ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith, who is one of the most iconic figures at the network over the last two decades, almost never rose to prominence in sports media.
In fact, Smith, who is now the executive producer of one of ESPN’s most successful shows in First Take, almost left sports media to work in banking, according to a story published in The Athletic on Wednesday.
“While a cub reporter in North Carolina, he called [Rob] Parker, then a baseball writer in Cincinnati, and told him he was quitting the business and going to apply for a job at Wachovia,” the story said of Smith. “They had met years earlier at a National Association of Black Journalists convention. …Parker saw Smith’s natural talent and told him to rip up the Wachovia application so loudly that he could hear it over the phone. Parker understood what others would learn: Smith was young, hungry and unapologetically himself.”
Smith played basketball at Winston-Salem State, where he studied journalism before beginning his career as a reporter for the Winston-Salem Journal. It was nearly all for naught—which is a fascinating what if, for both Smith and ESPN.
Both parties would likely agree that Smith made the right decision to stick with his sports media career instead of heading into the banking world all those years ago.
