Before Skip Bayless would change his name from John to Skip
Before Skip Bayless would move from ESPN, hosting with Stephen A Smith, to Fox Sports,
where he now hosts with Shannon Sharpe.
Before Skip Bayless would use his rough upbringing as motivation to be the hardest worker in
the room
Before Skip Bayless would say things like this.
Skip Bayless would find a huge amount of success debating former co host Stephen A Smith, on
ESPN’s First Take, before taking his talents to the rival Fox Sports in September of 2016,
where he still argues with Shannon Sharpe.
The son of parents who owned and operated a BBQ styled restaurant Skip, who’s real
name is John, always knew he wanted something to do with sports when he grew up.
After averaging just 1.4 points per game playing basketball, Skip soon realized he would probably
be better off reporting on sports rather than playing them.
We’re here to tell you all about Skip Bayless’ rise to success and fame right here for you
on before they were famous.
What’s going on eveyone, Jarred Bronstein here coming at you with another Before They
Were Famous, and today we’re talking about Stephen A Smith’s former debate partner,
Skip Bayless.
We just recently did a video on Stephen A Smith and a ton of you guys wanted us to do
one one Skip, so here it is.
As always drop us some comments with who you want to see next, the more suggestions we
get of the same person, the more likely we are to do them.
Maybe Shannon Sharpe?
Who knows.
Check out our Stephen A video after this one and for today’s trivia question, I want
to know what movie Skip made his film debut in.
Let me know in the comments below, I’ll answer that at the end of this video.
But let’s get into this one.
Skip Bayless was born John Edward Bayless the 2nd, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on December
4th, 1951.
Although his birth name is John, his parents would call him Skip from birth, and eventually,
John would legally change his name to Skip.
The first born of John Bayless and Levita Anderson, John the 2nd would be referred to
as Skip because his father would refer to Skip’s mother as “the skipper of the ship”.
In fact, Skip claims his parent’s didn’t call him by his birth name once.
From the get go he was being called their little skipper, which would eventually be
shortened to Skip, even though his birth name was John.
Skip’s parents opened a local bbq restaurant, The Hickory House, in Oklahoma, where his
mother would run the cash register and his father would take care of the rest.
From a young age, Skip’s father, who was a functioning alcoholic, would have Skip try
his first sips of booze.
At age 3 or 4, Skip would be called into the party room during a celebration and was encouraged
to take a sip of whatever his dad was drinking at the time.
For a 3 or 4 year old, I don’t know what would taste worse than alcohol, however it
would come as a blessing in disguise to Skip, who would grow to strongly dislike the taste
of any alcohol.
It wouldn’t be til much later in Skip’s life that he would grow to learn his mother
was also an alcoholic.
Skip’s also got a younger sister, LuAnn Tucker who is a special education teacher
and a younger brother, Rick Bayless, who is a celebrity chef and star of Mexico: One Plate
at a Time.
Growing up Skip attended Mayfair Elementary in Oklahoma City, where he would quickly learn
his parent’s didn’t care much for his achievements.
Although he started working in his parents restaurant moping the floors at age 4, Skip
would also grow up playing football, basketball and baseball.
He would quit playing football in 7th grade to focus more on basketball and baseball.
Although he was a better baseball player, he claims basketball was his first true love.
And the man could ball, winning athlete of the year while attending Taft Junior High
in Oklahoma City.
Skip would attend basketball camps and play baseball throughout his youth, always having
a love for sports even though no one in his family cared much for any sport.
As much as he loved playing, never in a million years did he think he would end up writing
about sports.
During his sophomore year, Skip’s english teacher, Mrs. Burdette, at Northwest Classen,
would tell Skip he would be writing sports for the school’s paper.
It all started on his first day in her class, when Mrs. Burdette assigned everyone a one
page book report telling the class “I just want to see if you can write, I doubt any
of you can.”
According to Skip.
Well to both the surprise of her and Bayless, who opted to do his book report on a biography
of NY Giants quarterback Y.A.
Tittle, side note fuck the giants go Eagles, he actually could write.
This one page book report would be the start of a career Bayless originally had no interest
in.
Imagine that?
If Skip Bayless wasn’t the Skip Bayless we now know and we never got to see his arguments
with Stephen A.
Although Bayless’ parents didn’t care much about what he did on a daily basis, with
Skip even admitting he didnt have a curfew and would spend most friday and saturday night’s
at friends houses’ to get away from his house, Skip credit’s his mother for his
speech.
She forced him and his brother to take public speaking lessons from age 10-12 from an older
women who his mother went to as a child.
Needless to say the lessons, which Skip would attend twice a week, have definitely played
a big part in his life, allowing him to speak to clearly and eloquently on all kinds of
media.
Bayless would also spend much of his youth living at his grandparent’s home.
However they weren’t home too much either, so he spent a large majority of time with
the family’s house guest, Katie Bell Henderson, who would become a second mother to Skip.
When Skip’s grandfather would come home, he’d usually be drunk, and according to
Skip he was a dangerously mean drunk.
Due to this, Katie would usually usher Skip and his younger brother to the basement to
avoid his own drunk grandfather.
Skip credits Katie for teaching him what’s right and wrong, warned her about the evils
of alcohol and pretty much raising him from a young age.
Bayless would continue playing baseball and basketball throughout high school, however
in his sophomore year, Skip would see his basketball playing time significantly decrease.
At 5’11, trying to play on a team with 4 future division 1 basketball players, and
the coaches’ orders to make Skip a point guard, when he grew up shooting the ball,
was an issue.
Skip would spend his sophomore year playing for the Varsity B team learning how to be
a better point guard, and come senior year, Skip admits he was scared to even shoot.
Although it’s known he averaged 1.4 points per game, Skip explains it’s because he
barely got playing time, losing out the 5th starting spot to the coaches’ son in his
senior year.
But it seems like this was yet another reason why Skip is where he is today.
Due to his lack of playing time on the court, Skip would turn his attention to baseball
and writing in his sophomore and senior years for the school’s paper.
Although he admits his coach, Winston Havenstrite, had a love/hate relationship with Skip, Bayless
recalls although he’d learn a ton from his baseball coach, he would eventually grow to
dread and despise him.
Although Bayless would go on to play for Havenstrite in his senior year of high school, the team
would have an awful year, and Skip would end up writing an article about how bad it really
was to play for his baseball coach after their final game.
He explained “ I didn’t need sources.
I was basically quoting myself on what really went on inside the 1970 Northwest Knights
baseball team.
Several of my teammates were pleasantly astounded – the truth had been told – but they also
feared for my safety.”
The same day the article was posted, Skip passed his baseball coach who either didn’t
see him or purposely looked the other way.
According to Skip, an old coach of Skip’s, Jay Stevens saw Havenstrite at a golf course
a month after the article was posted.
Havenstrite told Jay “If I ever see Skip Bayless again, I’ll kill him.”
Scary stuff for a 18 year old to hear, but Skip claims it helped him deal with the many
confrontations he would eventually have with players, coaches, and of course viewers or
listeners of his many shows.
Throughout Skip’s senior year, Mrs. Burdette would send in samples of his writing, including
sports columns, movie reviews and work from his english class, to enter him into the Grantland
Rice Scholarship competition.
His teacher also stayed on top of him to take the SAT required for admission to Vandebilt
University, in Nashville.
According to Skip, Mrs. Burdette told him how the scholarship was next to impossible
to win, so he completely forgot about it and came to terms he’d be going to the University
of Oklahoma, where all of his friends were going.
All that would change, on one May night in his senior year, when his mom left him a note
to return a call to an area code with 615.
Skip knew 615 was a Nashville area code, and that Vanderbilt was in Nashville, but him
winning?
Not possible.
Until it happened.
After he hung up the phone, he came to terms that his writing just got him a full ride
to college, including tuition and a room for 4 years.
He would go on to complete his 4 years at Vanderbilt, majoring in English and History,
graduating in 1974 and working as a sports editor for the schools newspaper.
While attending Vanderbilt, Bayless would continue a relationship with his on again,
off again, high school sweetheart.
They would eventually marry but divorce 4 years later with Bayless saying he was married
to his job.
Directly from school, Skip would get hired to work for the Miami Herald.
He would work there for a few years writing sports columns, before being hired by the
Los Angeles Times in August of 1976.
Bayless would continue to work at the LA times, winning the Eclipse Award for Outstanding
Newspaper writing in 1977 for his coverage of Seattle Slew’s Triple Crown Victory until
he was hired by the Dallas Morning News to write their lead sports column.
Three years after working for the Dallas Morning News, he would be recruited by the Dallas
Times Herald, where he would be voted Texas sportswriter of the year by the national sportscasters
and sportswriters association three times, in 1979, 1984 and 1986.
While working in Dallas, Bayless would release three books, all about the Dallas Cowboys
and how shitty they are.
I’m kidding, they suck, but his books we’re about the winning Cowboys teams, who would
win three super bowls in 4 years.
Enjoy it Cowboys fans, won’t happen again anytime soon.
Ya enjoy that one playoff win.
That’s all you’re gonna get bud.
In 1989 Skip would join Dick Scahpp for the sunday morning show Sports Reporters.
In 91, Bayless would jump into radio, hosting a sports talk show in the evening for 2 years.
He would continue his work on television as well, eventually leading to him becoming a
member of the Knight of the Roundtable, a segment before NFL Monday Night football games
that would see Bayless defat with co hosts Mitch Albom and Michael Wilbon starting in
1993.
Skip explained how the debates on the pre game show was originally scripted, but over
time they would just go off the cuff, which he currently does with Shannon Sharpe on undisputed.
As he would see success on air, Skip would continue working in print and radio, hosting
The Skip Bayless show from 1994-1996.
He would also make frequent appearances on ESPN’s The Fabulous Sports Babe.
Following 17 years of working in Dallas, Skip would get hired by the Chicago Tribune in
1998 as the lead sports columnist.
In his first year in Chicago, he would win the Lisagor Award for excellence in sports
column writing.
Soon after, Skip would provide the commentary for major golf championships on the Golf Channel
in 1999 and 2000.
In 2001, Bayless would leave the Chicago Tribune, becoming the primary guest host of The Jim
Rome Show, and regularly appearing on Jim’s Fox Sports show, The Last Word, in 01 and
02.
Bayless would also appear on Fox’s The Best Damn Sports Show Period, but would move with
Rome in 2003 to ESPN, being featured on Jim Rome’s Rome is Burning show and would also
appear in a weekly sunday morning SportsCenter debate segment with Stephen A Smith.
This would be the start of an everlasting relationship between the two.
During this time, Bayless would continue his radio career co hosting a weekend show on
ESPN radio with anchor Larry Beil, which aired until 2004, when Bayless moved into TV full
time.
In 2004, Bayless would team up with Woody Paige of the Denver Post to debate in daily
segments called 1st and 10, which was featured on ESPN2’s show, Cold Pizza.
In may 2007 the show would be rebranded as First Take, which is where he and former colleague
Stephen A Smith would really take the sports world by storm for their hilarious debates.
Now as many of you know, Bayless would eventually leave ESPN’s first take after his contract
would finish if August of 2016, with his final appearance coming on June 21, 2016.
Bayless would go on to join Fox Sport’s 1 and In September of 2016, Bayless would
debut in Skip and Shannon Undisputed, where Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe argue or should
I say debate, about sports as well.
Bayless would also go on to marry his wife in 2016, Ernestine Scalfani, and continues
to a prominent figure in the sports news and broadcasting world.
He would also grow to have a much healthier and better relationship with his mother, who
would be convinced to join Alcohol Anonymous to deal with her addiction.
Now to answer our trivia question, Bayless would make his film debut in the movie Rocky
Balboa in 2006, where Bayless would be seen discussing a possible fight between Rocky
and Mason Dixon.
In the film Bayless mocks Rocky’s age and says he’s overrated.
Now I'm wrapping up this video here, My name is Jarred Bronstein.
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