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- [00:02]
Dan Le Batard
You're listening to DraftKings Network. Welcome to South Beach Sessions. I'm really excited about this one because I've never told this man how I actually feel about him. Beyond being a pioneer and someone who gave me and others like me permission, shared the stage with me. He's the original gangster. He taught all of us what sportswriting could be, what friendship and partnership with. With someone you love could be. Changing television with one of the best sports television shows ever made and a long journalism career before that. Before you gravitated toward the cotton candy and one of the hardest workers I've ever met. I don't know where your ambition comes from, but I'd like to ask you a bunch of questions that I have never asked you before. But first, to express my profound respect and love for a legitimate teacher of mine. You and Tony showed me the way, showed me what could be possible.
- [01:31]
Michael Wilbon
I'm 10 years older than you, and that means Tony's 20. You know, Dan, first of all, that means a lot to come from you. It means a lot to come from the people that are in a group that are half. If a generation is 20 and, you know, half generation is 10, it means you and Stephen A. Smith and certain people that are that. That are exactly 10 years younger. We don't think of you guys as being younger, but you are. And if we showed anything, if we did anything that reveals some sort of humanity. My mother was a teacher, taught public school in Chicago for 35 years. So teaching's important. So that's a hell of a compliment. Thank you for saying that.
- [02:13]
Dan Le Batard
I'm so grateful to you and Tony and Rideholm and Kelleher and the entire environment that you had around you, because it showed me what kind of environment I wanted around me. I tell people all the time. It wasn't even the friendship of Tony and Mike that made me gravitate toward how I would do it in its evolution. It's what they had behind the scenes. Caring for them, the people taking care of their relationship and enjoying each other's company. Creating something like you guys really did birth. I'm not kidding you when I tell you that you guys watching you because it was unstated. It's not like you were telling me, holding me by the hand, saying here.
- [02:49]
Michael Wilbon
Because guys don't talk about that stuff, right? No, Dan. Okay. But, you know, it comes. But there's another place where you got some of it, because you're the people. 10 years younger than us are the last people to sadly get this. And it was the Camaraderie, the engagement, the contention of the newsroom. And so ours is based on, you know, if you watch. If people are old enough to have watched Mary Tyler Moore and the ensemble cast of Mary Tyler Moore and Ted Baxter and John Amos and, of course, Lou Grant.
- [03:24]
Dan Le Batard
They were living, breathing things. Newsrooms were. They had a heart.
- [03:27]
Michael Wilbon
They were. I missed that. People say you miss writing. Not really. I miss the newsroom. But I know the newsrooms don't exist anymore, not like they did for us. And so Tony and I existed in the same newsroom, and we took that down the street. And Eric speaking to people. Eric's not quite 10 years younger, but, you know, you guys got the benefit of some of that. And yes, Tony and I, we needed. Was mandatory to flourish in that kind of environment.
- [03:57]
Dan Le Batard
Needed the sparks, needed people arguing, cursing at each other, creative bursts.
- [04:02]
Michael Wilbon
Something that HR would not tolerate anymore. We used to tell young people who came into the PTI newsroom in 20, so this is 2001, 2002, 3, 4, 5, 6. Young people, interns, men and women. Young men and women, be careful at.
- [04:18]
Dan Le Batard
How Tony and Mike are yelling at each other.
- [04:19]
Michael Wilbon
We're going to curse. We don't give a shit. If you don't like it. If you don't like it, leave. Oh, my God. Can you imagine if people in Bristol knew that that's what we did and we didn't care? And you know what? No one ever complained, to our knowledge, because it was a democratic place. It was a place where you could scream back. You know, that's the magic of it, that everybody was sort of equal. No matter who got paid more, everybody was pretty equal.
- [04:48]
Dan Le Batard
Did you realize that you were pioneering? Did you realize that you were leading the way giving sports writers permission to turn into characters on television?
- [05:00]
Michael Wilbon
I would tell you why the answer is no. It's an actual concrete no. Because I grew up, Dan, I'm the weirdest creature in this way. People. People come to me and they say, stephen A. Smith has told me this. We work together every week on Countdown, on espn. And he's told me, you know, people have said, you were the first person I sort of saw. And then when I was in the profession already, you guys made this transition. Well, when I was a kid, a kid. I'm talking about 12, 14 years old. Brent Musburger did this in Chicago. He wrote for the Chicago Daily News. And then Brent Musburger was on CBS with Jimmy the Greek and Irv Cross and Jane Kennedy and Miss America. I'm forgetting that Phyllis George. So Brim Musburger covered the Bears, and then he was on tv. So I was a kid. And then there was a guy would bring it even closer to home for me, a guy named Wendell Smith. Wendell Smith was a black man, an African American man in his, I'm guessing, 50s and 60s. His widow just died, and he was writing a column for the Chicago Sun Times, and he was on WGN at the same time when I was 8 and 10 years old. So people. I've had people come up to me in the last 20 years saying, you were the first person I saw who looked like me, who did this. I saw people. I saw someone. Wendell Smith, who looked like me and did both and crossed over and transitioned into television when I was 10. So 55 years ago. So, no, I don't consider myself a pioneer. I saw people do this. I actually know one of them. Brent Musburger is something of a mentor without ever being presumptuous enough. Brent Musburger, then I went to the same college, went to Northwestern. Brent is Papa wildcat. Brent is 80 plus at this point. Right. So Brent's got at least 16, 17 years on me.
- [06:55]
Dan Le Batard
Okay. You can cite other pioneers, but for me and for Stephen A. Smith, you were the guy.
- [07:01]
Michael Wilbon
And I have a. I know that's factually. I get it. You know, I believe you guys. It's just. But you asked me if I thought of myself that way. God, no.
- [07:11]
Dan Le Batard
Well, you were too busy working and repressing general feelings that aren't. That aren't supposed to be spoken out loud by sportsmen. Repressing, yes. Sports cavemen. But you, man, I remember your kindness, your grace, Michael, beyond just being nice to people, walking through an arena of people slapping you on the back and really seeming like someone who was grateful that anybody would think Michael Wilbon's words meant anything enough to make him a rock star. But beyond that, you and Tony were so generous with your platform. And you know as well as I do that that's not true of all of your sports writing peers with ego.
- [07:56]
Michael Wilbon
No, it's not true of all of our colleagues, which is too bad, because we generally felt that way. We generally felt that way. I just think it's how I was raised. There's no presumption. I was raised by two people who fled the south post Depression, who were part of the great migration from Georgia and Tennessee and general places in the south, but specifically for them, Georgia and Tennessee, my father and mother, respectively, to Chicago. And they were grateful for what they had. All of it grateful. Every day and you had to be grateful. And there was no presumption. There was no other way. And then I really believe that people from the Midwest use the phrase Midwestern sensibilities. That exists. And I know people from the east don't believe it. And people from the west aren't even aware of what it is.
- [08:53]
Dan Le Batard
Oh, but it's not just politeness. Hold on a second. There are plenty of people in this business, competitive people in this business, who would have been threatened. You have real confidence. But who would be threatened by the sharing of the stage that, yeah, it is mine. It is not. You had a seminal program that somehow still exists, okay, that has made its way through the labyrinth of all ESPN things, isn't subject to cuts because you guys are now above cuts. Like, you've got seniority.
- [09:22]
Michael Wilbon
You are 10, kid in high school. I need to be above cuts.
- [09:25]
Dan Le Batard
You are tenured at what it is that you do. And from the very beginning, you shared that with me and you didn't have to. And you did it in a really loving way that made someone who was nervous feel accepted.
- [09:41]
Michael Wilbon
Dan. It wasn't conscious. Just that's how. That's who we were. Those were the conditions under which we came into the business and grew up. And we were very lucky, too, to have the people that shared what they shared at the New York Times and Newsday for Tony, and in the Washington Post and the Washington Post for me. There's no. I mean, Bob Woodward and Ben Bradlee were that way when we got to the Post, so why wouldn't we be? Didn't think of it.
- [10:14]
Dan Le Batard
The Watergate reporters were that way with Tony and Mike in sports.
- [10:18]
Michael Wilbon
Yes, I remember. I don't know why this came up recently, but it did. Tony and I were talking about it on November 22, 1988, which would have been the 25th anniversary exactly of the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Tony and I were on the fifth floor where the Washington Post newsroom famously was. And we were just thinking about the 25th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Well, his best friend was our boss, Benjamin C. Bradley, the great editor of the Post. And we decided to go up to his office and ask him if he would take us to lunch if we like. I don't even know what got into us. Tony did most of the talking. I was too scared. And we went into Ben's office. Secretary said, he's back there. Go in. And Ben Bradlee. People can picture Jason Robarts if they need to. Said, you two look like you want something. We Said, we'd like you. Can we go to lunch? Why? Well, today's. He goes, of course. He knows what today is. And Ben Bradlee took us to lunch for, like, three hours and told us stories.
- [11:28]
Dan Le Batard
Gruff old newspaper men. But you guys did bring journalism to what it. You guys brought in changing the way sports television was done. You guys brought a journalistic sensibility that had a little bit of Meet the Press to it.
- [11:42]
Michael Wilbon
Yes, it did.
- [11:43]
Dan Le Batard
And had also the crossfire sensibilities of we're gonna argue, but we love each other, and the arguments aren't gonna mean anything.
- [11:50]
Michael Wilbon
And they're not gonna be phony.
- [11:52]
Dan Le Batard
They're not going to be.
- [11:52]
Michael Wilbon
I'm like crossfire, which was completely phony.
- [11:54]
Dan Le Batard
Or a lot of sports television these days.
- [11:57]
Michael Wilbon
Yeah, it is. It is. But, yeah, we. Yes, we brought that sensibility because, again, that's who we were. I mean, part of this. Anything that you're crediting us with, and I'll speak for Tony now, too, is part. It's who we were. It's how we were trained. I went to what I think is the greatest journalism school in the world, Northwestern's Medill, and I brought that training. Plus, I worked at one place for 30 years and six months, the Washington Post. That's all I knew. I knew how to go about news that way and sports that way and treat it like it was news, not like it was the toy section. It wasn't the toy section. And I know where you grew up at the Miami Herald. And I know people like Edwin Pope, who helped shape my early life. They did. I know we were shaped by some of the same forces, and I know the people that you worked with, like Greg Cody, because I feel that there was a way that we were all taught to be at that point in the business, and I'm grateful for that. And so I take no credit, though I'm glad you offer it, for sharing the stage. The stage was to be shared. It wasn't mine. It wasn't mine to dominate. And I know what you're talking about. I won't name names. And we know the same people who did not want to share. I don't care about them.
- [13:11]
Dan Le Batard
Well, there are more, but there are more than. I found more of those in this business than I found. People like you and you.
- [13:17]
Michael Wilbon
And you did more things and you went more places, and you. You had more interactions with people on that level than we did. You know, and you know me, I want to go to a gym on a Tuesday night or a Thursday.
- [13:29]
Dan Le Batard
Well, you love sports. In an uncommon way. You love work in an uncommon way. And I want to get into your life and times because I don't think people understand how hard it has been and what you've earned, what you've had to earn. But you purposeful just did 30 years and six months because it hurts you to leave newspapers. How do you know that it's six months, 30 years?
- [13:48]
Michael Wilbon
I know the day that I left December 7, 2010 would have been my father's birthday, December 7. He was born on 16 years old on Pearl Harbor Day. So I got a real easy way to remember it. And Matthew was 2 years old, so he's born in 2008. So I, I, I got an easy way to remember it. And that just happens to be from June 2013, 1980 when I got to the post. 30 years and six months. So yeah, it's easy to remember for me. No, it wasn't intentional. I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to leave. ESPN sort of forced me to leave. They just said, we don't want to see your best work there. We want it here enough. Because I overlapped for nine years.
- [14:28]
Dan Le Batard
You know, I know we talked about.
- [14:30]
Michael Wilbon
It and you would say when we.
- [14:31]
Dan Le Batard
Were together, crazy amount of money.
- [14:33]
Michael Wilbon
What are you doing? Why won't you choose? And I didn't trust television. Still don't, don't. And I trusted working for Don and Katherine Graham. I trusted that and obviously that, you know, people say, do you miss it? Yeah, I miss it. But I would have missed it if I was still there because it doesn't exist anymore now. But yeah, I did it because I didn't trust it. And again, I'm the son of sharecroppers, you know, people who grew up and did hard work on the farm. And my father got up at 3:45 every morning and went to work every morning. There was no. What does that the NBA players do now?
- [15:12]
Dan Le Batard
Load management.
- [15:12]
Michael Wilbon
There's no load management. There's none. My father never missed a day of work in my life until he retired at 58 years old. Retired at 58. So there's no load management. Take your ass to work. That's what we did. Fathers went to work. And so I'm embarrassed that people don't work. That's what you're supposed to do. That's your obligation to the people that are in your family, to the city, the neighborhood, the culture, however large you want to make it. So yeah, so I didn't, I don't, I don't take any credit for that.
- [15:50]
Dan Le Batard
That is your work, though, because you know that part you understand. You know that you're a symbol for something with your platform that you.
- [15:58]
Michael Wilbon
Now I do. I didn't know that when I was doing it. At first I didn't know. I mean, I know, yes. Now, yes, I'd be sitting here lying and I'd be naive if I didn't know. But no, you went to work. I didn't have. I missed one day of school in grade school from kindergarten to nine one day. I remember throwing up in the third grade. It was the last time I threw up until I was 38 years old. One day. I remember how embarrassed I was to throw up and miss the next day of school. And I grew up someplace where people weren't just lazy. I grew up someplace where There was a 27 inch snowstorm when I was in fourth grade. You got to be at school by 10:30 the next day instead of 9. There's no snow days. Matthew says, dad, how many snow days did you have as a kid? What? What? And kids now miss school, miss work for any reason, Any bullshit reason. I didn't miss anything.
- [16:52]
Dan Le Batard
I think the most soulful conversation I ever had with you was before Matthew was born. After you had your heart issue and you were doing some deep dive looks into mortality and to life's purpose. Because you have dedicated almost the entirety of your identity to the work.
- [17:15]
Michael Wilbon
Yeah, I guess so. I don't see it. I don't think you mentioned earlier about you tied it to sports. About what sports guys don't think of and don't talk about Dan. I don't think about it consciously now. I thought about. Yes, you were right. You were there. You.
- [17:33]
Dan Le Batard
It was a snapshot. I've never seen it before from you.
- [17:36]
Michael Wilbon
It was a week. It was a week. It was one week. I remember I wanted to come back to work and you called me. I remember the phone call and you said, don't be an idiot. You don't have to work. You had a heart attack. Stop it. Well, I thought you did have to work because I thought if my dad was alive, that's what he would have wanted me to do. Go to work. You're fine. Or you think. You think you're fine, get up and go to work. So I want to go back to work on Friday. And you and Tony and ride home said no. So I went back to work on Monday. I did. So the soul searching was more about. My father died at 60 of lung cancer and I spent my entire life being afraid of turning 60, afraid. When I got to 50, you think I was bad. I had the heart attack at 49. You should have seen me at 59. Ten years later, I was worse because I was afraid to turn 60. Even though my mother was 92 at the time, I identified with my father, not my mother's 92 years, ultimately 93. And you got to know my mother a little bit. I got to. I identify with my own man. And so the examination of it was just fear.
- [18:50]
Dan Le Batard
Straight up a week of introspection and then back into the work and back.
- [18:54]
Michael Wilbon
Into the work until we got to about 57. And then I started to fear. I'll say 58 before I just said, damn, you know, my old man, you know, died at an age where I'm actually not getting that emotional. It means I'm tired. When I start tearing up, it means I'm tired. It literally means I'm tired, too tired. I've been keeping too many late nights. All I care about is I want to. I want to. I want for Matthew to have me longer than I have my father. I was 27 when my father died. Now people might say the bar is low because I'll be 20, Matthew will be 28 when I'm 78. All right, so if I can get to see Matthew turn 30, that's. That's what I want. But I didn't think 60 was just. It was a tough thing because I, I lived like, to this day to please my old man. He been dead 36 years, something like that. But that's, that's what I exist. So that examination, that's the examination. It was that simple and probably removed. And I didn't think I had to do less work. You know me, you know, I didn't do less work.
- [20:10]
Dan Le Batard
No, you don't know what that means. Does Matthew know what you just told me?
- [20:16]
Michael Wilbon
No. No. The biggest regret I have about this generation gap is it's a real gap, like the word generation gap. The phrase was meant to describe what existed between the Depression era people, people born from World War I to almost World War II or World War II, and then their children and grandchildren.
- [20:45]
Dan Le Batard
I should tell people you had Matthew. Matthew's 15 now.
- [20:47]
Michael Wilbon
Matthew's 15. I was 49 and a half years old. And so that generation gap was meant to describe that. But yet at some point, I still adopted the music my parents listened to while calling them old and listening to the Jackson 5, and they couldn't stand to hear it. I still, I got to Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra. And Tony Bennett. Right. And Sam Cooke. I got to them.
- [21:13]
Dan Le Batard
I've never considered what you're presently putting in front of me, which is the idea that there is a generation of pop cult culture removed from even father and son. Because you had him right before you or right after you had the heart attack? Right before you had the heart attack? No. Forgive me, forgive me on the timing, on this. Right after. Right after.
- [21:36]
Michael Wilbon
Two months after he was born, March 25th. I had the heart attack on January 28th, same year. But. So generation gap. Ultimately we merged, and ultimately I could sit in the car with my mother, who's 32 years older than me. That's not a small gap for somebody born in 1925 to have a child 32 years later. We watched the same stuff, we listened to the same stuff, we consumed the same things we didn't say. What. What is that? Now we have generation gaps, big ones. And I don't mean you have. You don't have to be 50 years older than your kid. Everybody has it. Technology helped create that. So does Matthew really internalize anything that goes on in my life? No. Will he? I don't know. I don't know. And again, I don't know that that would be any different if I was 44 right now and not 64.
- [22:32]
Dan Le Batard
What did fatherhood teach you? Because before that, I would say that Wilbon was married almost pretty exclusively to his job.
- [22:43]
Michael Wilbon
Yeah. Cheryl would probably say that I still am. To just put some things on the back burner. Other things become more important. It's very simple. The greatest thing I've ever done is be Matthew's father. The thing I'm proudest of is being Matthew's father. Does that mean I, you know, I was at a point then, at 50, I'd already worked 30 years. So what you and others were saying at the time was, you can back off. I didn't know that gear. I didn't have that and didn't do it. And probably that led to some other things. But the thing that I saw that I got from my father in the relationship was Dad's work. And that's what I want Matthew to get. I don't know if he gets it. I really don't. He sees it first of all. He sees. He's running around the arena last night. He knows I'm up there sitting there talking, but he's running around. He met Neymar.
- [23:38]
Dan Le Batard
Well, but this is. Wait a minute. This is your fault. This part's your fault, but it's not.
- [23:42]
Michael Wilbon
I went to Work with my father. It's my work.
- [23:44]
Dan Le Batard
I know.
- [23:45]
Michael Wilbon
Drove a truck. It was a little different.
- [23:47]
Dan Le Batard
I know.
- [23:47]
Michael Wilbon
He didn't get the little hug.
- [23:49]
Dan Le Batard
That's correct. Slightly different. This one's your fault.
- [23:53]
Michael Wilbon
Your fault is my reality.
- [23:54]
Dan Le Batard
You've given your son. I'm saying. I'm saying he's a little bit spoiled.
- [23:58]
Michael Wilbon
No, he's very spoiled.
- [24:00]
Dan Le Batard
Okay, that's your fault. And on top of that, maybe he hasn't learned quite the value of hard work the way you did because you saw your father coming home and he'd be busted up and. And your life wasn't quite as opulent as I'm guessing Matthew's life is right now.
- [24:16]
Michael Wilbon
No, he left the. You know, he left the Ritz Carlton south beach this morning after breakfast by the pool. He left. He left that to fly back home to Washington.
- [24:29]
Dan Le Batard
After meeting Neymar.
- [24:30]
Michael Wilbon
After meeting Neymar last night.
- [24:32]
Dan Le Batard
Yeah. After being in a finals game. Because he wanted to fly in and be with his dad.
- [24:35]
Michael Wilbon
Yeah, I want him to do that. I told, you know, there's no more gifts and boxes and packages for him. You get experiences. You get experiences. So stuff that you'll remember. And, you know, he. And we did that at a young age. We did that purposely because we do enjoy that connection with sports. We argue and fight about sports every day, like my father and my brother and I did at the kitchen table, which people say was the precursor to pti. People who know what our kitchen was like. So Matthew and I do that every day, much to my wife's chagrin. Every day, scream and holler, dad, why don't you love Kyrie Irving? Because Kyrie's an asshole. Why do you love him, Matthew? This is every day in our house. And so he gets that part of it. He gets what I do. Doesn't want any part of it. But he can also luxuriate in the benefits of how you get to do that, you know? And so I don't know what it means. I don't know what. I don't know what any kids get from their parents anymore because they don't even. They don't talk. We didn't have headphones on, Dan. I didn't have headphones on. My father would have slapped the shit out of me and knocked the headphones out of my ears.
- [25:48]
Dan Le Batard
That's true.
- [25:49]
Michael Wilbon
The air pods or buds or whatever they are, they don't. They don't even listen. They're not even paying attention to us. They don't pay attention to each other. There's no Dialogue. I hate that.
- [25:58]
Dan Le Batard
Tell me how your parents shaped you. Because you were visiting your mother in Miami, into her late twenties, before you moved her to Chicago. A dude son you were until the very end. Tell me about your parents, how they shaped you. And I mentioned where or I asked you where ambition came from. I know where your work comes from.
- [26:20]
Michael Wilbon
Right.
- [26:21]
Dan Le Batard
I know where your work comes from, but I don't know where and how your ambition was.
- [26:24]
Michael Wilbon
Sheer failure, fear of failure, plain and simple. Everything that. That has always motivated me. Don't fail. Don't fuck up. I mean, that's just it. Does that come from parents? Yeah. Yeah, they lived in it. My mother took. So, yes, I moved my mother, as you completely accurately said, to Chicago because I couldn't come to South Florida to look after her. I'm already in Washington. We built a second home in Arizona. And then I got involved a lot in Chicago at my alma mater, Northwestern, and the south side of Chicago, and trying to be involved in the fabric of the place that produced me. And I couldn't ask South Florida that anymore. And I said to her, where do you want to spend your last chapter? And she said, how about home? And home for her was the south side of Chicago. She went there, 14 years old. Her father's brother had driven down in the dirt of Tennessee in the country roads and said to his brother, her father, Frank, why don't you let Robert, R.J. why don't you let one of your 11 kids come to Chicago, live on the south side with me and my wife and go to school? And my mother overheard it because they didn't have any kids. They couldn't have children. And my mother overheard it and she reminded her father, can I go to Chicago? She was 14. She got on the train by herself at 14 in the south and left Tennessee, a little town called Trenton, Tennessee, took the train to Chicago at 14, same age that Emmett Till lost his life. And I asked. I talked to her about this. We would have these Christmas night dinners, and I would. I was sad. You would have done this. This is where you would have. You would have been better than me as a journalist. You would have gotten these stories out of your parents earlier and intentionally. I didn't. I didn't do it till it was late. She was, you know, 90. The night we had this conversation. I said, you've never told me about your trip, the train trip to Chicago from Trenton, Tennessee. What was it like? And she was telling. She finally she told me, and I said, why didn't. Why haven't we Talked about this. She said, there's certain things you didn't want your children to have to hear. And she got on the train, and this is so 14 years old. Let's do the math. She was born in 1926. This is 1940. She gets on a train. She's going north from the south. And she sits where everybody sits, where everybody else sits, which means she sat where the white folks sat. And I said, well, what did the ticket taker. She said, the ticket taker came to me and said, what are you doing sitting here? And I said, where do you want me to sit? What are you talking about? Because she'd never been on a train with white people, so how would she know this guy let her go and let her stay in that seat. And when they got far enough north where black people could move to the front, she was already there. And she saw this migration. How about that for symbolism? She saw this migration of Negroes from the back cars to where she was already sitting. And it dawned on her, I wasn't supposed to be here. Nobody. He physically could have thrown her off or. Or worse. And she took the train like that and got to Chicago and survived it and lived. Lived to tell me about it all those years later. I never knew the story, and I know the story of Emmett Till. Well, south side of Chicago. And I didn't know. My mother knew Mamie Till. They both taught school. They were about five years apart in age, if that. And so all of that backdrop. And my father fled the South. Fled, Fled his. His father and other siblings, other of the aunts and uncles, feared lynching, feared my father's temper, which was, I'm not going back there. Was going to get him killed, get him on the train, send him north. So instead of Detroit to get a job with the auto industry or whatever, they sent him to Chicago where there were some other siblings. So that. That has to be known about me and my brother and where we come from and how you got out of that circumstance is you worked and you. And we didn't do most of the other stuff. My parents. My parents were frugal, and they were children of the Depression. And so that creates very much the person I am. And then growing up on the south side, growing up the most segregated big city in America at the time, a brawling city, a city where nobody was afraid. Nobody was afraid. And if people think Chicago is just violent now, for the first time, they're idiots. Chicago's always. I know what my hometown is and isn't. It's always been violent. Anybody can watch the same Valentine's Day Massacre movie and figure that out. And so all of that produced me. I'm the sum of all of that. My father was also the son of a Baptist preacher. My. My. My parents were churchgoing Baptist people. I haven't set foot in the church in a long, long time. I guess I have. Actually.
- [31:33]
Dan Le Batard
You've got your own church. Actually. You've made church of sports. You've raised.
- [31:37]
Michael Wilbon
That's Sunday morning. That's Sunday. Sunday for me is worshiping in front of multiple televisions.
- [31:43]
Dan Le Batard
What was your dad getting up to do at 3:45 deliver.
- [31:47]
Michael Wilbon
It was always food products. At first it was sodas back when there were bottles, sodas and there were crates of them and people took the bottles back for a deposit. He delivered soda, delivered bread, delivered ice cream when I was oldest to remember and went with him to stores, to routes. He was a route salesman. My father was once laid off. He was the number one route salesman at Dean's Food Company in Chicago in 1968. And he was laid off despite being the number one guy laid off. Only black salesman in the company had and a young dude. I woke up and went to the breakfast table one Wednesday morning. There's this guy sitting in my breakfast table wearing a dashiki with sideburns down to his mustache. Name was Reverend Jesse Jackson Jr. And he said, you're not getting laid off because I'm going to organize a boycott of Dean Foods on the south side of Chicago until you get your job back. My father was hired back in about two days.
- [32:52]
Dan Le Batard
That doesn't sound like the kind of job that can afford sending a son to Northwestern.
- [32:56]
Michael Wilbon
Yeah, yeah. He was proud that we had no financial aid because we didn't qualify. Everybody else, white and Black in 1976 was qualifying for financial aid because Northwestern was the most expensive school in the country or one of the five most. And no financial aid for two kids. My father put the two of us through, my father and mother on a teacher's salary, which was pretty good back then.
- [33:23]
Dan Le Batard
Were you seeing your father much or was he just exhausted all the time?
- [33:26]
Michael Wilbon
He was home by 4. He always had. We ate dinner together every day. Every day we ate dinner. He got up. He left the house at 4. But he was back. He was back by the time I got home from high school.
- [33:38]
Dan Le Batard
I just would think that someone like that might be very tired at the end of work day.
- [33:42]
Michael Wilbon
He always. He stayed up. We watched television. We watched sports together every night. Every night he was available. He Took a nap. But we were together. But he, you know, he didn't know anything else. He thought he was lucky compared to what could have been going on in the south at the. The time had he stayed. But he made enough money. I remember my parents shared. They told us how much money they made. My father showed us his paycheck. We knew how much he made. We knew what Fico was. We knew what came out of the check. Both of them, exactly how much they made. And we knew they made more. I knew my father made more than the. Sometimes, no, most of the time. The doctors and the dentists and the lawyers who. We all live together, all of us, which meant, yes, Muhammad Ali lived there on the south side of Chicago when I was growing up. And you saw him and you saw the physician for. We didn't want to go anywhere else. We lived next to Walton, no Neck Williams on the Chicago White Sox, and Billy Williams and Ernie Banks lived not far away. It was that segregated. Those guys weren't living anywhere else. The Black Bears players lived because Lake Forest was so far away. So Gail Sayers we didn't see. And J.C. caroline, we didn't see. We saw everybody else. We all lived together. And yeah, my father put two kids through Northwestern with no financial aid.
- [35:05]
Dan Le Batard
And you dreamt then of being a sportswriter or.
- [35:08]
Michael Wilbon
Pretty early, when I realized I wasn't going to be the next Ernie banks. I was 15 and I realized I wasn't. That was not going to be playing at Wrigley Field.
- [35:18]
Dan Le Batard
But writing isn't much of a career. I didn't see it. You made it. Neither did I. But if I show you retrospect right now, like my father wanted me to be an engineer. This doesn't seem like a very safe.
- [35:32]
Michael Wilbon
Path, the one that you took into my parents and what they thought. I told them I was going to major in journalism. And I remember everybody scoffed at it at the dinner table, including my brother, the banker. He said, no, he didn't. I'm like, yeah, you did. I was only two years younger than me. I didn't. I wasn't paying. I don't know what they wanted me. They never told me what they wanted me to be. They were going to be supportive educationally of whatever.
- [35:56]
Dan Le Batard
And so some people might think that sportswriting with a Northwestern degree is a waste of a Northwestern degree.
- [36:02]
Michael Wilbon
Yeah. But I had David Israel and I had Brett Musburger and David Israel, and no, it was fine. And, you know, the money wasn't bad relative to the Times, who was making a bunch of money back then. Lawyers, doctors, maybe. I saw my father make more.
- [36:17]
Dan Le Batard
I remember starting at about 23 grand a year.
- [36:19]
Michael Wilbon
Yeah, me too. I started at 23 grand a year. Even 10 years earlier, I started at 23. We had this discussion last night. Matthew said, dad, what did you make when you worked at the Washington Post? And I actually told him to the penny.
- [36:30]
Dan Le Batard
And so I didn't care what they were paying me, though. I was so happy they were giving me any money to do it.
- [36:35]
Michael Wilbon
I cared a little bit, but that was 10%. I'm like you. I just. I was doing what I wanted to do. And I could afford a nice apartment in D.C. at a car, could go on a date every week, maybe once. Life was pretty good. And we Dan 1980 and even 1990 were a whole lot different than 2020.
- [36:55]
Dan Le Batard
Well, tell people about what the hardships were though, because you didn't have any.
- [36:59]
Michael Wilbon
Nope, not a one. I had no student loans to pay back because my father didn't get financial aid. We didn't borrow money. I had a little bit. I had $2,500 of student loan to pay back. I only. I don't even think I could do that properly. I had no hardships. George Solomon hired me, promoted me. I went from college sports to pro sports to columnist in 10 years and wrote a column for the next 20 after being 10 as a reporter. I had no hardships. I had no desperate, awful relationships. I didn't have that. My parents. My father died. That was my hardship. 27 years old. I was 27, he was 60. My mother was able to. My mother and father saved enough money that she bought a place here, as you know, in Kendall, lived in South Florida, went back and forth to Chicago and wintered down here for several years until she got tired of going back and forth and moved down here permanently. I had no hardships. None. Zero.
- [37:58]
Dan Le Batard
Did your father tell you that he was proud of you?
- [38:01]
Michael Wilbon
No. Never. Never told me he loved me. Never told him that we didn't do that. I wasn't done. Never. I remember saying it. I never kissed my father until I kissed his forehead when it was in a casket. And I. Random Ted never talked about that before, but that's the truth. And I remember my father died of lung cancer. He smoked himself to death. Philip Morris, unfiltered cigarettes, post World War II. And I was pissed at him when he died. I mean, I was angry. And I remember grabbing my mother's head and Don's head, going out on the steps when the casket was coming down. Being carried by the pallbearers. And I. And they were crying. And I said, we're not doing this today. We're not doing this today. And I didn't. Because I figured he should have stopped fucking smoking. He was getting my brother to get him cigarettes in the hospital. My brother was in college and I found out about it. But no, we didn't tell each other that stuff. But I knew. I knew there was no question as to what. My father dedicated his lives to us. So what was that? He wasn't getting the King's ransom, right. And he was going out. My father went to work in overalls every day. A pair of overalls and boots. Went to work every day like that. Drove a big ass truck. Big, huge truck. So, yes, we never know. We never. We never told each other that stuff. And I don't know anybody who did. And maybe they did and we just didn't talk about it. I don't know that my family did that.
- [39:45]
Dan Le Batard
You were angry at the funeral?
- [39:47]
Michael Wilbon
Yeah, I was pissed.
- [39:49]
Dan Le Batard
But you kissed him in the casket.
- [39:51]
Michael Wilbon
Kissed his head in the casket. Yep. Yep. Only time did I remember that. And I don't feel we missed anything. He was there every day. He was at little League games back when nobody parents didn't take off. Now there's a whole damn gallery of parents at every game Matthew plays. It's like, really, do you people work?
- [40:12]
Dan Le Batard
What a blessing, though, Michael, to not have to hear it, just know it. Because the man carried himself in a way that truly showed it to you daily.
- [40:22]
Michael Wilbon
Yeah, I don't know. My mother said it that much. We, my mother and I said it, you know, more times after 60, between 60 and 93 for her than we ever did from 32 to 60.
- [40:35]
Dan Le Batard
How about your brother Donald? Do you share that with him? Do you say it out loud?
- [40:38]
Michael Wilbon
No. No. No. But he's, you know, he's my biggest fan and best friend my entire life, my brother.
- [40:49]
Dan Le Batard
Why wouldn't you just tell me?
- [40:53]
Michael Wilbon
I probably have told him two or three times. No more than that.
- [40:59]
Dan Le Batard
Matthew gets it all the time though, right?
- [41:01]
Michael Wilbon
Not now anymore. Teenage boys. Teenage boys don't give you much, Danny. They don't give. They don't give you shit. They don't, they don't. They just don't. As a little kid. As a little kid, he would say it, you know, and I would say. There were friends of mine who said, you know, this is gonna stop at like 11. He's gonna start playing video games and get. Become a tough guy. And he's not giving you any of that. And I was thinking, yeah, right. I'll be different. I'll be different. You're not different.
- [41:36]
Dan Le Batard
Oh, but you are such a softie for him. For you. I have admired both your combination love and hard love. Because I. I just remember one time, I don't even know how old he was, but he was young and he had done something in a restaurant. I was on the phone with you, and you were like, I'm gonna go handle this right now. And I felt like Matthew was about to get a decent beating.
- [41:58]
Michael Wilbon
Like he got a few. Got a few ass whoopings. Somebody can come get me if they want to.
- [42:03]
Dan Le Batard
He felt like he was. He had done something I believe in.
- [42:06]
Michael Wilbon
That my parents believed in. Switches. Parents from the south go out and bring a branch in so I can beat your ass with it. I believe in that. Sorry. He didn't get many. I whipped his ass a few times, though. A few. You know, a couple of times. He was really young, and I'll get in his face now. I mean, you know, I haven't. I've decided I'm not going to do it anymore. After he turned 12, I don't think I've done it in two years. That's. Well, yeah, that would have been 13, so maybe three years I haven't done it. And it's like, okay, I got to handle this differently because I wouldn't have wanted my father doing that after I turned, like, 11. I got my last whipping when I was 11, but I have to jump him. I have to jump him every now and then.
- [42:51]
Dan Le Batard
Can you explain to me a little bit differently or more how it is that you arrived at having the thought, I need to be here for Matthew longer than my father was here for me? And what you were doing with this fear, how did that fear manifest in itself at 57, 58, 59, where you're just. You're saying deathly afraid of not living longer than your father?
- [43:17]
Michael Wilbon
Yeah, because I don't have a wish to live. We just talked about this. I was talking about this somebody a couple days ago about living to 95. You're like, no, I don't. I don't. I don't long to do that. I don't have that ambition. It doesn't mean I'm going to be ready to roll out of here if I happen to live. But I. I don't have that ambition. Most of the men in my family lately, they've been living longer, so I never saw that. You don't see. You don't see a whole lot of black men living a long time in most of our circles. And I'm diabetic. I got heart disease, obviously had a heart attack at 49. You know, I got the shit that takes you out early and it's manifested itself. I was careless when I was younger. I didn't treat diabetes with the fear I should have treated it with. I thought I was invincible. Like a lot of guys my age who have means and access to health care and all. You just think, you know, do whatever I want to do wrong. So when you mentioned I look skinny, I've lost. You know, I weigh 50, 60 pounds less than I did when I got married. And that was 1997, so not all that long ago. 25 years ago, 26 years ago. 50, 60 pounds less. Jesus. I was 250 then. I'm 192 now, so almost 60. I got to be better, but that's just me. So I can. I don't want to die at 60 either, like my old man. So, you know, it's a combination of that. But I'd like to be here because that's the most important thing I do. My father never got to see his son's real successes. He never got to live that long. My brother hadn't even gone to grad school yet. I think when my father died, my brother's incredibly successful banker, my old man didn't get to see that. So I'd like. And just to share the time, just to go play around the golf. Covid taught me that. So during COVID Covid was revelatory for me. Dan. I said to a couple of people, dear friend of mine, I used to run Johns Hopkins Hospital. And Howard Eddie Cornwell, I called him and said, this disease, this virus, where do I need to be riding this out? And he's like, I'm sorry, don't you have a blanket house in Arizona? Go there. Because they density is not your friend. And I went to Arizona. I got a ton of doctor friends, and each one of them said the same thing. So I went to Arizona, and Cheryl and I went there, and then we took Matthew and he could go to school remotely. He was in fifth grade, sixth grade, whatever, sixth. And he had remote school every day. And we were out in the. I don't care what the people said about the numbers. Matthew and I went to the golf course one day. Thank God golf courses stayed open in Arizona. I'm a totally blue state guy. And it was interesting what was going on in Arizona. As it went from red to purple to now blue. And Matthew said, dad, people say you shouldn't be within six feet of each other. There's nobody within 60ft of us. I'm like, exactly. That's why we're coming here every day. We went to the golf course every other day and played nine holes. And then my brother drove out from Chicago with his son. And he and Jordan and I and Matthew, we played golf every day, every other day, nine holes. And I said to him, when you guys are in your 50s, you're going to look back on this and say, can you remember when we spent all this time with our, our goddamn fathers? And I said, hopefully we'll never have this kind of time again. But it was life changing, life changing. And I spent 100 days in Arizona with my family. I have never spent 100 days with my family. Emily. I said, I said to Cheryl, go back. She's meticulous about record keeping. I'm like, what do you think the greatest number of days we ever spent together was?
- [47:20]
Dan Le Batard
Michael? You're always traveling, you're always going somewhere.
- [47:23]
Michael Wilbon
I don't want to be anywhere longer than four or five days.
- [47:25]
Dan Le Batard
You're always working, always getting on an airplane.
- [47:28]
Michael Wilbon
You don't want to be anywhere longer than four or five days. That's just excess. I just don't. I get antsy. I'm not happy. But we were together for 90 days. The last 10 days they left and I stayed in Arizona. And she came back with a number like, what do you think it was? And I said, I don't know, 60. She was like 38. It was like minuscule because. Yes, because you know my life. You knew me before she did.
- [47:52]
Dan Le Batard
It's gonna be you, not Cheryl. It's gonna be. You've gotta go off be to the next thing. I don't think it's. I mean. And she's got a big life too.
- [47:59]
Michael Wilbon
Like, yeah, but this is what I chose. This is what I chose. This is what I like to do. I was doing it before I met her. When she met me, it was like, this is what I do. You gotta figure out a way to fit in this. I don't fit in your life. You fit in mine. This is what we got. What do you think? We wanna do this? Because this is how I roll. And I loved my life at 30. I got married almost 39 years old. I already loved my life.
- [48:24]
Dan Le Batard
Well, that's. Yeah, you can be very formed as a 39 year old, 39 year old Bachelor who's had success, yes.
- [48:30]
Michael Wilbon
Even though I was marrying an attorney who was a lot smarter and academically more accomplished than.
- [48:34]
Dan Le Batard
But you're more stubborn and more formed and more cavemen. And so you're going to be working.
- [48:41]
Michael Wilbon
I don't know that it would have been the same if it was the other way around.
- [48:45]
Dan Le Batard
We had to support the lifestyle that was making the most money.
- [48:49]
Michael Wilbon
Yes, absolutely.
- [48:50]
Dan Le Batard
Because at that point, you had gotten rich and you didn't expect.
- [48:53]
Michael Wilbon
Probably rich by then. Well.
- [48:55]
Dan Le Batard
But you're pretty. Whatever it is, whatever your dreams were as a sports writer, you have.
- [48:59]
Michael Wilbon
I had surpassed.
- [49:00]
Dan Le Batard
You have surpassed. No, you have surpassed them by what, million fold? Whatever the original dreams were, I hadn't.
- [49:06]
Michael Wilbon
Done it at 39 when we got married. It was happening. The explosion was happening then, just because of where we were in the culture, what was going on in my life. Television, radio, other media. Mitch Albaum once said to me in a car, do you own your Internet rights? It was 1996, and I said to Mitch, what's the Internet? Real conversation.
- [49:26]
Dan Le Batard
He was always ahead of the game.
- [49:28]
Michael Wilbon
He was way ahead of us. He had an NBA. He knew what he was doing. I didn't know what I was doing. So I wasn't rich then. But it was coming, and so, no. So we were gonna do what I wanted to do. It was a conversation. It wasn't a caveman thing. It was, do you want to go out and build 2,000 hours, Ms. Duke lawyer, or we gonna do this, which is right in front of us.
- [49:46]
Dan Le Batard
Are we gonna do this little thing over here on television that for five half hours a week is gonna pay us tons and tons of money?
- [49:54]
Michael Wilbon
Yeah. And basketball and other stuff. Yeah, yeah. And we literally discussed it. And I said, if I do this, I'm not doing anything else. I'm not going to the grocery store, I'm not taking out the garbage. I'm not doing shit. There's no honey do list. If I take on all this, we gotta have a 1950s marriage. Do you want to do that?
- [50:12]
Dan Le Batard
What a romantic. I mean, put it on a hallmark.
- [50:15]
Michael Wilbon
And, you know, when this happened, this happened actually, like a couple of weeks before the honeymoon, before the wedding, because we had to have the conversation because I could. The Chicago Tribune was saying, come home.
- [50:28]
Dan Le Batard
Oh, you were in a bidding war. Oh, you were going to be the big time come home columnist. They would have paid you tons of.
- [50:33]
Michael Wilbon
Money, took the space after I was offered.
- [50:37]
Dan Le Batard
They were. They offered you the job. You turned it down.
- [50:41]
Michael Wilbon
My hometown paper, the paper I delivered as a kid growing up that would.
- [50:45]
Dan Le Batard
Have been the dream.
- [50:46]
Michael Wilbon
Side of the face was already on the side of buses. They had the ad drawn up. I saw it.
- [50:51]
Dan Le Batard
Hold on. Tell me about this. So I didn't know this had a bidding war for your services between the Washington Post and your hometown newspaper, the newspaper you dreamed about being the column voice for when you were delivering papers.
- [51:03]
Michael Wilbon
David Israel, what age were you delivering papers from 11 to college.
- [51:08]
Dan Le Batard
Okay, so what happened there? Like what? Because your path would have been different. You wouldn't have done the Tony.
- [51:12]
Michael Wilbon
Well, I could have. Jay Marioti thought. Jay Marioti thought of this before anybody. He. He. Jay Marioti, the Chicago Sun Times columnist, would have been my rival. As. As you know, we're all colleagues, but.
- [51:24]
Dan Le Batard
Skip Bayless is your fault. You're the original. You're the. You're ground zero for the virus.
- [51:28]
Michael Wilbon
Skip was doing his deal in Dallas. He wasn't doing it in Chicago. But I. Mariotti called me weekly and he said, you gotta come home. You gotta take this. He knew about it. Cause he thought. He said, wgn's gonna put us on TV the next. This is a direct quote, and it's not from me. I wasn't smart enough. It's from Jay Marioti. She said, the next Siskel and Ebert are not going to be at the movies. They're going to be in the press box. How prescient was that?
- [51:54]
Dan Le Batard
Not only prescient. Jay Marioti could have been Tony instead of Tony and would have been far worse than Bayless. And you and him would have killed each other.
- [52:05]
Michael Wilbon
We would have.
- [52:06]
Dan Le Batard
You would have. You and Jay Marioti would have murdered each other on television.
- [52:11]
Michael Wilbon
We actually liked each other a lot.
- [52:13]
Dan Le Batard
That would have stopped that. Because, wait a minute. You know how important these television relationships, how fraught they are. The fact that you and Tony Kornhouse love one another, the fact that he's among your best friends.
- [52:28]
Michael Wilbon
Yes, he is.
- [52:29]
Dan Le Batard
That would not have happened with J. Mary.
- [52:31]
Michael Wilbon
No. It would have been a different relationship. I don't know what it would have been, but he thought. He was convinced that WGN would have done that. And we grew up. I grew up watching. I grew up reading Siskel and Ebert again. Talk about transition, right? You know, the pioneer. Gene Siskel was a columnist at the Tribune before he was on tv. Roger Ebert was a columnist at the Sun Times. I grew up reading that.
- [52:55]
Dan Le Batard
All right. You're not a pioneer. You're a copycat. You're a bogus fraud who steals from others. And you're Elvis.
- [53:01]
Michael Wilbon
Borrow from the best.
- [53:02]
Dan Le Batard
You're Elvis Borrow from the best.
- [53:03]
Michael Wilbon
But so. So I was going to go to. Every day. I agonized over it. I will tell this story. I don't think. I don't know if I told it publicly. I get a call back. These are pre cell phones. I got a call at a landline at home from the Goat, the real goat in the NBA. And he says, why do I have to hear the cocktail party? You're thinking about leaving and coming home to Chicago. Right. For the tr. Suppose. I suppose you found out a cocktail party. I hadn't told you. I'm like, you never would have told me anyway.
- [53:37]
Dan Le Batard
I can't believe LeBron made that phone call.
- [53:40]
Michael Wilbon
LeBron was in grade school.
- [53:42]
Dan Le Batard
LeBron knew. No, he knew before.
- [53:45]
Michael Wilbon
So. So. And I said to him, you know, I told him, I said, okay, here's the dilemma. And we actually talked about it. And I learned how much I didn't know about money. Talking to.
- [53:59]
Dan Le Batard
Well, what was the dilemma? What was the dilemma?
- [54:01]
Michael Wilbon
The Tribune's offer or the. Or the. Or the. The Washington Post. Don Graham's offer. And I literally went through it with Michael on the phone. And he had serious hard advice like, like financial philosophy. Here's what you need to be looking for his. And I learned then, of course, because at that point, he's. He's almost at the last dance here. This is the year before the last dance. So he's. He's at the end of his basketball court career, playing career. And you realize that guys like him and Charles and I are working on books and stuff, that they know so much more, even though those guys are four years younger than me, they know so much more about money and finance, business than we'd ever know as sportswriters. Now we know a lot more now than we ever thought we'd know. But at the time, Dan, I didn't have an agent. I didn't know anything.
- [54:50]
Dan Le Batard
So you stay at the Washington Post. And at that time, you and Tony are just. You're arguing in the newsroom about.
- [54:56]
Michael Wilbon
We're on tv, too, a lot.
- [54:57]
Dan Le Batard
You're on local television.
- [54:59]
Michael Wilbon
Yeah. NBC affiliate.
- [55:01]
Dan Le Batard
And the chemistry was immediate between you two because he was older.
- [55:05]
Michael Wilbon
We didn't examine it. It was in the newspaper. Tony would write columns every Monday morning during a particular Redskin season. And he would use me as the foil in his column. And that's how it started. Tony would take the apparent differences between us and just, you know how he is. He would just blow them up. The apparent differences are white and black, you know, New York Jew Southside, Chicago and so Midwest, east coast, Catholic, Jew. And I'm not Catholic, but I went to Catholic school. I'm a product of that educational system. And Tony would take these things and he would juxtapose them.
- [55:47]
Dan Le Batard
He turned you into a character in print before you.
- [55:49]
Michael Wilbon
He turned me into a character in print and himself into one. And he did this, and we had this in Washington when there was nobody else really knew, unless you read the Post. And Tony did it brilliantly and generously and hysterically funny, as you know.
- [56:04]
Dan Le Batard
But are you proud of the sports television show? An enduring sports television show? Where does your pride reside? The highest pride on what you've accomplished there. Is it lasting 20 years? Is it that you've been able to use a platform in a way that reaches and moves people? Like, what are the greatest prizes?
- [56:27]
Michael Wilbon
You just stated it. It's. Yes. 20 years that you gotta. God, it's gonna be 22 years in October. Yeah. I mean, that's ridiculous. I don't know what we thought when we started. About years. I don't know that I. You know what, Dan? I don't examine stuff like people will say, how was the show today? I don't know. I don't know how the show was.
- [56:47]
Dan Le Batard
Well, I wouldn't say with you that introspection, that you stop. For introspection to be something you will be.
- [56:54]
Michael Wilbon
Right.
- [56:54]
Dan Le Batard
That you have time for because you got to get to the next thing.
- [56:58]
Michael Wilbon
Yeah. And I don't see what examination does. It just slows you down. It just clouds your mind. You don't know. You can have bigger examination of what you do. I guess other people. There are other people charged with the responsibility of doing that. I don't examine everyday pti. I don't. I never have. There's some shows I feel are better than others. There's some moments, but. Yeah, using the platform. That's how I get like. I never thought I could transition from writing a column which my columns had grown way too long. They'd gone, you know, we should have been writing 800 words or so, some papers less than that. The Washington Post tolerated a thousand. I was writing 12 and 1400 word columns sometimes. And.
- [57:39]
Dan Le Batard
I wish sometimes I was less introspective. I would.
- [57:43]
Michael Wilbon
You have always been introspect. You've examined this. You always have.
- [57:46]
Dan Le Batard
Well, it makes me question. It makes me stop at some of the landmarks and question the worth of what it is that we're doing for a living in one place. That I could do it very easily. Right. You came to this Revelation late in life. But I've not had kids.
- [57:58]
Michael Wilbon
Right. Right.
- [57:59]
Dan Le Batard
I have been married to my job and making things for a long time and at stops along the way, because I have missed out on some things in life that feel deeper. I can come to question the worth of what I'm doing for a living, even as it makes me hugely happy at every turn.
- [58:19]
Michael Wilbon
Yeah. I never have questioned what I'm doing, the worth of it. I figured if people have multiple skills, maybe they can. I don't have that.
- [58:28]
Dan Le Batard
I don't either.
- [58:29]
Michael Wilbon
I got the words, and I've known that since the fifth grade, when I was sent to the board, the blackboard, to diagram a sentence by Mrs. Richards in fifth grade. And I could do it as well as she could. I knew then, okay, I can. I can manipulate the language. I can be literate.
- [58:48]
Dan Le Batard
Where'd that come from?
- [58:49]
Michael Wilbon
I don't. My mother. My father didn't finish high school. Not everybody read every day. My mother.
- [58:55]
Dan Le Batard
So there was reading going on around the household.
- [58:57]
Michael Wilbon
Oh, God. Yeah. They had to be reading. They had to be reading. There was that. That. That. That makes me crazy about Matt. Matthew makes me crazy about all. The whole generation makes me crazy.
- [59:07]
Dan Le Batard
It's hard to physically get a book in your hands. I was made sad the other day when the last bookstore on Miami Beach. We've only had one. The last one. Yeah. Ends up getting, you know, not closed, but it gets smaller.
- [59:22]
Michael Wilbon
And coffee.
- [59:23]
Dan Le Batard
Coffee, yes. Yes.
- [59:24]
Michael Wilbon
You know, Yeah. I mean, so I. That makes me nuts. But I knew in fifth grade I could do that. That. That was. That was something. That. That was my skill. So I never spent any time examining, oh, should I be doing something else? I can't do, what else I'm gonna do. I can't do it. What am I gonna do?
- [59:39]
Dan Le Batard
But have you examined that you were responsible for one of the great sports television programs of all time?
- [59:47]
Michael Wilbon
No, no, not a bit. Because I think if you stop to do that, that's too much patting yourself on the back. I know. I sound like a basketball coach now. The older I've gotten, the more I believe in Pat Riley. I believe in that.
- [60:00]
Dan Le Batard
Yeah. But he's made. He can be a romantic at his core, but he's also. He can lament some things he's missed because he's so obsessive compulsive about the chasing of things that you miss out on.
- [60:14]
Michael Wilbon
I missed. I missed a couple of things. I missed Matthew's first book report. It was on Jackie Robinson, and I was in San Francisco. I was out The NBA finals. So. Oh, wait, that would be exactly how many years ago today? And I. I had tears. I. I felt bad that I missed that. And I'm gonna miss. I missed basketball games. I missed his first. I missed a game. I went to a game. I took a day off on a Friday. I went to a game when he was in middle school, and so I guess he was in eighth grade. And I went to a game and they said, did you hear what Matthew did Wednesday? It's too bad you didn't come to Wednesday's game. I said, what do you do Wednesday? He hit seven straight threes Wednesday. I'm like, what? Yeah, I missed that. And you miss a lot. Although now you can stream. What kind of is that?
- [61:00]
Dan Le Batard
Will you quit complaining about old people things? Yes.
- [61:03]
Michael Wilbon
Yeah, I'm not streaming anything.
- [61:05]
Dan Le Batard
I understand.
- [61:06]
Michael Wilbon
You know what I stream? Nothing.
- [61:08]
Dan Le Batard
Urine.
- [61:08]
Michael Wilbon
If it's not.
- [61:09]
Dan Le Batard
The only stream that you have is.
- [61:11]
Michael Wilbon
Your, you know what's on tv. On my tv. If the on button produces it.
- [61:16]
Dan Le Batard
Why are you so proud of being a grumpy horse? Why? I mean, you do, but you sit next.
- [61:22]
Michael Wilbon
Tony says I'm worse than him.
- [61:24]
Dan Le Batard
No, you can't be. No, cannot be.
- [61:26]
Michael Wilbon
So does Eric and Matt. You know them. You can't call Matt Kelleher after this and say, who is grumpier now today, in real time.
- [61:32]
Dan Le Batard
How can you not stop? Michael, I'm going to make you force. I'm going to force you to. I'm going to force you to do this for a second. Come on. Come on. You were responsible. Your friendship.
- [61:44]
Michael Wilbon
I.
- [61:46]
Dan Le Batard
You've done it.
- [61:48]
Michael Wilbon
That's too much. Patent on the.
- [61:50]
Dan Le Batard
No, just stop for a second. Receive this, please. Receive this from what? You're making me a pupil talking to his teacher with gratitude. You two around. Love birthed an economy. You birthed a family of people who work on that show. And all of you, you have made one of the greatest sports television programs there have ever been and one of the longest running television programs of any kind there has ever been.
- [62:26]
Michael Wilbon
I never thought of it in those terms. I think Eric Ridholm did that more so than Tony and me. I think of what you just described as the odd Couple with Oscar and Felix.
- [62:36]
Dan Le Batard
He built it around you. You guys were the. You guys.
- [62:39]
Michael Wilbon
Tony says they put us in the best car. Eric put us in the best car. He built the car. We just drive it. That's accurate. Look, I'm proud to be. To have the platform every day and to raise the level of discussion in a. In a. In a genre where, you know, let's face it, it can wallow on the floor most days. I'm glad we raised the level of discussion. That was what you. That much credit.
- [63:03]
Dan Le Batard
You. You elevated it.
- [63:05]
Michael Wilbon
Okay, I'm glad we did. But. Okay, then we move on. Then we have another day, right?
- [63:10]
Dan Le Batard
And then life ends and you're kissing your dad in the casket and you've never told him that you loved him and he's never told you because these things aren't to be talked about or shared, even though there's joy in the talking about and the sharing.
- [63:22]
Michael Wilbon
But it's okay because it worked the way it's supposed to. That toughness worked at that time. Is that. Does that work today? No, it doesn't work today. We don't do that today. We don't go without that expression today. But it was good that we did that. I don't. When I said to you, I haven't had any hardships, I don't have any regrets, none. You know what else I don't have? I don't have a bucket list. I've done all the along the way because. Because I was Try making sure I didn't do it. I didn't die before I could do it at 60. So I've done it. I don't. There's. What do I want? I want. I want like an amazing apartment in Chicago, which I intend to get. So there's an ambition that's left. But other than that, it all has to do with Matthew. It all has to do with passing it forward. I don't have any bucket list items. I don't need to go anywhere or see anything else. I've done that. There's some places I want to. I'll get them. Need to. No, no. That list is. Everything's checked off that list.
- [64:24]
Dan Le Batard
And Matthew comes to you and wants to go to lunch, asks to go to lunch. How does that.
- [64:32]
Michael Wilbon
We just did it a couple of days ago. It's great. We. Yeah, let's go. So we. Do, you know. You know, I mean, I don't know that I examined my father at 15, and I don't know that he can examine me at 15.
- [64:50]
Dan Le Batard
The reason I ask you the question is because if you've spent so much time articulating what you just did, which is a fear of life ending before you get all of the moments that you want with your son and he's a teenager and he has a generational lack of appreciation that ends up being the lament of every parent, is to be underappreciated because he has. He can have no idea at this age, not reading books, what it is you or your or his grandparents went through so that his life could be a very different black life in America. Yeah, a very different black life in America than the one that you guys had. I am wondering how much time you are getting to savor all of those moments. Because Mike Wilbon, who had a heart attack at 50 and spent a week of introspection amid the fear before he got right back to work. You don't have to have any regrets to know that there are a whole lot of moments in there worth savoring that you're allowed to savor. Maximum gratitude style in a way that makes a life enriching in ways beyond money.
- [66:01]
Michael Wilbon
But I think savoring is by its nature reflective. And if you do too much of that, you're not looking forward. And so I, and I have trouble letting go of chapters. I'm not good at realizing when the natural chapters are over, awful at it. And I've realized that which is too reflective. But no, to do this with him, I got to look forward, pay it forward, look forward. Right. I mean, that's what it takes. So now there's much more of that. There's much more of that, happily. And every day, you know, I. He sends me clips every morning of something I told him, I said this, this looks like maybe the life of a producer. But he didn't want to do anything that resembles anything that I do. So who knows how I'll get it?
- [66:49]
Dan Le Batard
Or work or. Does he want to do work?
- [66:52]
Michael Wilbon
Does he want, he wants to play ball.
- [66:54]
Dan Le Batard
But your work ethic was pretty obviously handed down. He's watching your work ethic.
- [67:00]
Michael Wilbon
It doesn't get handed down anymore. It's different. These generations are different. I don't mean just my son. I watch enough other families to see it. There's a disconnect. That's the generation gap thing. I go back to that. There wasn't that disconnect between my parents and me. Even though 32, they seem like friggin old people. People back then having me at 32 and 33 years old, my parents. But no. So I don't know that he sees any of that. There's. He's a smart kid because I know how he puts concepts together and how he, you know, can come to conclusions and see things that I couldn't see at 15 or 18. He knows more about basketball than I knew at 24. He's known that at 14 we could sit and Watch a game and he can see stuff. Stuff. And so maybe I have dreams of him being a scout, I don't know. But all that we do that we do that we had. You know. Luckily technology allows us to be able to communicate even when I'm not there. So I haven't. I. I'm never there between, you know, me. You know how many, how old he was before I saw him on Christmas Day. He was seven. Before I spent Christmas Day with him. I spent Christmas Day with Magic and Stuart Scott and John Barry. There is stuff.
- [68:17]
Dan Le Batard
You might not. You might not regret it because you love your widow.
- [68:20]
Michael Wilbon
I don't regret it because I had to do is what you what seven.
- [68:24]
Dan Le Batard
Threes hurts though seeing your son make that one. I don't know where it would be.
- [68:28]
Michael Wilbon
Whether it's the book report whether it's.
- [68:30]
Dan Le Batard
The book Reporter 7 Three Jesus. Missing. Missing your. Your son seven threes in a game.
- [68:37]
Michael Wilbon
And he didn't brag about it. I'm proud that he didn't brag about it. Well, didn't run through the door and say dad, I made seven threes.
- [68:43]
Dan Le Batard
Well, you're not bragging about what I'm not asking you to brag about, but the relationship with you and Tony is a unique one. And if I know Tony and where all his uncomfortable repressions lie, my guess is that you two haven't actually dug down on talking to each other very much about how much you love each other. But you love each other like you love each other in a way that is deeply married. Love each other.
- [69:09]
Michael Wilbon
Yeah. Yes. And I guess it is like you said, obvious. It's probably obvious to the. The women we are married to joke about it. Carol and Cheryl, they joke about it when they see each other or talking. It's not all that frequently, but I'm sure Tony's children have talked about it. I've heard Michael and Liz make reference but I, you know what? I don't. I'm not just. I don't come from self examination.
- [69:41]
Dan Le Batard
But why wouldn't you tell the old man how you feel about him?
- [69:44]
Michael Wilbon
He knows why do we need to.
- [69:48]
Dan Le Batard
It might also feel good as it not felt at. I've never told you any of the things that I'm telling you right now. None of them have come out of my mouth.
- [69:56]
Michael Wilbon
Great. It's great and thank you but I don't need it like I know. I know it. I know you know it was fun the last time the heat were really great. You know, 11, 12, 13, 14, when I would come and I'd wind up when you would have those great brunches on Sunday and then we'd go to Prime 112 at night. All of that. I know that. I know that. So I don't need to. I don't need to be showered with it. I've never had that. Never had that need to be told. That's just, you know, I mean, I'm. I guess. Do I need to live in a time where people say everything?
- [70:35]
Dan Le Batard
I just think it's fascinating. You are. You are a good profile writer. You were a good column writer. The psychology and the sociology of sports are things that are relentlessly fascinating to you. I'm legitimately surprised, as I talk to you, to hear you be that allergic to reminiscing or introspection or reflective like.
- [70:58]
Michael Wilbon
To be, I think, are dangerous. Reminiscing, I'm fine with that. Just means I'm old. The other two, they just. They're. They make you soft. They make you. I don't trust them.
- [71:12]
Dan Le Batard
What's wrong with being soft?
- [71:14]
Michael Wilbon
No, everything's wrong with being soft on the inside.
- [71:17]
Dan Le Batard
Soft. Soft like you could be covered in armor. Everything's wrong with being soft.
- [71:22]
Michael Wilbon
Last night I said to Matthew, this is okay. This is it. We all love this.
- [71:25]
Dan Le Batard
It's okay for men to be soft.
- [71:26]
Michael Wilbon
This is 1:30 in the morning.
- [71:27]
Dan Le Batard
Men have to always be hard.
- [71:29]
Michael Wilbon
Yes. This is at 1:30 in the morning in the hotel here on south beach.
- [71:34]
Dan Le Batard
And we're talking about. So men have told me. I'm going to tell you.
- [71:37]
Michael Wilbon
I'm going to tell you. We're talking about basketball again. We're arguing about basketball. And I said to Matthews, talking about, you know how. I said, you know what? The guys I admired and then knew, they played in canvas shoes, their ankles weren't wrapped. They played 82 fucking games a year. This year, like seven players played 82 games in the NBA. And I said, you know what I called my son? I called him the P word.
- [72:02]
Dan Le Batard
Oh, no.
- [72:02]
Michael Wilbon
Oh, yeah. No. Oh, yes, yes, yes. I said, you know what you are?
- [72:10]
Dan Le Batard
No, what is it? You've gone too far.
- [72:14]
Michael Wilbon
You've gone. No, I have not gone too far. This is. There's not enough of that.
- [72:19]
Dan Le Batard
I like men who are soft and sensitive and can talk about their feelings.
- [72:24]
Michael Wilbon
I don't. I don't like. I don't like that kind of introspection. That's. That can't lead to anything good.
- [72:30]
Dan Le Batard
Can that lead to feelings?
- [72:33]
Michael Wilbon
Jesus.
- [72:33]
Dan Le Batard
Feelings.
- [72:34]
Michael Wilbon
What do you mean, French.
- [72:41]
Dan Le Batard
Can't lead to anything good. Feelings. Deep, deep Loving.
- [72:47]
Michael Wilbon
I don't trust it.
- [72:48]
Dan Le Batard
I don't.
- [72:50]
Michael Wilbon
That's. That's. But, but that. And you know what? There may be. There's a difference there culturally in the 10 years. In the 10. In the 10.
- [72:57]
Dan Le Batard
Yes, well. But Hispanic men can be like this too. I mean, I don't think I'm a normal Hispanic man rummaging around in my feelings.
- [73:05]
Michael Wilbon
Putting this on your age. The great number the Hispanic men I know are much more like the black men I know and men of color who have run from this for decades. Yes, you are the exception. But I think it has to do with age more than culture. Maybe I'm wrong. I think it has to do with age. I think that there are many more of my African American male friends are much more likely to indulge in this who are 50. 50 and not 60 or older. You know, it's like sweet Dig Willie. It's like you go, you know in the Spike Lee movies when there's no sentiment. And it was, it. Was it sweet Dick Willie or somebody else who said, you know, when they boycott the Koreans, I'm a boycott. You know, you better go boycott that barber who put cut that shit in your head. It's. I love those characterizations because I think they're very real.
- [73:59]
Dan Le Batard
I have said before that among men, insults are the language of intimacy. However, there is very good. Yes. But there is another layer that I wish for you to receive now in closing here on what it is that we're doing, because my gratitude for you is profound.
- [74:18]
Michael Wilbon
Thank you.
- [74:19]
Dan Le Batard
My love for you and the environment that you guys have created, that you shared with with me, is overwhelming. It's not something that I can repay and it's something that I wanted to say to you when these things can still be said. Because I think it's important that you, Tony, Eric, Matt, that everything it is that I've been able to do professionally is only because you guys were putting the lights up in front of me that I could watch and steal liberally from because you guys gave us permission.
- [74:53]
Michael Wilbon
I receive it. I am honored by it. Not flattered. Honored. Honored. I am a little surprised by it because I don't have that level of self examination on any level. It's probably bad. I admit that. It's probably a bad thing. So I'm grateful that you feel that way. I am grateful. Even more so if we have influenced the lives of the people who are just younger than us that they have taken something from this journey. I am. I don't readily see it or know it or even recognize it, I'll give you that. But I think that there is something. I think there's nobility in not seeing it and acknowledging it and just forging ahead. Because I think if you stand back and admire your own work, you're fucked up.
- [75:51]
Dan Le Batard
I love you. Now get the fuck out of stu guts. Chair.
- [75:55]
Michael Wilbon
Stugotz, Your chair. I should leave something bad in it, but I won't do that. Danny, thank you.
- [76:02]
Dan Le Batard
Thank you, buddy.
- [76:02]
Michael Wilbon
Appreciate you, man. Love you and appreciate you. Thank you so much.