Stephen A Smith: Inside the mind of sports media’s loudest voice

17:03Stephen A. Smith:You ever get, like, shot at?

17:04Graham Bensinger:No, not me. Not me. The drug dealers were my friends. They looked out for me. They protected me. As a matter of fact, they had a lot to do with me being safe enough because they knew I wanted to play basketball and I wanted to earn a basketball scholarship. And so I'd go out there shoot two, three hundred jump shots a day going into the night when sundown came. And it was understood. The drug dealers were like, don't bother them. Don't touch them. And they'd walk over to me and they say, all right, it's time to go. We got work to do. You got to get up out of here. And they said, you know, you're from the streets, but you're not of it.

17:35Graham Bensinger:You ever see people get shot at? Of course. A couple of my friends got killed.

17:40Stephen A. Smith:That you saw?

17:42Graham Bensinger:Oh, yeah. I've seen a couple of people get gunned down. I've seen a couple of people get killed. I see somebody get shot. I remember one time one of the guys that I grew up with, I wouldn't say that he was a close friend, but we knew one another. He was joking around, arguing with this guy, and they were making jokes towards one another about each other's mother, who could tell the best jokes or whatever. And this one guy got the better of the other guy. The other guy goes up to him and shoots him in both kneecaps and said, I told you to stop with me, dropped a gun and walked away. That's the kind of stuff that I grew up seeing.

18:16Graham Bensinger:You know, I grew up seeing, you know, one of my boys gunned down in a nightclub. I walked up to him, blew his head off, you know, just because he didn't like him. And what do you do when you're in that situation? Well, unfortunately, you know, you know, you don't like to say these things, but you know what, you keep your mouth shut. You know, people talk about snitching, no snitching or whatever, but, you know, you see something like that, you open your mouth, you might be next. and so that's the kind of environment we grew up in. Again, it wasn't pervasive to the point where it happened all the time, but it happened enough where you knew who you were dealing with.

18:52Graham Bensinger:You saw one of my boys, his house got shot up, and his little sister, five years old, got killed because they were after him, because it was a territorial battle. It was my territory here, I want to be here, this is what you're doing, you're on this block. Next thing you know, they roll up in your house and they're driving by and they shoot through the window and they killed this five-year-old sister. This is the kind of stuff that I grew up seeing, you know, not, again, not every day, not every week, but it's happened. There's a few dead bodies that, you know, was around us and stuff like that, and you kind of learn what to avoid.

19:25Graham Bensinger:You got to learn when to speak, when not to speak, you know, who to speak to and when. You know, you see 5-0 and stuff like that. You see and get seen talking to the police, you know, that's not a good look for you When you're growing up in the streets and you see some of the things that we've seen. And so all of those things are things that, you know, contribute to your mindset, what you see, how you communicate with folks, what you're willing to convey, what you're willing to stay away from, stuff like that. And I was the kind of person that I stayed away from all of that. And basketball was my haven.

19:55Stephen A. Smith:And that was going to be my question. I was talking to your close buddy, Cardell, the other day. Like, how did you guys avoid getting caught up in that?

20:05Graham Bensinger:Well, working because we work after school jobs and stuff like that. In my case, it was also playing basketball. So it was the combination of having stuff to do. I didn't have idle time to get involved in other stuff. And not only that. And that was you doing it or you're like mom and. Well, it's a combination. It's a combination because when you have a mother like I had, who's on your is on your back at every turn, you know, and let you know, my mother used to tell me you're going to go. I will never come visit you. I will never come visit you if you go to jail. She used to sell me that stuff all the time because she was letting me know there's a standard that I have to live up to.

20:42Graham Bensinger:And you know what? I don't care how much we're struggling. You're going to obey the law and you're going to be a law-abiding citizen. You're going to be a civilized contributor to our society. That's what you're going to do. Otherwise, I'm not going to be a part of your life. She let me know that from a very early age.

20:58Stephen A. Smith:Is it true that you actually still remember were hearing your dad tell your mom that you're not that smart? Yeah, of course I do.

21:09Graham Bensinger:Got left back in the fourth grade, came home, and it was after I got left back in the third grade, but then I got promoted to my right grade that following September. So that June I got left back, I went to summer school, got promoted to my right, to the fourth grade that September, went through school from September to the following June to the fourth, went through the fourth grade, got left back again, and this time held back the whole year. And it was then that he sat there, he stood there in the kitchen while I was on the back porch, and they didn't see me, and no. He told my mother, he's not that smart.

21:44Graham Bensinger:Just accept it and get over it. He's not gonna be much. You just have to accept that. And my mother turned around and saw me looking, and she was aghast, because she was like, you know, she knew I heard my own father say that about me. And then he looked and saw me as well, and he just turned around and shrugged his shoulders and walked away.

22:06Stephen A. Smith:Really?

22:07Graham Bensinger:Yeah. He didn't care. Do you still remember that feeling? I always remember that feeling because those are the kind of things that motivate me. That's why, you know, I don't, you know, when people think about competition or people think about pressure and things of that nature, everybody has their thing that drives them, that motivates them. that's one of my driving forces, you know, for my father to think that little of me at the time. He didn't always feel that way about me. He later grew to respect me once he saw what I was accomplishing and whatever, but he did nothing to help me get to that point.

22:44Graham Bensinger:And because he did nothing to help me get to that point, and he was a driving force of motivation because of his doubts, you know, it's something that I always held onto. And so as a result, you know.

22:56Stephen A. Smith:Your sister said the same thing. What? That it was your dad's and your desire to kind of prove that you could be something that really motivated you.

23:07Graham Bensinger:But I told my mother that day, I said, he doubted the wrong dude. He doubted the wrong dude. I said, you'll see. We'll see. And I told her that that day, he said it when I was in fourth grade. How long did you think you were stupid for? I think it was until I was in the seventh grade. When Mr. Caravan, my seventh grade teacher, it was open, it was parents' teachers' conference night, and we went up there, and he looked at my mother. He was my social studies teacher, and he said to my mother, your son has never let go of the fact that he got left back. He thinks he's not smart. I'm here to tell you he's wrong.

23:56Graham Bensinger:And I was sitting there with my head down like this until he said, he's wrong. He's smart. And I was like, and I stepped up and I sat up, I looked at him. And he looked at my mother. She was sitting to my right. And he looked at my mother. He was sitting across from the desk staring at her. He said, Stephen thinks he's dumb because he doesn't know a lot of things. What he doesn't realize is that he didn't hear it because he drifts. Your son gets bored very easy. And so what happens is he'll drift and he'll daydream about something and you'll ask him what you just said. And it could be a room full of people and he could tune everybody out.

24:36Graham Bensinger:He has that ability. If he's bored, if he's uninterested in the conversation and what you're saying, it could be 50 people in a room with a whole bunch of noise about a particular subject. And your son has the ability to not hear anything because he drifts that much. he said but when you pique his interest and you find something that he's interested in that intrigues him he said he's a totally different person he said find out what your son is interested in and let him do that and you will have a star on your hands that's exactly what he said and when he said that I was like and my mother looked at me and she was like well he loves sports you know And so I'm reading stuff and not really comprehending when I'm reading newspapers or I'm reading books for homework and stuff like that.

25:31Graham Bensinger:But anything that I read about sports, I picked up just like that. It was easy. And they were like, you know, you do get it. You do comprehend. You do understand. You just wasn't interested in that stuff. So you've got to force yourself to be interested in the stuff that you're not interested in to do what you have to do so you can do what you want to do. And that line I got from Denzel Washington, that was later. But he used to say that.

25:57Stephen A. Smith:It just goes to show you the impact of good teaching and the value of just having somebody to believe in you. Not to mention all of that was compounded by the fact that, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but you had undiagnosed dyslexia.

26:09Graham Bensinger:That's what they said. Yeah, that's what they later discovered my sister and a family friend and whatever doctor friend they had. It was like, that's dyslexic. I mean, he's not really, it's so much stuff that's convoluted that he's not picking up. So my sister Linda, who's a valedictorian and quite brilliant at everything she did, she sat down with me. She's like, here's what you're missing, here's why. And so one of the things that also used to derail me was that if I didn't understand a word in a sentence, I would just lose everything. So what I did was I would stop and I would look up the word in its context and made sure it was utilized properly.

26:47Graham Bensinger:And I would not continue to read until I knew that word that I didn't want, that I didn't understand a few minutes earlier. I would just stop in my tracks because I hated the thought of not being able to comprehend and understand. And I'm 58 years old and I still do that to this very day.

27:04Stephen A. Smith:And that was before ChatGPT and Google. There you go. Exactly.

27:08Graham Bensinger:So it's just a habit that I have that I like. I like, I love it now. Before, it used to derail me, used to, you know, just compromise my confidence in myself and whatever. Now, and it's been this way for decades, I get excited when I'm doubted. I get excited when people question my resolve and question my ability and stuff like that. It actually makes me smile. I'm like, I'm better when they do that. I can't stand when everybody, he's so smart, he's so this, he's so that, he's great, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, that doesn't do it for me because it makes me feel like I've arrived and I don't want to feel like I've arrived.

27:48Stephen A. Smith:But speaking of people who believed in you before you arrived, regardless if you want to feel that way, your older brother Basil, in what ways did he motivate you?

28:01Graham Bensinger:basil was a beautiful human being power positive thinking you know dale carnegie and the books that he wrote and stuff like that i mean basil was into all of that you know he was a road salesman with travel and you know was making six figures and selling magazines and other things he became a manager and had 15 to 20 people working under him and all of that stuff and my brother he He actually used to get on my nerves with it because if I tried to come to him about doubts I may have had, questions I may have had about myself or whatever, he wasn't hearing it. Didn't want to hear it. My mother had a belief in me, but I could go to her and say to her, well, I don't know if I could do this.

28:47Graham Bensinger:She was like, yes, you can. Sit down, study, and you'll overcome it. You'll see. That's what she would say. My brother, on the other hand, was like, there's no reason for doubts. There's nothing for you to doubt. I don't want to hear it. That's negative. Get away from me with that negativity in your voice. I don't want to hear it. You can do it, and you will do it. That was my brother.

29:07Stephen A. Smith:And he's telling you you're going to be the biggest sports personnel. You're going to be the second coming Howard Coastal.

29:12Graham Bensinger:He passed away in October of 1992, car accident. And we were together for the last time in Georgetown. He had traveled to Georgetown, and he was in Georgetown living there for a month. And he told me to come see him. I was at Winston-Salem State. I was working. I was working. Actually, I graduated, but I was working in the area for the Greensboro News and Record at the time. And he was in Maryland. He told me to drive up to come see him. And I drove up to come see him and was telling him the challenges, working for the Greensboro News and Record as an editorial assistant, you know, doing stuff on my own, you know, Pop Warner sports, high school prep sports, all of this stuff.

29:54Graham Bensinger:and my off time wasn't getting paid for it, but was building a portfolio and stuff like that. So I just don't know what's going to happen. And my brother was like, you're going to be a star at ESPN. You're going to be the biggest star in sports broadcasting. Mark it down. It's going to happen. He said, you just got to believe it because the only person in your way is you. And he would tell me that, which is why when he died two months later, you know, I didn't go to his grave site until I got hired by ESPN. It took me 11 years to get to ESPN because I had made it my personal mission that when I went to see him, it would be to let him know I did it.

30:38Graham Bensinger:I did what you said I was going to do. And it took me 11 years. But in that 11 years, I went from an editorial assistant to a high school sports writer, to a backup college writer, to a college writer, to a backup NBA writer, to an NBA writer, to an NBA columnist, to becoming the 21st African American in this country's history to be named a general sports columnist. And that was step one. But then that was March of 2003. And then October of 2003 is when ESPN hired me. so when ESPN hired me the general sports columnist position in March and then ESPN that same year that October I had achieved what he said I achieved and then I went to his grave site in Yonkers, New York and I remember that I think that's the hardest I think that's the hardest I've ever cried in my life with the exception of my mother passing away because it was like I had held it all in you know it was like when he passed away I eulogized him I gave his eulogy and stuff like that and then from that point forward I just used to talk to myself used to talk to him used to talk about what he had aspired for me or whatever but um to actually achieve it to pull it off to do exactly what he said I would do that was a big, big moment for me.

32:18Stephen A. Smith:What was the feeling being there that day, kind of sharing with him the achievement?

32:25Graham Bensinger:Well, it came full circle because my dad doubted me, but he never did. And it was a combination of me proving my dad to be a liar when it came to me and validating my brother. and all the things that he said I was going to do. And to be at his gravesite and to know that he believed in me and I came through. I validated what he said. I didn't give up because there was a lot of roadblocks, a lot of trials and tribulations. Working in corporate America, you got people, everybody's not your cheerleader, everybody's not the mentor. You know, to have the obstacles that were placed in front of me and for me to overcome all of that.

33:15Graham Bensinger:to achieve what he said I was going to achieve, it was just, it was a deep thing for me. And it was like, I'm telling you, I don't think I've ever cried like that. I didn't cry like that at his funeral. But that day, it was like, it was cathartic. You know, I just, I realized at that moment that I held all of this in for those 11 years. And I was finally able, it was a tremendous, tremendous weight that was off my shoulders.

33:46Stephen A. Smith:What's the connectivity to your brother's passing and you not celebrating your birthday for so long?

33:53Graham Bensinger:Well, I just miss him. You know, it's, you know, one of the things that I have to, I have to do a better job of when it comes to funerals, for example, it's not about you, it's about them. and for the longest time it was always about my brother you know when somebody passed away or whatever it would I would go to a dark place because that person's loss had me thinking about who I lost because I was very very close to my brother and to lose him there was a palpable level of misery that would kick in, and my birthday did that for me. We lost him right before my birthday, but the only time the funeral could happen was on my birthday.

34:44So we buried him on my birthday.

34:48Graham Bensinger:And because of that, that's what I thought. I thought about that. I never thought about anything else. And that's why, you know, when my birthday came, it was never anything for me to celebrate. In what ways did therapy help with that? Therapy didn't come until after I lost my mother. The difference between my mother and, you know, listen, you love your siblings or whatever, but like I told you before, your mama's your mama. I've never known pain like that in my life. I cried every day for two years.

35:25Graham Bensinger:And it was the first time in my life I knew I needed help. because I remember and I said this before I remember one time we're doing first take for ESPN and I'm on the air with Max Kellerman and Molly and there was a point where like for 60 seconds he's talking and I don't see him and I don't hear him and I knew I was in trouble because my mother had passed away this was months later and you know it was unfair to him it was unfair to Molly it was unfair to the show it was unfair to ESPN I was trying to work through it but it happened and it wasn't the first time it had happened and I never knew when it was coming on something would happen that had me thinking about my mother and that darkness that I alluded to with my brother that was the pain of losing him but when my mother died I felt like I lost everything I never came close to killing myself, but I did not want to live.

36:52Graham Bensinger:I was just that miserable. It was like, you know, I've been, I grew up in Howard's Queens. My mother passed away in 2017. I've been to Howard's Queens about five times and four times I was forced because my sisters were there. I don't My mother passed away in the bed. They put her in the bag, body bag, took her out in the gurney. I see it all to this moment. I don't want to see it. And so for me to see all of that, it's very, very painful. And to be on TV in the moment, you know, you're forgetting something or you didn't hear something or whatever. And it was like, and it was all on me and I couldn't tell anybody because I didn't think anybody would understand.

37:51And so I finally called my sister and I was like, I need help.

37:58Graham Bensinger:I got to talk. I got to, I got to get some emotional help. I'm not, I'm not right. You know, and I was very, very volatile. You know, I didn't care about much, you know, by this time I'm a dad and that was the only thing I was caring about. It was like, because I got to be there for them. I got to be there for Samantha and Nyla because they didn't have to be here. It's my responsibility. And my mother would be appalled if I shirked my responsibility for any reason. Yeah. And I knew that too. And that kind of salvaged me as well. And I was very, very appreciative for ESPN because it took me a few weeks.

38:35Graham Bensinger:But then I confessed to them like, yo, this is what I'm going through and this is what I'm doing. and here's why. And one of the things you might see me, critics will come at me, folks will clap back or whatever, whatever. But I will never be more grateful than when my mother passed away and those same critics said nothing. You know, because I was in a very, very, very vulnerable state. And it was weeks that went by. Nobody bothered me. Nobody messed with me. There wasn't a critical word that was said about me. Anything could have set me off. And it really, really showed me that no matter how despicable people can be from time to time, that people really, really showed their humanity at that particular moment in time.

39:25Graham Bensinger:And I'll never forget it as long as I live because I was vulnerable. I was weak as hell. So I was, I mean, you could shatter me with the slightest word when my mother passed away for a period of time because I just, I wasn't there. I just wasn't there.

39:43Stephen A. Smith:Your sister told me to bring this up, and this could be completely out of place. So forgive me, I have no idea the genesis of this. What's the deal with your mom and dad with the club on the car?

39:59Graham Bensinger:The club is funny. It's the funniest story. I think it's one of the funniest stories we've ever had. My mother was the absolute queen of I told you so. Nobody lived on that more than her. If she gave you advice, if she gave you counsel and you didn't follow it, she was going to remind you until until the cows came home. See, I told you, I told you, I told you that was my mother, the queen of I told you so. And so my father, absolutely hilarious, he goes to the supermarket. And by this time, he's old. He can't run, anything like that. And somebody stole his car. And literally, he was coming out of the supermarket on Merrick Boulevard in Queens, New York.

40:51Graham Bensinger:And he saw the guy driving away with his car. And he's like, hey, but there's nothing he can do. So my father gets home, and he's so ticked off. He's just mad, and, you know, he stole my car, and my sister Arlen and Linda are sitting there with them, and they're like, these damn people. It's a damn shame this society is the way that it is, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And my mother was in the kitchen, and she stuck her head in the dining room where he was, where he would sit, where he had the grandfather chair in front of the TV, and he would watch it. And my mother would sit up there, and she'd walk in and stick her head in, And she says, did you use the club?

41:27Graham Bensinger:And he looked at her and just ignored her. Now, the club is one of those things you put over the stairwell. Lock the stairwell or whatever. Cost about$25 at the time and stuff like that. You lock the stairwell so you can't steer the car away. Whatever. She bought him the club. She bought him the club. And she was asking him, did you use the club? And he ignored her. She said, I said, did you use the club? and he interrupted the conversation with my sisters, and he looked at her, and he said, Janet, no, I didn't use the club. And she said, see, had you used the club, you still have your car. And he just sucked his teeth, and he was so mad.

42:08Graham Bensinger:The first time in my life I saw my father, if he could hit her, he would have. He never put his hands on my mother, but if he could hit her, he would have, because he was that upset that all she cared about, she bought him the club, and you didn't use it. That's all she cared about. She didn't care about his car. She didn't care about how upset he was. She didn't care about nothing. And so when she said, see, if you use a club, you still have your car. And she stormed out and walked away. We ran out the dining room laughing because that was what my mother would do. She would remind you that she told you so and you didn't listen.

42:40Graham Bensinger:And that's why you suffered. If you listen to her, you still have your car.

42:45Stephen A. Smith:That was her. Your sister Carmen told me your mom outshined your dad because of her hard work. which she feels made him feel kind of powerless as a man.

42:57Graham Bensinger:Well, it was a combination of that. You know, my father was a very prideful West Indian man, and he wanted you to be able to have to depend on him. But he wasn't dependable. Whether it was cigarettes, it was gambling, it was drinking, it was all of the above. my father wasn't a dependable source as a man in the house. Why do you think he was the way he was? I think in part it was jealousy of my mother because my mother pulled herself up by her own bootstraps, got her nursing degree, and made sure that the family wasn't going to fall apart. That somehow, someway, we will scratch, we will skimp, we will save, we will do whatever we have to do, but we will survive and we will persevere and ultimately we will prosper.

43:51Graham Bensinger:That was my mother. And remember, she got her degree. She went, she put herself through school and got a degree after she had the six of us. And so to put herself in a position where she didn't really need him as much as she once did, my belief was, is that he resented that. And because of that, he was like, fine, go do it on your own then. And that's where it came from. So my sisters would be primarily focused on his infidelity. I was always focused on the fact that as a man, you have a responsibility to take care of your family. It don't matter. You know, I would prefer that you not do that.

44:32Graham Bensinger:Any person would prefer that their parents are not having that kind of fractious relationship. but take care of your responsibilities. Take care of your family. You know, we shouldn't be having to worry about a roof over our head, clothes on our back, food on the table. That's your responsibility as a man.

44:51Stephen A. Smith:Although he did throw the infidelity in your face a little bit, didn't he? Like when he picked you up after you lived in Texas for a couple months.

45:00Graham Bensinger:No, I went to Texas to see my brother for a month. Right. And then you come back to LaGuardia. And, you know, he picked me up at LaGuardia Airport, and some little kid jumps into my arms that I've never seen in my life, and then I see my father with a big smile on his face, and I'm like, what is this? He said, that's your brother. And that was the first time I found out that I had a little brother. And that was a big moment because obviously I wasn't happy about that. It was nothing against the kid. He's a little kid, for crying out loud. But it was clearly a violation of my mother. and um you know when he dropped me off he dropped me off at the corner he told me don't tell your mother that I picked you up with somebody because when he took me to the car the mistress was in the car and he said don't tell your mother and so I get home I walk up the block and my mother said I didn't see you I didn't see him drop you off I said she did dry he did drop me off and my mother's out of nowhere asked me was he alone and I said yes and my mother died when I was 49 years old approaching my 50th birthday it was the only lie I ever told my mother in my life and never lied to my mother ever except that day because I knew what pain it would cause her.

46:34And I ate it.

46:37Graham Bensinger:And I go to school the next day. I come home from school and my mother's in the bedroom crying. my brother basil had died in 1992 okay um she didn't cry then strong as an ox very sad but didn't cry was strong for the family the whole bit the only time i ever saw my mother cry was that day and i went there and i was like mommy what's the matter and she wiped the tears from my eyes and she looked at me and she said, why'd you lie to me? And I was like, what are you talking about? She said, I asked you yesterday, was your father alone? Why'd you lie to me? And come to find out, he had went and bragged about how his two sons had seen each other and embellished the story, acting like we were hugging one another and we were so happy to be together and all of this other stuff.

47:40Graham Bensinger:And when he did that, he did it with the people back in St. Thomas who were family members. But his family was my mother's family because that's how tight his siblings were and his other relatives were with my mother. So they told her. And when they told her, she knew I had lied. and she described this painted this picture that he embellished and I said hold up wait a minute I'm sorry that I lied to you here's what happened and when I told her what happened and that I just couldn't bring myself to hurt her like that she said you've never lied to me before don't lie to me now don't start anything new and I said yes ma 'am and she said I'm going to talk to your father I will confront him tonight when he gets home I said no no no no no I will I was 17 and I said no I have to handle this I got a man up and he came home that night and I asked him to come in the bedroom and I said to him this is what you did and I said that was wrong he said no it wasn't you have a right to know your brother blah blah blah I said that's not the point the point is you got me involved hurting my mother you want to do that you do that on your own you don't use me to do it and my father was a very very intimidating figure whose default position was to put his hands on you if you were his children and he felt that you were out of line but I couldn't be scared because my relationship with my mother was on the line that's how I viewed it and nothing came before her so I looked him dead in the face and I told him I said dad I love you I said but I need to tell you something you don't come close to being as important as mommy on any day and if I got to choose between that kid and mommy it's gonna be mommy if I got to choose between you and mommy, it's going to be mommy.

49:50That's the way it is, and that's the way it's going to stay

49:54Graham Bensinger:for the rest of my life on this earth. And he said to me, well, she's wrong, and you're wrong. And if that's the way you feel, we have nothing to say to each other. I said, then we have nothing to say to each other. And that was that.

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50:39Graham Bensinger:Quick, choose a meal deal with McValue. The$5 Mexican meal deal, the$6 McDouble meal deal, or the new$7 daily double meal deal, each with its own small fries, drink, and four-piece McNuggets. There's actually no rush. I'm just excited for McDonald's.

50:52Stephen A. Smith:For a limited time, only prices and participation may vary. Not valid for McDelivery. You ever fault her for staying with him? No.

51:00Graham Bensinger:I think my sisters do.

51:01Stephen A. Smith:Really?

51:02Graham Bensinger:I think so. Why? I don't know, but I think so because I think that as women, I think you look at your moms and you think that they should have made different decisions, what you deem to be better decisions, et cetera. You're looking at the mother, not just the father. I don't look at my mother at all. I look at the man and I'm like, what kind of man are you supposed to be first? Relationships and troubles in relationships happen as hard as it is because it involves your parents. You don't put your hands on her. You're not abusive towards her. It's none of my business. My mother has to handle that.

51:46Graham Bensinger:My father has to handle that. Because you're two adults and the intimacy of your relationship, there's levels to it and there's certain things that I don't, it's none of my business. As much as it is because you're my parents, still and all, they'll be the first to tell you, stay out of grown folks' business. Where it becomes my business is when you have her doing your job. when you didn't pay the bills, when you didn't put food in the refrigerator, when you didn't make sure there was heat in the house, when you didn't make sure there was clothes on our back. She's doing your job. And I'm very, very, very big on that.

52:23Graham Bensinger:I've always been that guy. I've been in multiple relationships in my life and stuff like that. There is no woman alive that would ever tell you they know anything about me, and I'm going to leave the bills to them. That it's not happening. It's just not a code that I live by. You know, I have two daughters. I eat when they eat. If they hungry, it's because I'm starving. I'm not taking care of them until they're taking care of. There is nothing that I have in my life that I did before making sure they were taken care of. And when they get older and they have a boyfriend or they're fortunate and blessed enough to have a husband, it better be somebody that's handling business.

53:06Graham Bensinger:Can't meet me. can't come to me because my number one the number one thing I'm looking for is what is your character when it comes to taking care of your family because you can have a relationship that goes awry you can get you can be together and break up you can get married and get a divorce what does that have to do with taking care of your responsibilities one has nothing to do with the other. You have an obligation to take care of your responsibilities. And if you can afford to do even better than that, you should, because this person mattered to you. They were in your life. You can sit up there and say, hey, things don't work out.

53:48Graham Bensinger:My father and mother, had they gotten divorced, but my father was a better man when it came to taking care of his responsibilities instead of leaving it up to my mother, I would not have resented him. My sisters would have, but I wouldn't have. If you've forgiven him? I'd say yes because, you know, the day I eulogized him was the day and I give all the thanks in the world to my mother who had passed away 14 months earlier and what she had instilled in me and Pastor A.R. Bernard from Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, New York, who's my spiritual father. I'm not the most religious person in the world But if there's somebody that I lean on that knows practically everything about me, it's him.

54:37And I'm dry.

54:38Graham Bensinger:I called my sister Carmen the morning of my father's funeral. And I say to her, I got some stuff I need to get off my chest. And she's like, oh, God, no. Steve, please don't do this. And I said, I got to get it off my chest. I've held it in. I haven't said much. Mommy passed away 14 months ago. You know, and I don't think she's been celebrated enough. And I got a problem with that. So this is the perfect time to do it. So I'm telling you, because whoever was going to give the eulogy, cancel it. I'm giving it. And Carmen's like, oh, God, no. She said, Steve, just remember, what would mommy say?

55:18Graham Bensinger:What would mommy say? What would mommy say? And I said, I got it. And it was 7 o 'clock, and the funeral was at 10. So I'm living in North Jersey. Funeral's in Queens, New York About an hour away And I leave at 8 o 'clock To drive to the funeral And I pick up the phone and I call Pastor Bernard And Pastor Bernard Tell him what I'm feeling What I'm going to do And he says to me Your feelings are your feelings You can say whatever you want That's your dad And you have a right He said but I will remind you about a passage in the book of Matthew in the Bible. It talks about forgiveness. And I will remind you of that.

56:03And he said, you can say what you say,

56:07Graham Bensinger:but when you don't have forgiveness in your heart, the only one wearing it is you. I want you to remember that. And so I go to the funeral, and there's a bunch of people that's walking up on stage and saying their words and speaking about my father so glowingly and all of this other stuff. Thank you. But remember, Hollis is a close-knit community. Like on our block, you know, your next-door neighbors and stuff, they all know what's going on. You talk to one another, you see stuff, you know, growing up, all this, so you know. And all of these people were in attendance for my father's funeral. There must have been about 20 people from our block in Hollis, you know, 2 3rd Street.

56:51Graham Bensinger:They were there. It must have been at least 20 of them. and I walk up on stage and everybody's looking at it like oh no you know so I walk on stage and I open up by saying all of you people that have spoken so glowingly about my father while it's appreciated I want you to know you're entitled to your feelings but on behalf of me and my sisters we have an entirely different perspective about him. And I saw my sister's boyfriend go like this. And I saw another neighbor go, please don't, no, no, don't do it, don't do it. And I saw my cousin and a couple of other people in attendance literally go like this, no, and they buried their hands.

57:42Graham Bensinger:They buried their face in their hands because nobody knew what I was going to say, but they knew, they had suspected it was going to be very bad. And I said to them, your interpretation of my father is that he was a good man. That is not necessarily true. And I said, he was this, he was this, he was that. And I said, and for the last 14 months since my mother passed away, I've had legitimate reasons, along with my sisters, to be very, very bitter. I said, but then I thought about something. My mother, I said, I'm a very popular guy, working for ESPN, the face of the network by this time, all of this other stuff.

58:29Graham Bensinger:I said, I'm one of the biggest sports personalities in America. And I said, do you know that my mother doesn't even know the network's name? She said, EPSN, whatever it is. I don't know what it is. I said, she knows nothing about sports. Nothing. I said, but she knew what her home run was. She knew what her no-hitter was. She knew the difference between a pitcher and a catcher. She knew these things. And she knew the Yankees. And I said, and there's only one reason she knew that. Because of my dad. The greatest woman that I've ever known had one weakness, and that was him. She loved herself, some Ashley Basil Smith, loved him to her core.

59:23And I said, and to have a love like that,

59:28Graham Bensinger:the most wonderful woman that I've ever known, to love you like that, there must have been something special about you. And then I went in to all the things that were good about him. Things that he had a great personality, highly knowledgeable about sports, could be the life of the party, could walk into any room and take it over and have everybody smiling. He was a great calypso dancer. He did everything, and he was incredibly talented, great pitcher, drafted by the Yankees and stuff like that, all of this stuff going on. And I closed out by saying, you know, I understand all of these things happen.

1:00:08Graham Bensinger:And then I looked into the casket and said, but he was my dad. And I love him. And that's how I ended it. And everybody was like, wow. You know, they couldn't believe that I said such nice things. But it was because of Pastor Bernard reminded me about forgiveness. And it was because of my mother reminding me of all the things that were worthy of forgiveness and was worthy of being celebrated. And that's what propelled me to be able to give his eulogy the way that I did.

1:00:41Stephen A. Smith:I wanted to jump around to some kind of early impactful moments from your career. The first of which being, you know, before you ever entered media, you're on a full ride scholarship. Your knee blows up. Your mom's insurance is such that in order for you to be able to rehab it, you need to leave college to come back to New York. the conversation when you get back to college with Mr. Hinesman you remember what from that everything um I was gone for a semester like you said my mother's insurance wouldn't cover me it

1:01:22Graham Bensinger:was a division two school so they didn't you know you had to have your parents medical insurance insuring you to pay those medical bills because they weren't going to pay it and my mother's insurance wouldn't cover me, so I had to leave school. By this time, I had my college sweetheart in my life. Michelle. Yes, Michelle. I loved, you know, my basketball, my boys, Mark, Ski, Boris, and the whole crew. I just loved them. I loved being around them. And so I was heartbroken that I had to leave school. And I go back home. I rehab. I take summer courses as well because I wasn't going back to school until late August and in doing so I ultimately come back and I see Mr.

1:02:13Graham Bensinger:Heinsman I go looking for Mr. Heinsman and Mr. Heinsman was with somebody and I'm smiling I'm looking happy to see him in the whole bit he had this frown on his face and he always wore this perpetual smile I mean he was smiling all the time and I used to hate him for that I loved him but I hated him for that because he used to always give you bad news with a smile I was like what's what's the smile about it's bad news you're giving why are you smiling I used to tell him that all the time and on this particular day when I saw him for the first time in like eight months he was not smiling at all and I asked to shake his hand I'm standing my hand he wouldn't he wouldn't shake my hand and and it was right in front of a couple of other people, which was totally unlike him.

1:03:02Graham Bensinger:And he had to leave. I said, Mr. Hinesman, what's the matter? He says, I have nothing to say to you. And walked away from me. And it was really, it blew me away, and it was on a morning. And because of my dealings with him in the past, I knew that they had gotten off like 6 o 'clock or whatever. However, I showed up there at 4, 4.30, and I waited outside, and I would not leave until he came out. I knew what his car looked like. I waited right there for him. And he came outside, and he was like, what do you want? I said, what does it matter? Why are you treating me this way? He said, you really don't know what you've done.

1:03:43He said, you just leave.

1:03:46Graham Bensinger:You just leave. And you go away from school. so it wasn't supposed to be about basketball. It was supposed to be about everything else, and you just left? And I said I was heartbroken and everything. He said, I had an academic scholarship waiting for you. He said, I called, you didn't answer, and I had to end up giving the scholarship to somebody else. He said, I thought you told me you were about more than basketball. I thought you told me you were about more than just athletics. He said, all of this noise you gave me, But the second that you knew that basketball was being taken away from you, you gave up on life.

1:04:26Graham Bensinger:He said, you're a liar. You can't be trusted. And he said, I don't know how to feel about you. And I actually started crying in front of him. And I'm telling you right now, I can count the amount of times in my life I've cried. And I can count them on one hand. I don't cry much. But I actually started crying in front of him because it really, really hurt right here what he was saying. He was like, you let me down. You let the professors down. You let everybody who believed in you down. All because you had to leave, you thought you had to leave school. You didn't even come and probe and see what we could do for you.

1:05:06Graham Bensinger:Because it was all about basketball. You were talking all of this nonsense about you wanted to do this and you wanted to do that with your life. and you want to be more than basketball, you're a liar. That's how I'm looking at you. And I just, it's the closest that I ever came in my life to begging anybody for anything. And I begged him to forgive me and told him I would make it up to him. And he said to me, you want to make it up to me? Then do what the hell you said you was going to do and be about more than basketball. show me what you're going to do. And I'm like, you got it. And so, you know, again, in life you find these nuggets of inspiration, you know.

1:05:56Graham Bensinger:I can give you chapter and verse. I can tell you where we was at Winston-Salem State. I can take you right over to where this was over 30 years ago. And I can take you to the spot where we were standing, where he told me what he would tell me. I can tell you what time of day that conversation happened. I can tell you what day of the week that conversation took place on. There's things that just happened to you in life that just hit you in a certain way and it stays with you. And what stayed with me, it was like it wasn't even about the academic scholarship and the fact that I had left without checking and blew it.

1:06:34Graham Bensinger:It wasn't that. It was the fact that he said to me, you're a liar. You said that you were about more than that. You lied to me. You lied to Mr. Devon. You lied to Professor Little, Larry Little. You lied to Professor Brookshaw. You lied to Dr. Sadler. You lied to these people. I remember the names because he said them. Because he knew all my teachers because he was the head of the financial aid department. And that's who we got our scholarship through. So he said all of that. And it was just every name he said, it was like a stab to the heart. and I just, I was ashamed. I was ashamed because he didn't say a syllable that was wrong.

1:07:13Graham Bensinger:I did tell him those things and I did renege on it. I did lie to him. I didn't know I was lying, but when he said it, I had no pushback. I had no comeback. All I could do was plead with him to forgive me and to give me a chance to prove that I wasn't telling him. I didn't need financial aid from him. It wasn't anything. It was just he was somebody that had a lot of faith in me, and I let him down because of my words not matching my actions. And I had to make up for that.

1:07:48Stephen A. Smith:And make up you did. But I wonder, what did the column you wrote about Coach Gaines teach you? They say you should learn something new every day, like how you should only drink Jägermeister at zero degrees Fahrenheit, Ice cold. Like those frozen cavemen they find. Which makes you wonder, what would a caveman think of Jägermeister? Well, if you served it warm, he'd probably throw it in your face, say Oonga Boonga, and storm off. And nobody wants that. So drink it cold or not at all. Jägermeister. Damn, that's cold. Drink responsibly. Jägermeister liqueur. 35 % alcohol by volume. Imported by Masked Jägermeister.

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1:08:57Graham Bensinger:Every truth ain't meant to be told. How so? I was on a basketball team and I wrote a column about the coach needing to retire. But it wasn't about me not getting enough playing time or anything. It was about his health. Because he had some ailment. I don't know whether it was cerebral palsy or whatever. I don't know what it was. But he would wear a patch over his eye. And he was prone to catching mild strokes. and I was afraid he was going to die on the sidelines. And so me writing for the school newspaper, I went into his office and I said, what are you doing? You know, I love you. You've been like a father to me.

1:09:42Graham Bensinger:You're going to kill yourself. And I said, you know, you need to step away from this. And he was like, shut the up. I said, who the hell are you to tell me anything? I said, let me tell you something. if you don't you don't sit by and do nothing then i'm gonna write an article saying you need to retire like you go ahead and do your damn article give a right that's what he said to me that's how he would talk to us you know which is why you know in this pc world that we live in and it's like what world were y 'all living in i mean we got cussed out on the regular you know i mean what are you talking about you know so he was um he just let me he said just go ahead do what you're gonna do I said, I'm telling you, I'm going to do it now.

1:10:24Graham Bensinger:And he was like, go ahead. Kiss my ass. Get the hell out of my office. Whatever else he said. And I went and I wrote the article that he needs to retire. And so you had people that were absolutely positively appalled that I wrote it. You had a chancellor who won't admit that he tried to get me expelled. He was going to expel me. Really? He was going to expel me. Now, years later, they asked him about it. He said, I don't recall. Whatever. He was going to expel me. from Winston-Salem State, okay? And Coach Gaines stopped him. He said he wants to be a journalist. He came in here, he told me what he was going to do, and he told me why.

1:11:07Graham Bensinger:Leave him alone. And that was the only reason that I was able to stay at Winston-Salem and graduate. Because I didn't realize it was going to be that kind of reaction where they wanted me thrown out of school. But there was people that wanted me out of there. And Coach Gaines stopped them.

1:11:24Stephen A. Smith:And you had all sorts of other occurrences where over the years you have to decide whether or not to run a story. You know, I think Tracy McGrady would have been a member of the 76ers probably. Yeah. If not for you.

1:11:39Graham Bensinger:I don't care about that kind of stuff. That was my job. And I will tell you it was kind of personal because I didn't like Billy King at the time. And the irony is that he and I are great friends. now. I love him. But at the time, I thought he was an ass. He used to tick me off. And, you know, I had news and I told him, you know, I found out, you know, you, you, you about to trade for Tracy McGrady. You got to get Larry Hughes up out of here. And so Billy King, you know what? And I don't know whether he remembers it or not, but I tell him, I said, that's exactly how it happened, Billy. When I went to Billy and I said, yo, man, I said, I'm going to write this story.

1:12:15Graham Bensinger:He asked me, you know, I said, so you're going and write that story. And I said, not if you don't ask, not if you ask me nicely not to. So you got to ask me nicely. It was like, literally, it was a few good men to see when at the beginning of the movie with Jack, with Jack Nicholson saying to Tom Cruise, yeah, I get you. I'll get you the paperwork that you need, but you have to ask me nicely. That's what I did to Billy King at the time. You know, I did. That's exactly what I did because he was get on my damn nerves. And so that's what I did. And he wouldn't because he He didn't like me. So I wrote the article.

1:12:49Stephen A. Smith:AI asked you nicely not to report on something. Yes, he did.

1:12:53Graham Bensinger:I'll never tell what, but he did ask me. He blew up at Larry Brown. Well, he blew up at Larry Brown, but the things that he said was that I never have repeated it, and I never will. But I will tell you that he said some very, very incendiary things. And he was just upset and whatever. And the next day he asked me not to write it. And I said, you got it. And I didn't write it.

1:13:19Stephen A. Smith:You know, your career was obviously taken off. I mean, Philadelphia Inquirer, then ESPN. You have a big show there, even though that only lasted like a year and a half. Quite frankly, a year and a half, 100 and, what was it, 327 shows. And you had everybody on. But you're only getting more and more exposure on the network. And because of that, you know, your negotiations with the network, they offer you, I think, a little under$2 million a year for three years. You're looking at what some of your colleagues are getting, and you rightly think you can get more. Looking back on that period, would you have done anything differently?

1:14:04Graham Bensinger:I would say so. First of all, I would have taken a deal because it's been a hell of a lot better than taking nothing.

1:14:12Stephen A. Smith:Although probably not taking it ends up being the best thing to ever have.

1:14:16Graham Bensinger:Possibly, but it was a very, very tough time. You know, my pride got in the way. I wasn't nearly as business savvy then as I am now. And I think that if I had to say that I would do anything differently, I would have been far more knowledgeable at that time about the business. You see, because of my popularity, because of people screaming my name when I walked the streets or walked into an arena, I thought that defined popularity. I thought that equated to dollars. That combined with my work ethic and the fact that I was a tireless worker, et cetera, et cetera, I thought that was enough. But they had the data.

1:15:04Graham Bensinger:And so their attitude was, we're not going to give more than this. I didn't have access to the data they had access to. So as business people, they knew what they were offering, even though one could easily argue that I deserved more. They knew the likelihood of me being able to get more elsewhere wasn't an option for me. So they made me what they thought was a fair offer. I thought it shortchanged me. And I said no, thinking that there would be an ongoing negotiation, not that talks would be shut down and ultimately my exposure would be minimized before a year later being completely let go. And so because those things happened, I had to really, really look at myself, look in the mirror and recognize the fact that when you don't understand your own business, you don't deserve anything.

1:16:06Graham Bensinger:You should be happy with what you get because it's up to you to have an idea at least of what your value is, what your worth is. It's not for somebody else to tell you that information to their detriment. Their objective is to get the best talent they could possibly get for the cheapest price imaginable. It's your job to make sure that you illuminate and accentuate your value in their eyes that comes close to justifying what you're asking for and what you're hoping they'll give you. And I didn't do that. And I didn't see it that way. And as a result, I ruffled feathers because of the man in which I handled things.

1:16:47Graham Bensinger:And they ultimately said, we can do without him. And it almost destroyed my career.

1:16:52Stephen A. Smith:And this all happened only a short while after you become a father. You're let go. During kind of that period where you're jobless, what was your lowest point?

1:17:04Graham Bensinger:My lowest point was, you know, me being unemployed and just sitting there in the months to follow, having no income, living off my savings, believing that I would never be allowed back to ESPN. And that one and wondering, where am I going to go from here? You know, because my number one fear is not being able to provide for my family. That's my number one fear. I can give up everything that I have and live in an apartment right now. If all of my responsibilities are taken care of, I'm not married to affluence. I'm not married to luxuries and stuff like that. I don't live like that. My thing is to make sure that my responsibilities are fulfilled.

1:17:56Graham Bensinger:You want to be able to take, I got 15 nieces and nephews, okay, to nine of them. I'm daddy, okay? They've never had their dads in their life. I'm dad to nine of them. You know, I've got four older sisters who I love dearly. And I have two daughters that are my world. Nothing matters more than them. Nothing comes before them. They are before and after everything because they're mine, you know? And so because of that, my daughter's to be in a position where I'm wondering whether or not I can take care of them, that's a big, big, big time thing in the specter that's out there. Okay, they're babies.

1:18:35Graham Bensinger:At the time, this is hard. And I really, really put myself in a hole, never realizing it was going to be like this, but it was.

1:18:44Stephen A. Smith:Well, so I think that ties in pretty well with work ethic. If you would mind, just give some color to what your schedule used to entail when you were a young journalist coming up and then even just today.

1:18:56Graham Bensinger:I live, eat, and breathe my career to the point where folks constantly had to remind me it's what you do, it's not who you are. Because four or five hours sleep, like I'm getting up by seven at the latest. I'm going online, I'm reading what's on the news, what's percolating. I'm turning on talk radio. I'm turning on the television, seeing the highlights and stuff like that. The visual, you know, in-depth reading, listening, analyzing perspectives. Who's right? Who's wrong? Why is that the case based on what I want to say and how I feel about a particular subject? And then you're going out there, in my case, going to practice, covering the Philadelphia 76ers and stuff like that, and before them covering college sports and John Chaney at Temple and Ron Dickinson as the football coach at Temple and covering high school sports and whatever.

1:19:57It was like whatever it took to be successful, I was going to do it.

1:20:02Graham Bensinger:If I had to work 20 hours a day, I was going to do it. If I had to stay up until 3 in the morning and get up at 6, I was going to do it. If I had to write and do a radio show and potentially do a television show down the line, I was going to do it. No matter what it took, my attitude was I'm not the brightest candle on a birthday cake. I'm not the smartest dude in the world. My signature is going to be working hard because that's what my mother did, and that's what I know works. When you get on your grind and you put in that hard work, good things happen. I don't take a lot of time off. Yeah, you think you work 330 days a year, something like that?

1:20:40Graham Bensinger:On average, 325 to 330 a year. I think the only time that I ever took more time off where I worked less, 320 days or less, was the year my mother died. And that was because she was battling cancer. And that year I worked 320. So I don't take too much time off.

1:21:00Stephen A. Smith:Is any of that connected to like FOMO? In terms of? Like, you know, I hear you talking about how, you know, if you don't do it, you know, somebody else is going to who's coming for your job.

1:21:14Graham Bensinger:I mean, it could be that, but I'm my mother's child. And my mother was a hard worker. My mother worked 16 hours a day, not six days a week, seven days a week. 16 hours a day, one week's vacation for 20 years.

1:21:30Stephen A. Smith:I want to read to you what a couple people close to you told me. First being your sister.

1:21:36Graham Bensinger:Yeah.

1:21:37Stephen A. Smith:About your work ethic. Here's what she said. Ridiculous. Get a life. Stop working so hard. Your close friend Cardell said he's said this to you before. You don't look well. How much do you need? Why do you need to work like this? What are you avoiding? He has. He's right. He's telling the truth. He said that.

1:22:02Graham Bensinger:Okay. Your thoughts on kind of all of that. Well, first of all, I always appreciate it because it comes from love. Yeah. They wouldn't say that if they didn't love me. And I know that. So I appreciate that. Cardell did say to me, I didn't look well because most times he saw me, I was sleepy. Because I would push myself and push myself. I'm not the kind of guy that okay it's 11 o 'clock it's time to get to bed and get some rest and whatever I'm the kind of person that push myself until I drop like I gotta lay in bed cause I'm that tired cause if I'm not that tired there's always something else to do you know my attitude is it's just like when I was covering the beat all the reporters would be over here I'd be over there why am I going to get what everybody else is getting how am I going to stand out if I'm doing that I'm going to stand out because I'm over here I'm getting this information while you getting that information and I got it to a point where people were following me wondering where's he going now what's he doing because of the stories that I would break in my career as a writer for the New York Daily News and then ultimately as a writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer that's just what I did I was of that mindset that's that's how I thought about it that's that was my attitude and I still have that attitude to this very day.

1:23:23Stephen A. Smith:But don't you ever wonder if, like, someday you're going to, you know, lift your head up from this grind and, like, decades will have passed and you realize, oh, man, I missed out on experiences with family that I otherwise would have had the opportunity to enjoy? No.

1:23:44Graham Bensinger:And the reason why I don't feel that way is because I already go through that. but I know why I go through it. You know, my daughter Samantha had, she had a play and she wanted me to be there. I've been to several of her plays, but this one I did not go to because I had to work during the NBA playoffs. And she was very, very upset that I didn't make it. And I sat her down and I said to her, I understand. I said, I don't want you to get used to disappointment, but I want you to experience it time to time. Nobody gets everything. Sacrifices come with life. And I said, the same Samantha that wanted me to be at that play is the same Samantha that wants to go to Disney World next month.

1:24:39Graham Bensinger:It's the same Samantha that wants to go to LA. It's the same Samantha that wants to go to Hawaii for vacation. It's the same Samantha that wants Daddy to get this, this, this, this, and that. And then I bring a sister over, and I said, you're the same Nyla that want this. And I go through a laundry list of things that Nyla wanted as well because they both complained about me missing out on certain things. And I said, I've been at a lot of things, just not everything because Daddy has to work. and daddy's work is what enables you to have everything you need and most of what you want. I said, you want me to feel guilty?

1:25:22Graham Bensinger:Let me deprive you of what you need. You have everything you need. I'm not worried about you not getting everything you want because that's not how the real world works. And there are times, it's rare, But there are going to be times when I don't give you what you wanted, but it's because I was making sure you had what you need. And that's what I love about my career. Because my daughters know everywhere I'm at, I don't go anywhere they don't know about. Any city I'm in, they know about it. They know where I'm at. They know how long I'm there. They know when they expect me back. And they know what I'm doing.

1:26:06Graham Bensinger:and I always tell them what I'm doing. That way they could turn on the TV and they say, my daddy's right there. And that's the beauty. If I was doing something else, then it would be different because you can't see me and all you have is my word. And sometimes that's not good enough for a child. And so if you're a lawyer, you're an accountant, or you're something that's removed from the public eye where they don't feel like they can reach out and touch you because they can't see you and they can't hear your voice and they don't know what you're doing. Now you got problems. But when you can't do something because they flick on that TV and they see daddy working, it's Christmas Day and I'm in studio in L.A.

1:26:48Graham Bensinger:I had to do that the last four or five Christmases. I'm right in studio in L.A. and they're like, he's not here. Boom. You know what I'm saying? So my thing is, you want to come? We're going to stay here. Oh, so now you want me to go work. Go work, Daddy. So they went from being upset to saying, Daddy, I see you tomorrow.

1:27:09Stephen A. Smith:I want to ask you about your daughters. But do you envision a day short term where you see taking your foot off the gas?

1:27:19Graham Bensinger:I have taken my foot off the gas on several occasions.

1:27:22Stephen A. Smith:OK.

1:27:22Graham Bensinger:Oh, I've done that. They've made me, you know, because, you know, they're little girls. So what do they do? But it's like when you have daughters.

1:27:32Stephen A. Smith:Wait, but hold on. I saw your operation yesterday, and we've talked about your ambition. I mean, you're going a million miles an hour.

1:27:40Graham Bensinger:But again, they're down the block.

1:27:42Stephen A. Smith:Yeah.

1:27:42Graham Bensinger:So it's like I'm seeing you every day. I'm spending time with you. I'm with you. It's just that I'm doing these other things too.

1:27:48Stephen A. Smith:Yeah.

1:27:49Graham Bensinger:But, you know, my daughters will be like, no, you're not. No, you're going to be right here tonight. I mean, every now and then they pull a rank. Oh, no, you're not doing that. You know, they'll sit up there. My assistant will say, you know, or my security will say, we got to do this. We got to do this. My daughter's looking at him. No, he's not. He's not going nowhere. Side time.

1:28:06Stephen A. Smith:And your assistant, Sumatra, and your security, Juby. Yes, right. Both have been with you like 21 years. Yes. It's like the three of you guys. They're family.

1:28:16Graham Bensinger:They're family to me.

1:28:17Stephen A. Smith:And even when you got laid off and didn't really have money to pay them, they both still stayed kind of part of it. Yes, they did.

1:28:26Graham Bensinger:And that's why they're family. Why do you say you wish you would have had kids earlier? I would have been younger. I wouldn't have been so tired from following them around and running around and stuff like that. Do you know that this is about three, four years ago? Do you know what my daughters did to me? We want to go to Disney World for three days in 100 degree weather. and for seven hours each day because we had one of those tour guides I had to be with them in the park putting on a hat praying people don't see me so nobody bothers me because they get major attitude when people take my time away from them and they had me in there I am a black man You might have thought I was purple after they got, I mean, I was roasting out there in 100 degree weather.

1:29:24Graham Bensinger:And they kept me out of there and you would think, I mean, it's like 26, 28 different rides on like four parks combined at Disney World. They made me get on every ride. And I mean every ride. Every single ride, the roller coaster, the waterfall, I mean everything. thing. They made me get on every ride and they milked those 21 hours with me outside to the second, not minute, not hour, the second. We were out there for the full 21 hours. They gave me no breaks and that's just the way it was. So they pull rank now and they do that all the time.

1:30:06Stephen A. Smith:Would you ever have more kids? No, never.

1:30:09Graham Bensinger:It's over.

1:30:10Stephen A. Smith:I watched that interview you did with ABC recently. And you said your biggest regret is having not gotten married. Yeah.

1:30:19Graham Bensinger:Why? Because I had children out of wedlock and it was the only thing that my mother was ever ashamed of me about. She was very, very ashamed of me because my mother was a religious woman. she loved the Lord and she didn't play that and she knew it was going to be a tremendous load on my shoulders a tremendous responsibility and she was like you've made smart decisions all your life how could you slip up and do this and mom I just did there's no way around it and you know when you are a dad but you're not married and you're not with the mom it's challenging because you're not the priority that you want to be when it comes to influencing your children's lives you have to work overtime to do that because even though I've been blessed and very very fortunate to have two women that are wonderful mothers to my daughters, the fact remains that by not being with them, it put me and my children in a very, very difficult position because you're not there constantly having the impact that you want to have.

1:31:50Graham Bensinger:And so my mother knew that would be the case. And she didn't raise us that way. She's like, what the hell? And she was furious with me because she knew that I let things that happened at the job and let my mindset and everything distract me from being extra careful, and I took my eye off the ball in that regard. And she said, well, you're going to make up for it. First of all, you are not going to be your dad, and what you're going to do is you're going to be the best dad that you can possibly be. And she said, this is not a request. and when she said that, I made a promise to her that that's exactly what I would be and that's been my number one responsibility ever since.

1:32:35Graham Bensinger:But where it gets a bit difficult is as a man, that responsibility element comes in. Either the household, being a provider, being a protector, those kind of things. so now what happens is is that yeah I'm doing what she asked me to do but I'm doing it from the male perspective instead of from the female perspective you know females you can work you can you can provide a living you can contribute to the household but you're the nurturer you're you're the matriarch as a man it's like wait a minute you got to keep it 100 you can't always you know be there for everything when you out there trying to provide to make sure that your children can have the best life possible.

1:33:21Graham Bensinger:And so because of that, I had to, you know, I would talk to her about these things. And she was like, but you're working hard and you're doing what you're supposed to do to provide for them. She said, and you're in your life, you're with them constantly. She says, okay, so you're not a woman, you're a man and you have a different responsibility, but it's still going to be a challenge. And she felt no sympathy. She was like, You put yourself in this position, you be the best father you possibly can be. If you've got to work overtime to do it, then you've got to work overtime to do it because that's what you did.

1:33:55Stephen A. Smith:You said you were engaged once, but you screwed it up or something. What went wrong?

1:34:02Graham Bensinger:I wasn't happy. I wasn't cheating or anything like that. I was not happy. And because I wasn't happy, I ended it. You know, I recognize it was my fault because a lot of it had to do with my work, my schedule, my mindset. I wasn't the kind of guy that just want to sit at home and come home and, you know, be with a wife and kids and lay down and rely. I wasn't that guy. I want to be out there. I want to be working. I want to be on the grind. I want to be successful. I want to be succeeding, taking on new challenges and pushing myself to the limit and finding out what I was made of.

1:34:35Stephen A. Smith:And but there was a period of time, too, where monogamy just was not.

1:34:39Graham Bensinger:for you. Oh, well, that was because I was on the road. That was all. I mean, I don't have a, I'm not one that has to have multiple women in my life and all of that other stuff, but I am somebody that needs to be around you. Like, if I'm not around you, I'm not the kind of person that you need to leave alone and think that, oh yeah, I'm in a relationship, so I'm going to be monogamous. Not then. I can do that now because I'm in my 50s. I've been to the circus. But when you're in your 20s and 30s, you ain't thinking like that. You're like, oh, no. I'm on the road 200 days out of the year. I'm not trying to be in a monogamous relationship.

1:35:15Graham Bensinger:I'm meeting women wherever I go. But you get to a point in life, you grow up, and, you know, that stuff is old news. You're just looking at it. It's like, I've been there, done that. This ain't nothing but trouble. Let me chill out. You know, that kind of stuff. But I had to go through that to get to that point. If I didn't go through that, then I'd still be feeling like I missed out. You think you eventually get married? Yeah, I will. I think so. Why? Because I don't like being alone. I like having people in my space. I love family. You know, it's not about everything ain't about sex. Sex is important.

1:35:56Graham Bensinger:Don't get me wrong. In any fruitful relationship, to be quite honest with you. But you know what? So is family. So are the Sunday barbecues. So are the cookouts. So are the walks in the park on the beach. There's a lot of things that are intimate that is important to have in your life. And the older you get, the more you appreciate that. Because the stuff that you used to want to do no longer suffices. Like, I'm so grateful that I'm not one of those guys that, you know what, I want to be the old dude at the club. I love the fact that I've never been that guy. I didn't want to be the young dude at the club.

1:36:36Graham Bensinger:I mean, you go to clubs, you go to parties and stuff like that every now and then, but I've never one that salivated towards that stuff or for that stuff. I've never been that guy. To me, nothing pleases me more. You go to a jazz club or a comedy club or you just go out to dinner, to a lounge, to socialize and talk and stuff like that. There's nothing better than that to me. That is peaceful. That is cool. and the fact that I'm older and I know that I wasn't that party animal when I was younger is so much easier for me not to be that party animal. Now, I come home and there are times I won't leave my house for days.

1:37:16Graham Bensinger:I'm fine. I'm happy about that. And that to me is a very, very big deal because if you clamored for other stuff, you'd get yourself in trouble.

1:37:25Stephen A. Smith:And I know you've had a special somebody in your life for a number of years now, But it's funny, I was talking to Cardell, and he goes, you mentioned Marshall earlier. He's like, you know, outside of Marshall, it's really the only person in our group who has had a marriage that has been a huge success.

1:37:47Graham Bensinger:Marshall was with his wife, Cece, from the time they were in high school. And he's never thought about departing.

1:37:57Stephen A. Smith:And so Cardell said he thinks because of that, there's just a level of fear connected to the idea of marriage.

1:38:08Graham Bensinger:Fear, well, we all grew up around divorcees. We've seen relationships crumble before our very eyes. We've seen people that were married in name only. We've seen it all. And you do fear that that level of stress will enter your life. And you're like, I've seen people lose it because they felt trapped. It wasn't because they were, quote unquote, married and that was it. It was because there was no way out without paying a huge price. And you do find yourself saying, why pay that price? You see the divorce rate. You see the friction. You see people getting sued. You see people smiling and committing their lives to one another forever and ever, you know, till death do us part.

1:38:57Graham Bensinger:And two years later, they're giving each other the finger and saying, I hate you. You know, you've seen all of these things. People like him, people like me and others, we've seen this. Like he said, Marshall's the only one. He doesn't know my boy Jeff that I went to high school with because we all went to different high schools. But my boy Jeff that I went to high school with, he and I are still friends to this very day. Jeff has been happily married for 33 years. ecstatic. He's in his pajamas at 630. He's living. I mean, you don't have to say he says stress is bad for the poor. You should see the stuff that he says.

1:39:28Graham Bensinger:It's crazy. He'll go to get his his his daughter a new vehicle and stuff, and they're trying to sell him something. He's like, uh, my wife wrote this check and told me to do this, this and this. And that's all I know. Like he doesn't care. He leaves everything to her. It's like, cool. People like me, Cardell and others who grew up and had to handle an inordinate amount of responsibility on our own from the time that we were teenagers and stuff like that. We don't know how to relinquish that level of control. We don't know how to concede. You're the one. You have my life. My life is over as I knew it.

1:40:08Graham Bensinger:Here it is. Let's move forward together. We don't know how to just do that. We know how to love. We know how to care. We know how to be the best people that we can possibly be. We know how to honor commitments and stuff like that. But in the same breath, just relinquishing ourselves to somebody else to that degree is a bit trickier. And the more folks push, the more we repel. Like if, you know, I've had situations in the past where it was like somebody wants to be all up under you. Yeah, it's nice. I appreciate the fact that you care and stuff like that, but you do get to a point where it's like, damn it, I want to go to a game.

1:40:47Graham Bensinger:I want to go watch television. I want to do this by myself. I want to be at peace, being okay. You know, you do want to do that. You don't want to feel that level of suffocation. You don't want to feel, you know, you're obligated, but you don't want to feel an obligation.

1:41:00Stephen A. Smith:Well, not to mention you're in your late fifties versus is your late 20s and you're understandably set in your ways as anybody would at that same time.

1:41:11Graham Bensinger:I have a wonderful life, but I think the most wonderful part about my life, you know, with all due respect to everything that I have going on in my life personally and professionally, is the fact that I can be alone. And I don't mean without a relationship. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about I can sit in my house or my apartment alone by myself for days upon days at a time. And I don't feel like I'm missing anything because it's like, I got to get up and do something. No, I'm quite comfortable with the life that I've built for myself.

1:41:51Stephen A. Smith:Speaking of being alone in your place for days at a time, less scary now that you're healthier. Yes. Although I will say yesterday with having been in your office that there was still a lot of candy.

1:42:04Graham Bensinger:Yeah, but you see the candy is still there because I don't eat it. I don't eat a lot of it. There's a lot of stuff that I stay away from, but just in case I want it is there. What? But most people walk into my office to take the candy, just so you know.

1:42:17Stephen A. Smith:What was the diet and exercise like when you were at your worst? And what about now? I was a cereal fanatic.

1:42:25Graham Bensinger:I would eat at least four to five bowls of cereal a day. Really? It would be crunch berries, honeycombs, Fruit Loops, Rice Krispies. Yeah, I'm serious. This was only in the past several years, didn't it? It was like, it doesn't matter. It could, you know, fried chicken, lasagna, turkey wings, very, very little vegetable intake. And I would just work and push myself through. And of course, burgers, big, big, big burger eater, cheeseburgers, you know, that kind of thing. So that was what it was like with minimal exercise. Now I'm in the gym minimum five days a week, most of the time six. I do cardio at least four or five days a week.

1:43:14Graham Bensinger:I'm lifting at least five days a week. My vitamins, my supplements, I've cut out about 85 % of my sugar intake. I eat vegetables every day. My water intake has improved drastically, still needs to improve, but it's still a lot better than it used to. You know, I'll drink water or coconut water like I have now, as opposed to sodas, you know, and stuff like that. So I would do all of those things. And, you know, before I hated the gym, now I hate to miss the gym. Before I never wanted to look in the mirror. Now I don't mind looking in the mirror. You know, my stomach is down. You know, I'm slim.

1:43:54Graham Bensinger:I'm defined. I know I'm in shape. I saw when you posted a picture of yourself with your shirt off. It was like, damn, like you're in shape. I'm in shape now, but I still got improvements to do. I'm still trying to put on. Now, I just had dental surgery, so I'm trying to put on about 10 pounds. I want to ask you about money.

1:44:12Stephen A. Smith:I'm sure you aren't going to get into actual numbers. I'm just going to say what was reported. You've last had, I think it was a five-year,$60 million deal with ESPN, reportedly. It was reported that you signed for five years,$105 million in 2025. How did whatever you ended up getting compare to what you were looking for? We all have that dream trip. we've been wishing we could go on. But too often, life, or usually price, gets in the way. That's why Priceline is here to help you turn your dream trip into reality. With up to 60 % off hotels and up to 50 % off flights, you can book everything you need for your next adventure.

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1:45:12Graham Bensinger:Questions like, can I claim my SUV is my home office if I answer work emails in my car?

1:45:18Stephen A. Smith:If I adopted 12 dogs this year, can I list them as dependents? And, am I doing this right or am I doing this very, very wrong? Our experts have the answers to those questions and many others. Tax Act. Let's get them over with.

1:45:37Graham Bensinger:I wasn't looking for that. I didn't know that would happen until a year ago. Really? A year ago, I hired a team looking at my numbers, measuring my worth, what the market said, etc., etc. And they came to me and they said, you're worth this. And I looked at the numbers and I looked at what ESPN had given others. I looked at what SiriusXM had given others. And it gave me an idea of what I was worth. That's why when you mention a guy like Pat McAfee, you know, he says that he has a lot of critics and a lot of people rooting against him and stuff like that. I can assure you, I'm not one of them. because I tell people all the time, the day he arrived at ESPN is the day that my smile hadn't left my face.

1:46:39Graham Bensinger:Really? Because when he arrived, I knew. I said, okay, that's what they're doling out. Because up until then, that wasn't the case. And so, yeah, granted, he's not employed by them. He owns his own stuff. He works for him. you're leasing his content as Jimmy Pitara the president of ESPN said at the time it was turn key you put you you know you buy his product turn the key boom here he is with his content to put out there more power to him but I was incredibly incredibly appreciative of him and what he and his show brought to the table because you always need somebody to illuminate the market for you to open it up and show you, hey, this is what it is.

1:47:27Graham Bensinger:There's very, very few people that get to that place on their own. Somebody has to show them the way. Props to him. He did it on his own, self-made, the whole bit. But because of that, it's almost like, put it to you this way. If you remember the movie Die Hard, I think it was Die Hard 2, when it was the airport stuff, somebody, the villains that got in control of the airport and stuff like that. and all the planes kept circling and nobody could land. And then at the end of the movie, you know, when Bruce Willis, you know, killed John Amos by kicking him into, or he ended up sliding into the engine or whatever.

1:48:09Graham Bensinger:And then ultimately, you know what, oil had spilled out of the plane and stuff like that, or fuel rather, and he just lit his match and lit it up. And then it blew up the plane when it got into the sky. You saw the pilot say, there it is. There's a light right there, right there. And sure enough, because the plane had blown up, it lit up a runway for the other planes to be able to land. That was Pat McAfee for me because I saw, OK, this is what I was looking for. All right. You're saying this is this, but here's where he is. So he's coming on at 12 noon. Well, I'm coming on at 10. Different time slot calls for different dollars, different ratings, all of this other stuff.

1:48:51Graham Bensinger:So he illuminated that for me, which is why I was always appreciative of his arrival at ESPN. It's the best thing that happened to me.

1:49:00Stephen A. Smith:OK, it's funny you mention that, though, and it's clear you love him for that reason. I have heard that you guys might not care for each other too much. No, that's not true.

1:49:08Graham Bensinger:That's not true. Not even a little bit? No, no, no. Or was there a time? No, no. We had a difference of opinion about something. He thought that I did something that I didn't do. Somebody else had done it. So once that stuff was clarified, we were absolutely fine and we've been fine. Got it. We've been fine.

1:49:27Stephen A. Smith:Okay, so again, reported between the ESPN deal and the SiriusXM deal and then what you've got going on with the other stuff, your own pushing upwards of 40 a year. That's not true, but I understand. It's clear from being around you yesterday, there's still some level of money motivation. Like, do you have financial goals?

1:49:54Graham Bensinger:Of course I do. I want to be wealthy. I don't want to be rich, you know.

1:49:59Stephen A. Smith:You're both now. I don't believe that.

1:50:01Graham Bensinger:I don't believe that. First of all, I don't have the money. I have to earn the money. I have to work for it. When ESPN signed me to five years, they didn't pay me up front. I still got to show up and earn it, you know. So, I mean, the money's coming. It's guaranteed barring a morals clause violation, which is not going to happen. So because of that, I'm fine, you know, but I still got to go out there and earn it, you know. So my attitude is I don't have it. I have it coming, but I don't have it yet. That's number one. Number two, a lot of it from both parties is as a 1099 because I own my business.

1:50:38Graham Bensinger:Well, you've seen my shop and you see I have employees who's paying them. That would be me. So all that money is not mine. I have the ability to start a business, which I've done, and to elevate that business with the quality of content I put forth. And hopefully I'll be able to generate in an order and in a matter of revenue along those lines. But you've got I mean, I have you know, I don't have cameras and sitting at home on my couch. I have a studio. I have a television studio. I can do a television show from my studio tomorrow. I have an engineer in charge and a technical director and a director and a producer and an associate producer and an editor and PAs and all of this.

1:51:18Graham Bensinger:I have that. You know, I have independent contractors. I have freelancers and I have employees.

1:51:24Stephen A. Smith:You seem very conscious of the fact that, like, over these next few years, there could be the opportunity for you to knock it out of the park.

1:51:33Graham Bensinger:That's the goal. That's the goal. See, to me, I haven't done that yet. You know, I've done that with ESPN, granted. But I haven't done that with Straight Shooter Media. I haven't done that with Sirius XM. I'm knocking it out the park, so they tell me. But sustainability matters. Consistency matters. You know, I want to be number one. I want to be the best. You know, I want, when you think Sirius XM, you think Howard Stern.

1:51:59Stephen A. Smith:And you look at what Howard has pulled in or Reese Witherspoon with her production company. That's kind of where your mind starts to go. That's where it is.

1:52:07Graham Bensinger:That's where it's at. But I also want to be a talent, not just a sports broadcaster, but I want to engage in pop culture and entertainment in terms of content along with that regard. My production company producing scripted and unscripted content. I've already been greenlit for two pilot series, Amazon and ABC, respectively. I've got stuff like that coming down the pike. And, you know, for me personally, I think about the Joe Rogans of the world, the godfather of podcasting. I want to be on that level. I'm going to start taking acting lessons. I've been acting on General Hospital with a recurring role, but I'm going to take it a bit more seriously because I enjoy it.

1:52:47Graham Bensinger:So I want to see where that could take me. So it's an endless, endless list of things that I want to do, but not at the expense of things that I'm doing. I'm very mindful of where it started, what got me to the place that I'm in thus far. and my intent is to never let down the people who have faith in me. And, you know, some people look at ESPN, I say Disney, because let me tell you something, I don't get that contract if it's not for Bob Iger. You don't think so? Oh, no. If Bob Iger says no, it ain't happening. You see, he's the CEO of Walt Disney. It ain't happening without him. That's not happening.

1:53:25Graham Bensinger:Dana Walden, it's not happening. Jimmy Pataro, it's not happening. So, I mean, don't get me wrong, I have a very good relationship with Burke Magnus, who's the president of content for ESPN. I'm very fond of him. My relationship has grown since he's taken over, and he's been very good to me. Dave Roberts and I have a longstanding relationship with one another as the executive VP, and I consider him the ultimate winner because nobody is more fixated on winning than him. But when you think about Jimmy Pitara, when you think about Dana Walden, when you think about Bob Iger, in terms of the quality of life that I have, that I can afford for myself now, it does not happen without them.

1:54:05Graham Bensinger:And it doesn't happen for me personally. I'd be remiss in neglecting Mark Shapiro for William Morris Endeavor. John Rosen is my agent. He negotiates my deal. He's outstanding. But my brother is Mark Shapiro. That's my guy. You know, we go back a long, long ways. Quite frankly. hired me hired me in 2003 on the spot after I did an audition um a lot of resistance in the room I got I got in the car I got in the car I finished the audition at 245 I got in the car at three o 'clock and at 330 my agent at the time Steve Mountain told me you have a new three-year deal with ESPN it was a half hour that's how it happened um Mark Shapiro has believed in me from day one he has never ever ever deserted me and he has always had my back and we are more than just you know an agent and client an agency and client relationship we're like brothers to each other and you know I know my lane I know who he is he's I'm not Mark Shapiro you know and just like oh it's an on-air talent he's not me but where our worlds collide with him being in his lane and me being in my lane where our worlds collide um there's nobody else that I would have rather have in my corner

1:55:24Stephen A. Smith:than him I love him I want to ask you about your favorite topic uh LeBron okay uh and uh jokingly say that but I did you know you were glowingly talking about him today as you have you know so many other occasions I was talking to your nephew Josh okay the other day and oh he says to me It's bulls**t that Steve doesn't like him. He's like, it's all for TV.

1:55:49Graham Bensinger:No, that's not true. We don't like each other, and the world needs to know that, but I don't talk about it anymore because... Just because I don't know how to... All I can do is put it to you this way, and I'll even say that I hope he's watching when I say this.

1:56:13media athlete that's all in water sometimes and i got that part um did i think he crossed the line

1:56:21Graham Bensinger:with the incident involving his son where he was telling me not to say anything of course i think because i don't think i did what he said that i was doing and i thought that was a very very unfair and it was a low blow. Having said that, Tom heals everything. And as I see his career dwindling to some degree, meaning that he's not 31 anymore, he's 41, and Father Tom is undefeated, and all of this other stuff. And it's important that everyone knows. I know how great he is. I know how great he has been for the game of basketball. And anybody who has been that great, people like me have benefited.

1:57:06Graham Bensinger:Because he gives us something to talk about. And he's provided a level of entertainment that has made an exponential amount of lives better. just because he and I have a difference does not mean he's not a good man. It doesn't mean he doesn't love his family. It doesn't mean he doesn't love his team. It doesn't mean he doesn't love the NBA. It doesn't mean he doesn't love his friends. And I've made a concerted effort to make sure that when I speak about him, as the years are coming to an end, I'm not going to be known as this guy that, oh, I don't like him. I don't like what's happened between he and I.

1:57:56Graham Bensinger:But I will not diminish him in any way. He is one of the greatest, top two, top three, greatest players we have ever seen in our lifetimes. And what he has done for the game, what he has done as a role model for countless African-American men in this country and beyond cannot be measured. And I will not be somebody that focuses on our apparent dislike for one another. I instead choose to focus on what he's meant for the game and all of us who have benefited in part because of him. I owe him the same thing I owe Kobe. I owe him the same thing I owe Michael Jordan. I owe him the same thing I owe Kareem and Isaiah Thomas and so many of these guys that uplifted the game of basketball because that guy went out there, him and Steph Curry, stand above the crowd.

1:58:58Graham Bensinger:What they've meant, and I'm going to throw Kevin Durant in there too because he's a sensational guy. He's criticized me. I could care less. He just gets sensitive about something from time to time. I love Kevin Durant. He's a great dude and he's a great player, and we should appreciate him more than we actually do. Steph Curry is another guy, the babyface assassin, what he's meant to the game of basketball. We've benefited from that. We've benefited from that. And I think that if I can sit up there and say I owe them, well, how do I not owe LeBron? I owe him too. And so I choose to focus on that.

1:59:35Graham Bensinger:It's unfortunate that we are the way that we are, but he has nothing to worry about when it comes to me. If he does great, I'm going to be the first one to stand up and say he's done great. If he makes a mistake, I've got to do my job. But when his epitaph is written on his basketball career, the only negative thing you'll hear me say about him is that he ain't the GOAT. That's Michael Jordan. But anything else, Michael Jordan is my GOAT. That's not a negative towards him. that's me viewing Michael Jordan as the greatest I've ever seen with my two eyes, but nothing else.

2:00:10Stephen A. Smith:The only, literally the only question I had in terms of prior comments you'd made about LeBron, it seemed like you implied that he tried to hurt your career. Did something happen there?

2:00:24Graham Bensinger:I can't talk about it, but that's exactly what I said. Okay. And I've never talked about it, and I won't, other than to say I know that to be true. and that is, that is, um, that's unfortunate. And outside of that, it was validated when he went on Pat McAfee's show, because you went on the show that comes on after me to talk about me and to disrespect me, you know, tidy whites on, and he did this and that and all of this other stuff. And like, Oh really? So that's what we doing. So, you know, that was validation, but I've known about several things in the past, but I'm beyond all of that. Like I said, I've moved past it.

2:01:05Stephen A. Smith:What was involved for you in getting to a place where you could get over, you know, best player in the game, kind of coming after your career?

2:01:16Graham Bensinger:Well, I would tell you there's people that helped. Charles Barkley got on me. Kenny Smith is like a brother to me, got on me. You know, Shaq. And then guys internally, Ryan Clark, Swagoo, Marcus Spears. I love those brothers. They're my brothers. And they weren't the only ones. People that had your back. Yes. But here's the other thing. My daughters love LeBron. And I had to look at them and say, yeah, he is. He is phenomenal. They ain't lying. He's one of the greatest ever. And so, you know, again, you can have differences with people. But if you're a grown up, if you're a man, you're able to compartmentalize and say, we might have a disagreement.

2:02:06Graham Bensinger:We might have a beef. But that doesn't mean you should. It doesn't mean you should look at him in a negative kind of way. I might have affected him in ways that other people haven't. And that might have provoked him to do whatever. You know, I don't know. But at the end of the day, I just know that I'm 58 years old. And I'm not interested in walking around bitter and with a grudge and with all of this other nonsense, especially for somebody who has done so much for our community, has done so much for the sport, has done so much for the game. and just think about it. Always talking to the media.

2:02:46Graham Bensinger:Always answering questions. Always showing up when he's the marquee and answering the call. Time and time and time again, he's done this throughout an illustrious 23-year career. I know what kind of man my mother raised me to be. And for me to try to sully that, what he has done for so many people, to me that's not how I was raised and I'm just not going to do that I'm not going to do that I know that our differences are our differences and for whatever reason they'll probably stay that way but I know that I will never root against him and that I will never be one that contributes to the any lack of appreciation that somebody tries to show him.

2:03:38Graham Bensinger:We have a lot to thank LeBron James about. And I'm going to make sure that I'm somebody that does what I always do, call it like I see it. And in the end, his career can end today. He is one of the top, in my mind too, in other people's mind, top three, top five players that has ever blessed the planet Earth. And that is how I will talk about him. When he is long gone from the game, I will still talk about him that way. It will not be in any other way than something that appreciates his overall greatness.

2:04:14Stephen A. Smith:To what extent have you been discriminated against professionally over the years?

2:04:21Graham Bensinger:Racism is always a part of the equation. When you're black, you're going to encounter racism. That's just a given. Just because I don't talk about it much doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. It means that I was raised by a mom that made it very, very clear to me, you don't have the license to use that as an excuse. Figure out a way to work around it and move forward. You don't have to ignore or act like it doesn't exist, but it's an obstacle that you have to overcome. As I've traveled the country, as I've traveled the world, I have found out people of different ethnic groups, white, Hispanic, whatever, However, I have found that most people are judging you by the content of your character and by your deeds and actions, not by race.

2:05:07And that's a very, very fortunate reality and epiphany to hit me.

2:05:14Graham Bensinger:Because growing up in the streets of New York, not exposed to people of different ethnicities, you don't believe that most of the time. You believe that this is what is and always will be, et cetera, et cetera. And I think that when I got let go in 2009 and I had that infamous or whatever word you want to call that moment with my mama, you know, when she brought me breakfast and left her, you know, the handheld mirror and she ultimately jumped in my ass big time. You know, that was a big, big deal because my mother, her mother, my grandmother was white. name was Carmen Brady and no one ever loved me more I mean she was right there with my mama my mother was tough love grandma no love me Stevie you know what I'm saying she took care of me and she taught me more about racism than my mother because my mother didn't want to talk about it but my white grandmother would say here's what she said yes a lot of us are racist you're absolutely right here's what it looked like and she'd tell me, you know, and sure enough, I'd go out there and, you know, because she was white, I wasn't believing her because I'm like her interpretation of what racism is.

2:06:32Graham Bensinger:I'm not sure that would vibe or what black people would say, but she's my grandma and I love her. And then I go out in the real world. I'm like, yeah. And black folks saying the same thing and you're experiencing these things, et cetera, et cetera. And so I'd look at it and I'd say, okay, what am I going to do with that? Because I plan on being in an elevated position where you're hear my voice. You're going to see me and I'm going to have an impact. How am I going to handle racial issues? And my mother just said it plain one day, just be fair and call it out when you see it. And when you see other people calling it out and it's not the case in your mind, say so.

2:07:11Graham Bensinger:She said, because what you don't want to do is, is, is blow into the wind and make the same arguments all the time and it has no impact. She said, everything can't be race. Sometimes it's people that don't like you. Sometimes they don't like how you act. Sometimes they don't like your attitude. They don't like your actions. And you have to be able to decipher the difference and then speak your truth in that way. And so as I did that, all of a sudden my world opened up even more because I didn't just have black friends. Now it's white friends. Now it's Hispanic friends. You know, everybody's, you know, talking because why?

2:07:49Graham Bensinger:You're willing to say you can talk about it. I can't tell you how many times white folks have walked up to me. Can I ask you a question? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Is this racist? If I thought that, is that racist? Oh, wait a minute. Even if it is, I'm not mad because you asked. So because you asked, that tells me that you want to know and you want to know. So it's a problem you can alleviate. And if you're willing to alleviate that kind of problem, then that contributes to making the world a better place. How can you pull that off if I'm going to automatically assume this is who you are, this is how you feel, you don't give two shits about me or how I feel, and that's that.

2:08:28Graham Bensinger:We'll never get anywhere. But when you're willing to listen, the floodgates of dialogue and communication open up in such a way that you have a chance at making your specific environment a better place. Ultimately, the community a better place. Ultimately, this world a better place. And so my mother, my grandmother and others instilled that in me, which gave me the open mindedness to be able to say, I'm going to say this because this is how I feel based on these facts. And a lot of times when I see racism, I'll call it out. We're talking today about NFL coaches, 10 openings, eight hires, not one single black coach hired.

2:09:04Graham Bensinger:That's a problem, especially knowing the history of the National Football League, so much so that the Rooney Rule needed to be instituted in 2003 and ultimately modified in 2022. That wouldn't need to be the case if racism wasn't a problem. So saying that is fine. What I tell a lot of white people that I run across is I'm talking about systemically. I'm talking about a system. I'm talking about an environment. That doesn't mean you, because there's plenty of people that don't think like that. Remember, folks was marching in the civil rights movement. There were some white folks. There were some Jewish folks marching with black folks to gain civil rights.

2:09:42Graham Bensinger:Well, how did that happen? Because they didn't feel the way you had some Dixiecrats feeling or some Southerners feeling at that particular moment in time. All of those things come into play. And when you're able to compartmentalize and commit yourself to judging individuals on the content of their character, not the color of their skin, as the late Dr. Martin Luther King said, then guess what? You have an opportunity to contribute to making the world a better place. And that's what I try to do.

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2:11:00Stephen A. Smith:Sip for yourself. Shop Virtuo up exclusively at Nespresso.com. Politics is an area you are increasingly getting into. Tell if you don't mind about the conversation you had with then celebrity entrepreneur, Donald Trump, off air, as it pertained to banks and how that influenced your thinking.

2:11:26Graham Bensinger:I'm doing the show quite frankly on ESPN2, my own show, talk show from 2005 to 2007. I believe it was in 2006. He's the host of The Apprentice, has the intro music going, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo. I love that music, right? And so he comes out to that music, right? He comes out to that music, and it was great. And he let me touch his hair to prove he wasn't wearing a toupee and stuff like that. And he did all of that, right? And but we were in the green room. And he gave me some advice that I've never forgotten. He said, not just know your worth, but go for it. Go for it all.

2:12:08Graham Bensinger:always pursue the most. And I said, explain what he mean. And he said, when you go to a bank and you borrow three million hours and you can't pay it back, you got a problem. He said, but when you go to a bank and you borrow$300 million and you can't pay it back, we've got a problem. He said, the moral of the story is, the more you convince someone to invest in you, the more they must work diligently to ensure your success. Don't come cheat. Make sure you convince folks to make that requisite investment in you because they'll be committed to you succeeding because your success means their success and they have a chance to recoup the investment they made in you.

2:13:02Graham Bensinger:That's how you do that. That was the advice that he gave, and I never forgot it.

2:13:07Stephen A. Smith:I understand the DNC has looked at you.

2:13:10Graham Bensinger:What's involved with that? Democratic National Convention. I mean, I've had members reach out and call and try to gauge my interest of what I would be if I would be interested in running for office. I have no interest in running for office. But I do have an insatiable appetite to debate politicians in a debate format. I would never be interested in any office but the presidency. Nothing else. Not a Senate seat, not a congressional seat, nothing. Only the presidency. That's the only thing that I would ever be interested in. Being a governor or mayor, wouldn't... Nope, that's just the state.

2:13:50Stephen A. Smith:But you're controlling it. Yeah, I understand that.

2:13:52Graham Bensinger:But as the president, you're a bullhorn. You're a bullhorn that brings attention to the issues that need to be brought attention to so the states can run their business the way that they're supposed to. That was told to me by a governor who will remain nameless. But that's how it's viewed. You're sort of like an overseer and a bullhorn to make sure we don't evade the issues that really are pertinent and really are pervasive in our society. So I view it that way. Do I desire to campaign and be on the campaign circuit and running for office? No, I do not. Do I desire to be on a debate stage? to call out these politicians for what they have done to compromise this country.

2:14:36Graham Bensinger:Yes, I do. That's where it gets serious for me, because you can enter a debate and then leave after the debate and decide you're not running. My attitude is I want to be on stage with these people, and I want you to tell the American people why you did what you did. I want you to justify what you've done to contribute to the chaos that's in the streets of America. I want you to look at us in the face and justify the divide that you've caused, the friction that you've caused. What did you do that for? How did it serve us? On both sides of the aisle. Because as a black man, civil rights legislation, 1964, I'm going to ask the Democratic Party, tell me what you've done for us since that time.

2:15:19Graham Bensinger:You've had at least 80 percent of our vote since then. Tell me what we've gotten out of it. Because it seems to me like we've still got some of the same troubles. You've given us more access to capital. I'll give you that. But what else have you done? Fair Housing Act, Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, I got you. But what have you really, really done for us? You understand? When you were sitting up there and you were a progressive left, hard left, and you were pushing, you know, transgender, you know, athletes transitioning from male to female, competing with female, with young ladies. How did that benefit the black community?

2:15:48Graham Bensinger:When you were talking about cancer culture and woke culture and people were getting dismissed, suspended or fired for pronouncing the wrong pronoun or something, how did that help the black community? You sure you didn't sell us out? You sure that you weren't doing this to ingratiate yourself with a different voting bloc so the black vote wouldn't mean as much to you as it once did? Are you sure about that? Please explain because I'm all ears because it looks that way to me. You're the Republicans. Yeah, you didn't come to us making a bunch of promises, but what have you done? You talk about the American people and you're saying, hey, Obamacare is horrible.

2:16:20Graham Bensinger:Well, Obamacare got about 24 million people, some health care. Okay, what did you do? Obamacare was passed 2010. It was implemented in the law by 2015. But here we are in the year 2026, and you still don't have a health care plan. How come? What have you been dragging your feet about? What are you going to do about it? You keep talking, talking, talking. Yeah, you're talking about the border. Yeah, the border needed to be closed. But that was because Biden opened it. If Biden had it opened and followed Obama, who deported more people than Trump did, in Obama's term in office, over 3.1 million people were deported.

2:16:50Graham Bensinger:How come you didn't follow that, Joe Biden? How come you didn't follow that, Democrats? How come it was okay to celebrate ICE at that particular time when Obama was in office, and you had networks literally traveling with ICE to show you the marvelous work that they were doing, but suddenly Trump is doing it, and now it's a pariah, and ICE needs to go, and it needs to be completely banned. Why are sanctuary cities existing? Why is that? Why do you get to implement laws that could get you to ignore federal laws? How is that? How does that benefit our country? I'm saying to ask ourselves these questions, to see the difference between a Gavin Newsom and a Governor DeSantis, to see the difference between, you know, a Josh Shapiro and Greg Abbott, to know these kind of things, I think are things that enlighten us as American citizens.

2:17:40Graham Bensinger:And I know that I'm no aficionado, but in the same breath, I read and I'm a conscientious observer and I care. So when I ask a question, I'm not trying to be cynical. I'm not trying to play the blame game. I want an answer. I want you to answer the question because you volunteered for elected office. You volunteered to represent the American citizen. Answer the question. Tell us what you're doing. Tell us why you did what you did. Tell us how it benefits somebody other than you. Talk to me about those things. I like the idea of being able to challenge people outside the realm of sports about issues that are far more important to people than sports.

2:18:19Stephen A. Smith:That turns me on. And the reality is like you're the cliff notes of that is your goal is to have a platform that can influence the outcome of elections.

2:18:31Graham Bensinger:Well, in addition to illuminating, not so much influence the outcome of an election to make elected officials know there's certain people you don't get to get around. And I intend on being one of those people that you don't get to get around. You're going to have to come through this avenue when all is said and done, if I have anything to say about it, before you get to that place. Because I know that eventually when the time is right, rather than me learning and just listening and doing it that way, I'm going to ask some very pointed questions that I know the American people are going to want answers to.

2:19:07Graham Bensinger:But it's also selfish from this standpoint. It's made me more passionate about sports than ever. There have been times where I was getting a little bored doing what I was doing. Now I'm excited because of the challenge of having to know a multitude of things and going out there and making it sing. I like the challenge and it excites me every day.

2:19:29Stephen A. Smith:And you throw in what you're trying to build with your media company.

2:19:34Graham Bensinger:then yeah I'm doing it by myself now but really I plan on building having investors having partners that kind of thing because I can't do this all by myself I just assistance infancy stages and I did it this way to show my commitment so whoever gets involved with me will know I'm all in I'm very

2:19:51Stephen A. Smith:serious about it you mentioned Bob Iger um how often do you guys talk and what do you think you've learned from I say on average we talk about once a month um I love the man um he's a mentor

2:20:04Graham Bensinger:He's been very, very good to me. And what the knowledge that he's bestowed upon me, the way he's edified me about different things, just watching the way he does things, you know, the conversations that I've had with him, most of the time having nothing to do with me, just us talking gives me insight into who I believe to be one of the most brilliant executives in American history. to get insight from that person puts me in a very, very elevated place because I know that when he does something, it makes sense. And to get insight into the thoughts behind some of the decisions he made and what led to those decisions being made really, really, really, really strengthens my confidence because I know that I know what I'm doing because I've learned from the mastermind.

2:21:02Graham Bensinger:Anytime I want to pick his brain about something, all I got to do is ask. And he gives me insight because he knows the conversations are never going to be repeated. And it's not like he's going to divulge anything that deep anyway. He just gives me insight into him. And I think that because of that is where a lot of my confidence elevates. I have my own skill set. I have my own beliefs. I have my own abilities. et cetera. And of course, um, there are others that I have listened to that have given me guidance and tutelage along the way, but to be able to sit in front of you, you know, at this moment in time in my life to know that I can pick up the phone and all I got to do is call.

2:21:45Graham Bensinger:And if I need any advice, he doesn't hesitate. Um, that's an incredibly privileged position for me to be in. And, you know, again, I don't, this contract, I don't have this contract if it wasn't for him. There's no way. The kind of contract that I have, you needed approval. You know, so he made that happen. Jimmy Pitaro made that happen, who's also a wonderful executive. Dana Walden made that happen, who's also a wonderful executive. And I'm grateful to all of them, but Bob Iger is special. I consider him to be the Michael Jordan of executives. I just view him that way. I've seen him in action.

2:22:28He's given me insight into things that he's done and why.

2:22:33Graham Bensinger:I just think he's the Michael Jordan of executives. He's the greatest ever.

2:22:38Stephen A. Smith:How about the most interesting conversation the two of you have had?

2:22:41Graham Bensinger:I asked him one time. I said to him, you know, you've never really gotten on me for signing off when I want to clap back at people sometimes. But I also noticed that it's something you really do. Why? How do you sit there and just take it? I said, I can. I have. But that don't mean it ain't hard sometimes. He said, oh, it's hard, but it's probably easier for me than most. And I said, tell me why. And he said, because I know the truth. He said, all of them are speculating. I have the facts. You're talking about me. If you're talking about me, I know you're guessing. So sometimes it's entertaining to watch them guess because they're usually wrong.

2:23:43Graham Bensinger:He said, when you know the truth, you should feel emboldened. You should feel empowered because you're the one with the answers and they're looking for them. And I was like, hmm. And he said that to me on a day where I was planning on going on my YouTube show and eviscerating somebody. Oh, my goodness. I had a pile of stuff. I was going to wipe the floor with them. And I just went back and I canceled the show. I gave everybody a weekend off. I said, don't worry about it. I said, don't worry about it. Because I had had that conversation with him. And he didn't even know what I was intending to do.

2:24:25Graham Bensinger:But that conversation with him reeled me back in. Because it was like, I know the truth. So that's not to say you always feel that way. You always act that way. But knowing that one of the greatest executives I have ever seen in my life, you know, Actually, I think he is the greatest executive I've ever seen, I've ever been associated with in my life. Knowing that that's how he approaches things, it's something that you want to learn to emulate as best as you possibly can. Sometimes you're successful at doing it, sometimes you're not.

2:24:57Stephen A. Smith:Long time coming. I cannot believe it has probably been more than 20 years since I had you on my then radio show. That's right. You have an amazing story. I so appreciate the opportunity to do this. It's a very well-deserved and hard-earned life you have. And I appreciate you talking to me.

2:25:17Graham Bensinger:And I sat with you. You were in the eighth grade. You were in the eighth grade when you first interviewed me. So I couldn't turn you down. I was like, well, talk about things coming full circle. So I'm glad I did it. I enjoyed the conversation, man.

2:25:30Stephen A. Smith:Thank you, sir. Absolutely. Thanks for listening to this week's podcast. Don't forget to leave a rating and review. And for more in-depth interviews, visit GrahamBenzinger.com.

2:25:46Graham Bensinger:Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax, and let go of whatever you're carrying today.

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