadmill. And I landed on this show called Cold Pizza. It was maybe a month or so old.
And I yelled down the stairs to my friends eating breakfast, hey, you guys, turn on ESPN2. You got to see this show, Cold Pizza. It's terrible. Faithfully, a month later, I was hired by the great Mark Shapiro to join Cold Pizza as a debater because he needed to sports up a show that was struggling to find its niche in the ratings. Cold Pizza was a show loosely based on sports at that point, sort of
ESPN's version of Good Morning America, and Mark said, "I need a debate component. You can do this. Please come to New York and help save my show." Mark told me, "I don't know if it'll last a week or a month, a year or five years." And 20 years later, I'm still basically every day doing the same show, the same debate format that I've been blessed to do over the last 20 years. God thing.
Thank you, God. This is Brent from Palo Alto. Do you shower before bed or shower in the morning? That's a very personal question, Brent, and I will answer it very publicly. I shower twice a day, every day, every day. Monday, Wednesday, Friday afternoons, I lift weights. So I shower after I lift weights because I do sweat.
Every Tuesday and Thursday, as I've told you before, I do either play golf, usually nine holes of golf, or I hit balls at Brentwood Country Club here in L.A. while I am drenched with sunscreen to protect my beautiful baby skin. So I must shower after those days. And as I've said before, every weekday morning, I'm up at 2 a.m., I'm on my treadmill between 2 or on at 2.30 until 3.30 a.m.
I do run on my treadmill while I'm prepping for Undisputed. So every morning at about 3:40, I take another shower. Do I get tired of showering? I do, but I do not get tired of working out or playing golf. But trust me, Brent, I'm never in the shower for more than two minutes at a time. I'm not a long showerer. My wife Ernestine will take a 30-minute shower. I say, "How do you do that?" She says, "Great."
It makes me feel so much better. I don't know that. I have no patience. I take two showers a day. This is Barry from Dallas. How many diet Mountain Dews do you have each day and what is your record? Barry, I get questions all the time about diet Dew. I'm honest with you. I'm not proud of drinking diet Dew. I'm not here to try to fool you into thinking it's great for you. It's not.
I always say it's my one vice. I've never done any sort of paid commercial for Diet Mountain Dew. I just drink it because I like it. I like that lemon-lime taste of Diet Mountain Dew. I don't drink the hard stuff, the straight stuff. It's got way too much sugar for me, even though I'm sure it's great to drink for many others. But I drink it because I like the taste and I love the caffeine jolt. It's my morning rocket fuel.
I try to limit myself to one diet do per morning before undisputed, the breakfast of champions, Diet Mountain Dew. But I will admit, on Wednesdays, and I'm taping this right here, right now on a Wednesday, after I leave this taping, leave this Fox studio, I will go straight home and I will take a nap, hopefully if I can stay asleep for an hour and a half. And then I will jump out of bed
and go lift weights. And sometimes, I must admit, after doing two and a half hours of Undisputed and an hour or so taping of this Skip Bayless show, I'm just mentally exhausted. And I feel sluggish when I start to lift weights. And I must admit to you, Barry, that I do resort occasionally to a second diet do on Wednesday to propel me through my weight workout. And you know what?
It always works. Diet Mountain Dew, the nectar of the gods. That is it for episode 115. 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. Please remember, Undisputed, every weekday, 9.30 to noon Eastern, The Skip Bayless Show, every week.