Stephen A. Smith’s public persona has him as the face of sports debate. However, his journey to being the focal point of such popular shows wasn’t an easy one.
Smith spoke candidly to Outkick’s Clay Travis this week about his upbringing and what his mother taught him and his siblings leading up to her death in 2017.
“We struggled tremendously,” Smith told Travis, via Fox News. “We knew how to do without. We knew how to survive but we certainly knew that we were poor … No question about it, we were deprived of a lot of things because of our circumstances. But the respect and admiration for her just elevated amongst all of us because in order to be able to take care of us, there had to be such an incomparable level of selflessness where it was about us and it wasn’t about her.
“She’s the reason that I always came up with a slogan when it came to me and my two daughters and this is if they’re hungry, it’s because I’m starving. I’m not comfortable unless they’re comfortable. I don’t eat unless I know they eat. I’m not living comfortably unless I know they’re OK. They are first. I got that from mom because mom was that way and she mandated that her children be that way as well. And certainly, my four older sisters are definitely that way. And it’s because of her.”
In between the hot takes, and being nationally called out by Charles Barkley, Smith said there were times he struggled with the loss of his mother. Working on Mother’s Day especially is a tough time for him. Therapy helped him greatly in the midst of going on television and being outspoken with his heated takes.
“Therapy helped with that,” he told Travis. “I know a lot of us, particularly me as a Black man, don’t like to admit that, but it’s true. I was in therapy for a while after losing my mother because it is the worst feeling that I’ve ever had in my life. I’ve never known that level of misery. I’ve never known that level of emotional non-control.”
Smith said he would sit and have a conversation with someone, but he wouldn’t comprehend anything. The image of his dead mother continued to play in his mind.
“I just, I would sit on the air at times, and I just have to openly confess this, there was literally times I would sit across from someone and I didn’t hear them and I didn’t see them — it was dark. And all I saw was my mom’s casket being lowered into the ground and it was just like the worst feeling in the world.
“And that’s when I knew that I had to go to therapy because it was like, you know, I’m saying things, I’m getting sharp with my tongue, I’m not having the level of compassion that I know that I feel in my heart. There’s so many different things that come with it. I know I’m better than that. But I just I didn’t have control because I was emotionally in turmoil.”
[Fox News]
About Jessica Kleinschmidt
Jess is a baseball fan with Reno, Nev. roots residing in the Bay Area. She is the host of "Short and to the Point" and is also a broadcaster with the Oakland A's Radio Network. She previously worked for MLB.com and NBC Sports Bay Area.