The ranks of ESPN analysts are filled with former players, many of who bring up specific circumstances from their careers in relation to current sports issues. A particularly unusual example of that came from ESPN NFL analyst Ryan Clark on First Take Wednesday.
At one point on that show, Clark, JJ Redick, Stephen A. Smith, and host Molly Qerim were discussing the Denver altitude (5,276 feet above sea level). That came out of how Los Angeles Lakers’ star LeBron James is set to play his first playoff game there against the Nuggets, and how he described that challenge as “real.” And that led to Clark bringing up his own experience with playing in Denver. Notably, that saw him develop splenic infarction in a 2007 game there thanks to his sickle cell trait, which led to him having to have his spleen and gallbladder removed and miss the rest of the season, and which led to him never playing in Denver again.
First Take saw Ryan Clark bring up the 2007 medical crisis he suffered in Denver, which led to his spleen and gall bladder being removed. pic.twitter.com/JsqiRfOD35
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 17, 2023
Qerim says “This will also be the first time LeBron will play against Denver in the playoffs, a challenge LeBron has said is, quote, ‘real.'” She then starts trying to set up something else, but Clark chimes in with “Speaking as someone who has a little trouble playing in Denver,” Qerim responds with a “You?”, and Clark says “I can agree with LeBron that Denver sucks. It’s like the worst place to play.”
Qerim asks “Is it really that big of a difference?” and Clark says “Molly, you do know I almost died there, right? So yeah, I would think it’s a big difference.” Qerim says “Yeah,” and Clark says “I’m not sure who else on that team has sickle cell trait, though. But yeah, I mean, I played there, and I lost my spleen, my gall bladder, a decent part of my liver, so I agree with LeBron.”
Smith then says “And let’s remember to remind the audience that you wanted to play there again and Mike Tomlin had to stop you, you wanted to play there again.” Clark then says “I never said I was a genius, I played football, I’m not the greatest-decision maker in the world” and they all laugh. Qerim then says “Your heart was still there,” and Clark says, with a laugh, “I still had that organ.”
This is certainly a highly unusual conversation for First Take, or for any sports studio program. But it’s not necessarily indicative of ignorance on Qerim’s part, or of conflict between Clark and Qerim, or even of the conversation getting “a little too real.” The way Qerim says “You?” certainly seems like she’s aware of Clark’s history there (as she should be; that’s a pretty important and well-publicized detail about him). And while the “Is that really that big of a difference?” question could read as callous or uninformed if said the wrong way, and while Clark’s “you do know I almost died there, right?” could be read as a rebuke, it isn’t necessarily given the way he says it.
And Clark’s later answer of “I’m not sure who else on that team has sickle cell trait” indicates that he’s well aware the health issues he hit playing in Denver aren’t universal. And that’s also somewhat of a response to Qerim’s “Is it that big of a difference?” question. Clark is noting that it’s not going to be as bad for everyone as it was for him, but that he still thinks it is challenging and agrees with James on that. And that all seems fair.
An advantage of former players as analysts is their ability to work in their own experiences and personal knowledge when relevant. A disadvantage of that can come when they rely on that too much, and overfit their personal experiences to be more widely applicable than they are. But that wasn’t really what happened here; it was useful for viewers to hear about Clark’s specific experience and how that relates to his thoughts on playing in Denver, but with him also caveating that his experience had a lot to do with his particular medical condition.
And while there was maybe some awkwardness in how this did play out, and while it was a highly unusual First Take conversation, the end product here didn’t seem bad. Clark relayed his remarkable (and at least partly applicable) personal experience without saying it’s the same for everyone, and the others responded, acknowledging his experience there and not trivializing it, but also getting the show back to its usual lighter tone pretty quickly. It made for a different First Take moment than what we often see, but not necessarily that rough of one. (And in terms of controversial comments on First Take Wednesday, the much more fiery ones came from Redick on guns.)
