Skip Bayless

John Edward "Skip" Bayless II (born December 4, 1951) is a sports commentator on ESPN2's ESPN First Take and its afternoon show 1st and 10. Bayless also wrote regular columns for ESPN.com and its Page 2 section.

Schooling and family

Bayless graduated from Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, on the university's Fred Russel-Grantland Rice Sportswriting Scholarship. While there he became a member of the Phi Kappa Sigma Fraternity. His brother, Rick Bayless, is a well-known chef.

Writing career

Bayless has written for The Miami Herald, Los Angeles Times, Dallas Morning News, Dallas Times Herald, Chicago Tribune, and the San Jose Mercury News.

Over his 35 year career, Skip Bayless has also written several books regarding the Dallas Cowboys. In Hell-Bent: The Crazy Truth About the "Win or Else" Dallas Cowboys, Bayless created a controversy when he suggested that Cowboys' quarterback Troy Aikman was gay. This brought criticism upon Bayless for the innuendos concerning Mr. Aikman's sexuality as contained in the book. Aikman never addressed Bayless' claims, and has since married and had children.

Radio and television

Skip Bayless is a highly contentious analyst who has been despised and praised continuously. Bayless' views garner minimal respect from his many detractors, many of whom are fellow pundits. These critics acccuse Bayless of purposely igniting controversy in order to make a name for himself. On the other hand, a substantial number of fans praise Bayless for his eloquent analysis, willingness to espouse viewpoints not commonly considered by others, and the professional manner by which he conducts himself. He has occasionally substituted as host for syndicated radio program The Jim Rome Show. He has also previously contributed to ESPN as a recurring panelist on The Sports Reporters, NFL Prime Monday (now ESPN Monday Night Countdown) in the 1990s, and Jim Rome is Burning.

KTCK Sports Radio 1310 "The Ticket"

Bayless was the first voice ever heard live on the very popular Dallas radio station, KTCK Sports Radio 1310 "The Ticket". During his and the station's first ever broadcast, he rightly predicted that KTCK would dominate the local sports radio market.

Cold Pizza/ESPN First Take

Skip Bayless is a co-host of First Take, formerly known as Cold Pizza (with Jay Crawford and Dana Jacobson), wherein he debates ten of the day's hottest sports topics with a fellow sportswriter (formerly Woody Paige). These debates are reaired on ESPN in the afternoon under the title 1st and 10.

Bayless is known for taking unpopular stances on issues discussed on the show. For example, he has extensively criticized Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James for his inability to make clutch shots or live up to his reputation as one of the league's preeminent stars. This typically draws strong disagreement from Crawford, an Ohio native and Cavaliers fan. Bayless mockingly refers to the player as "Prince James" (a derivation of his actual nickname "King James") and derides the star constantly on the show. His criticism of James reached its peak in the 2007 NBA Finals, as the San Antonio Spurs swept James' Cavaliers. James has not responded to Bayless' criticism as yet.

He is also known to be relatively critical of Boston Celtics star power forward Kevin Garnett, referring to him as Kevin 'Garnot'. He bolsters his argument by pointing out Garnett's lack of NBA Championships. On August 3, 2007, on 1st and 10, he went as far as to say that Garnett is not even among the top fifteen players in the league, much to the chagrin of fellow analyst Stephen A. Smith.

Similar to his critique of James, Bayless also used to heavily condemn Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning due to his never winning any "big games" in his career. However, after Manning led the Colts to the Super Bowl championship in the 2006 season Bayless backed off his criticism of the quarterback, admitting that the star had proven him wrong. He has similarly criticized baseball players Frank Thomas and Mike Piazza due to their not coming through in big, "clutch" situations. He has stated that Piazza is not a Hall of Fame player. Bayless is also outspoken in his belief that Tiger Woods is not the greatest golfer of all-time. Bayless cites his lack of competition on the PGA Tour and inabilty to come from behind on Sundays (Woods has never won a major when trailing after 54 holes) as the basis of this opinion. Among Bayless' other controversial views are his contention that the NBA regular season is more exciting than March Madness, and his opinion that all professional athletes should be contractually barred from attending nightclubs. Skip raised eyebrows again on May 7, 2007 when he stated that the much hyped Oscar De la Hoya/Floyd Mayweather Jr. fight should have been a draw, despite public opinion veering slightly in Mayweather's favor.

Bayless has repeatedly stated that field goals and extra point attempts (PATs) should be done away in the National Football League, which often caused an argument with rival Woody Paige on Cold Pizza. This argument once went so far that former New York Giants kicker Jay Feely was invited onto the show to guest host for the absent Paige and debate against Skip Bayless and his anti-kicking stance. After the Giants made the playoffs Bayless had to wear Feely's jersey on Cold Pizza on January 2nd, 2007, a comedic gesture to which Bayless heartily agreed.

Recently Bayless has focused his venom and hatred on the Dallas Cowboys. He refuses to acknowledge any Cowboys success and frequently calls the QB Tony "Romeo" and TO "Team Obliterator". Skip Bayless is in love with Bret Favre and looked like he was about to cry when the Chicago Bears destroyed the Packers giving the 2007 NFC Home Field Advantage to the Cowboys. Almost every team is better than Dallas in Skip's distorted mind, including all the NFC East teams (Even though Dallas easily won the 2008 title), and his completely biased commentary should lead to his firing.

Allen Iverson controversy

On Cold Pizza, Bayless made comments about NBA All-Star Allen Iverson, stating that his recent trade to the Denver Nuggets was flawed, and continued to criticize Iverson. Iverson then responded with an interview with ESPN where he asked, "Why he hate me?" It has not been determined whether this interview was a skit or an actual interview.

Criticism

Because of his relatively brash claims and stances, Bayless has been publicly criticized by some high-profile sources. Le Anne Schreiber, the ESPN Ombudsman, criticized him for being so "absolute" in his arguments and for yelling too much on TV [1] and ESPN columnist Bill Simmons has taken multiple shots at him in his columns. PTI personality Michael Wilbon called Skip Bayless "a moron" for his belief that someone should verbally challenge Tiger Woods through the media. But criticism of Bayless long preceded his elevation to ESPN; his peripatetic career often exposed an embarrassing lack of knowledge on his part of the local teams about which he would pontificate. In 2001, while working for the San Jose Mercury News, Bayless wrote a column exalting the supposed long-time home field advantage held by the NFL's San Francisco 49ers -- this despite the fact that the 49ers, throughout their glory years of the 1980s and 1990s, often struggled at home, amassing a record strikingly inferior to that which they assembled away from Candlestick Park (the 49ers were in fact the ONLY team in the NFL to have a better road record than home mark during the 1980s). Although Bayless was removed from ESPN's regular columnist network, he still holds a position with the company as an analyst on the ESPN2 sports talk program, ESPN First Take. His network demotion has not seemed to affect his sizable popularity among viewers, for better or for worse. Skip is also known for his controversial statements about the Dallas Cowboys (primarily directed towards Terrell Owens or Tony Romo) as well as New England Patriots wide receiver Randy Moss. He commonly calls Owens "Team Obliterator," Kevin Garnett Kevin Garnot, Tony Romo "Tony Romeo" or "Turnover Machine."

Bibliography

• God's Coach: The Hymns, Hype, and Hypocrisy of Tom Landry's Cowboys, Simon and Schuster, 1990. ISBN 0-671-70581-4.
• The Boys: The Untold Story of the Dallas Cowboys' Season on the Edge, Simon and Schuster, 1993. ISBN 0-671-79359-4.
• Hell-Bent: The Crazy Truth About the "Win or Else" Dallas Cowboys, HarperCollins Publishers, 1996. ISBN 0-06-018648-8.

External links

• Skip Bayless at IMDb

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