A Quote by Jason Whitlock
I wanted to leave ESPN when control of 'The Undefeated' was taken from me.
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People ask me, 'What's it like to leave ESPN?' and I say, 'I'm not leaving ESPN. I'm leaving ESPNU.' That's what I was on. That network doesn't even have a sales staff.
I watch ESPN all day. If you come into my trailer, ESPN is on. That's the first thing I do when I leave the set.
It'll be up to ESPN when I leave. And when ESPN says they're going to move in another direction, I'll say, 'Thank you very much. It's been a great run.' Because it has.
Hard as it is to believe, there were three magazines fighting over me. 'Newsweek' wanted to keep me, 'ESPN The Magazine' was coming into existence and wanted me, and 'SI' wanted to bring me back. Isn't that amazing? I had a choice, like a free agent.
I got fired - November 8, 1979. And all of a sudden, I got a call, two weeks later, about doing a game on ESPN. And I truly said - Scotty Connal, the head of ESPN production at the time, was the guy that called me - I said, 'Man, ESPN sounds like a disease. What is ESPN? I know nothing about it, never heard of it.'
That's one thing that I've always wanted: to make my own decisions and not to be pushed. That has happened in my career, and I wanted to leave football, not football to leave me. I wanted to enjoy it as much as I could and to leave it a little bit earlier than too late.
You always think as an organization, obviously if you're in sports, you want to be with ESPN. ESPN is it. But you don't really realize how good ESPN is and how big their platform really is until you're in it.
Remember one thing about ESPN: People can be critical of them sometimes for being a large corporation but nine years ago I had a stroke and I couldn't talk. That's the way I made my living. ESPN could've dumped me very easy, but they didn't. They helped me and presented me an opportunity to get back on the air.
SportsCenter' is the legacy brand at ESPN, I had a great year doing the show. But it was not a fit for me because ultimately I had a lot of things that I really wanted to say and wanted to express, and the 'SportsCenter' vehicle is not necessarily set up for that.
By the time I was 14, my most burning ambition was to leave my home, leave my neighborhood, leave my city. I kept it a secret wish. It was easier done than said. It wasn't only that I wanted to leave Chicago - I wanted to live in New York City. And I did - for a time.
When I had Mason, I was really ready to leave the business of acting, but still wanted to do work that I could control.
Our goal isn't to go undefeated. Like, 'Hey, we're going to have an undefeated season.' Our goal is to win every game we're playing. And there's a difference.
I've been on cruise control with my opponents, even though I fought some very good champions, undefeated champions.
Everybody is an expert. But at Under Armour, I want people to control what they can control. Leave the pontificating to everyone else. Leave all that negative talk to everyone else.
Brand matters. And ESPN is, by far, the most popular sports brand. People trust ESPN.
When I entered the sport of boxing I wanted to be one of the best and be undefeated. And I was able to attain that, not just one championship title, but four.
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