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When you watch Chris Paul on the playoff stage, you often sense he is fighting two battles, one against his nature and one against his opponent.
Live television is the hottest medium. My passion for sports debate runs hot enough without a camera transporting it into your living room with 10 times more impact.
Too many people in charge at ESPN, for my taste, were a little too fearful. It's a Disney network. There are just certain boundaries that you can't even tiptoe along.
Advertisers rip out one another's conscience to control the spending impulses of males ages 18 to 34, who now have the cyber world at their fingertips. They want more.
I've worked with some people and they turn, they become that image on TV and they're lost in it, lost in who they are. It scares me. I want to stay me, preserve my soul.
Field goal kicking is wildly exciting for all the wrong reasons. We regularly interrupt games to go for a ride on the equivalent of Disney's stomach-in-throat Tower of Terror.
I remain unashamed to publicly declare my lifelong love of watching football. I have watched thousands upon thousands of games simply because I cared solely about which team won.
Mayweather has boxing genius. But it takes one to know one, and he knew right away Pacquiao also has rare boxing IQ - an equalizing gift for setting up and taking down an opponent.
I'm LeBron's 'No. 1 Critic' and his 'Biggest Hater.' I feel a little like Shailene Woodley's character in 'Divergent.' The government is going to eliminate me because I don't fit in.
You know what, Tom Brady is unlike any quarterback I have ever followed or covered. He is shattering every mold of how a franchise quarterback should be on and off the field. He's just different.
For my meal replacements, I eat way too many Quest bars. I think you should eat every three hours. I usually wake up once a night, and if I do wake up, I always eat a Quest bar to feed my machine.
I loved my 12 years at ESPN. And I loved working with Stephen A. - and trust me, it's hard to even talk about it, because I miss him. But the truth was, I never quite fit on a Disney-owned network.
Live TV is physically grueling. I'm concentrating very hard to recall numbers, dates and events to bolster my argument and win a debate. Every eight to 10 minutes, a new sport or topic is thrown at me.
I didn't have a curfew and always slept at friends' houses, but on Sundays, Mom dragged me to church. It was the best thing she did for me. I was moved just to be there and to feel God had a plan for me.
I obviously can't read, watch and listen to everything. But of the media members I follow, all are pro-LeBron - most of them passionately so - and most are extremely slow to criticize him and quick to give him a pass.
For 30 years I wrote for newspapers and magazines, wrote books on the Dallas Cowboys' dynasties of the '70s and '90s, wrote about Michael Jordan in Chicago and Barry Bonds in the Bay Area, even wrote columns for ESPN.com from 2004 to 2006.
I've long been offended by not-so-godly pro football players I've known who showed up for pregame chapel - Sunday-only Christians rubbing the proverbial rabbit's foot - then after victories declared it was 'God's will' that their team won.
My colleagues think I'm crazy but my motto is, never miss a day. If we're taping in L.A., I'll get up at 2 a.m. to go run. If I'm on the road and the hotel doesn't have a gym, I'll find a 24-hour gym. I don't know how to exist without my workouts.
I merely dared to say Tebow could be a successful starting quarterback in the National Football League - not a Pro Bowler, mind you, just a guy who could win games his way. Which prompted relentless attacks from anti-Tebow analysts and journalists.
At the risk of damaging the 'First Take' ratings, the God's truth is I do not hate LeBron James. I actually like the man, who seems as close to being a role model as any superstar can be. He seems to be a good father and husband with a sharing, caring heart.
Inch for inch, the 6-foot-3 Westbrook is the NBA's most sensationally talented player, a relentlessly explosive basket-attacker with a deadly pull-up jumper - a top-10 NBA player by any big-picture statistical measure from Player Efficiency Rating to Win Shares.
Punters must catch bullet snaps that sometimes bounce or test their verticals. Then they must aim away from dangerous returners or pierce the wind with low spirals or drop punts into 'coffin corners' or stick them nose-first like majestic 2-irons near the goal line.
Tear away fantasy football's fraternal facade and you discover it's built on megalomaniacal anarchy. Its subliminal message: Forget the team you've always rooted for. You be the owner and the GM. You pick and control the players. You be the star, Joe (and Jill) Nobody.
Just my two cents: Even as a Christian, I love boxing because it's the ultimate stand-alone test of a competitor's skill and will. Just two opponents, lightly gloved, and a referee ready to jump in and stop it the moment he believes one opponent can no longer defend himself.
In the '80s, I did two hours of cardio every day, split between running and the stationary bike. It was a trap - afterward I'd feel starving but also bulletproof, so I'd pig out. I slid into what I call exercise bulimia, when you're running more and more miles so you can eat worse and worse food.
Interviewing Michael Jordan is like playing him one on one. If he respects you and especially your media platform and he's amused by your college try, he'll let you get off a shot or two. Then he'll go behind his back, give you a head fake and leave you wondering exactly what he meant by this and that.
For 10 years while I was at ESPN, I lived at the Residence Inn in Southington, Connecticut, near Bristol. I did that because my wife had a great job in New York City, and we had a place in New York City, at 54th and 8th. On Friday, I would come back, and then on Sunday evening I would go back to the Residence Inn.
If the NFL can keep getting away with forcing players to wait three years out of high school before they're drafted - three! - the NCAA should be made to do away with its rules against paying players beyond room, board and tuition. I'm not talking about some token, $2,000-a-year 'spending money' stipend for every player.
When the NBA first resorted to it in 1979, I must admit I thought it was a circus rule, the equivalent of asking players to be shot out of cannons or swallow swords, something borrowed from the stepchild ABA with its red, white and blue basketballs. A 3-point line? The beautiful game of basketball didn't need a clown shot.
Once upon a time, kickers actually were players. Lou 'The Toe' Groza started at left tackle and played some defensive line while turning into the first straight-on place-kicking star, for the Cleveland Browns. Quarterback George Blanda led the NFL in completions once and the AFL three times while kicking field goals and extra points.
During games, I love a Twitter-rocking dunk as much as the next NBA nut. But now, I'd slightly rather see a crowd-detonating (or crowd-silencing) 3-pointer, either off four or five whip-whip passes or (even better) off a steal and a one-on-two pull-up on a solo fast break. No shot in basketball can be more psychologically devastating.
Obviously, I'm not not black. But this is one thing I do know after years and years of working with a lot of black players and black commentators on many networks: That if you go to the place of you're telling a black man, or a black woman, that 'You should know your place and stay in it,' when you get to there, them's fighting words.