Items related to Raw: My 100% Grade-A, Unfiltered, Inside Look at Sports
In his no-holds-barred, unapologetically controversial voice, New York Times bestselling author of You Herd Me! and ESPN radio show host Colin Cowherd gives an insider’s look into every aspect of sports, including behind-the-scenes scandals, inter-team rivalries, and players’ lives on and off the field.
There’s a lot you don’t see or hear sitting high up in the stands. But Colin Cowherd knows what really goes on—and he’s not afraid to share the vivid details of everything ESPN doesn’t show. From hotel parties for athletes and other industry professionals, to gossip from the road between games, to what happens behind closed doors, Cowherd—who has interviewed everyone from President Barack Obama to Kate Upton—draws on personal experiences to offer you an exclusive look into the rarefied, outrageous, ego-mad sports world.
With unparalleled candor and the signature, brazen voice his fans have come to know and love, Cowherd offers a unique vantage point of places and events otherwise curtained to the general sports audience, while weaving in his opinions on aspects of competition, tradition, and all things refereed. If you want honest, unvarnished opinions on current sports rivalries, scandals, and statistics, it’s all in Raw—from one of America’s most outspoken sports broadcasters on air today.
There’s a lot you don’t see or hear sitting high up in the stands. But Colin Cowherd knows what really goes on—and he’s not afraid to share the vivid details of everything ESPN doesn’t show. From hotel parties for athletes and other industry professionals, to gossip from the road between games, to what happens behind closed doors, Cowherd—who has interviewed everyone from President Barack Obama to Kate Upton—draws on personal experiences to offer you an exclusive look into the rarefied, outrageous, ego-mad sports world.
With unparalleled candor and the signature, brazen voice his fans have come to know and love, Cowherd offers a unique vantage point of places and events otherwise curtained to the general sports audience, while weaving in his opinions on aspects of competition, tradition, and all things refereed. If you want honest, unvarnished opinions on current sports rivalries, scandals, and statistics, it’s all in Raw—from one of America’s most outspoken sports broadcasters on air today.
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About the Author:
New York Times bestselling author Colin Cowherd is the host of The Herd on ESPN Radio and ESPNU and Colin’s New Football Show, airing on Sunday nights as a pregame show for both pro and college football. An established face in sports reporting with a concentration in radio broadcasting, Cowherd is revered for his comedic, raw, unapologetic, controversy-driven journalism. He has published one previous title, You Herd Me! I’ll Say It If Nobody Else Will, which was an instant New York Times bestseller and hailed as “provocative and amusing” by Kirkus Reviews.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
Raw THE SADDEST SUPERHERO
I WAS LIKE MOST KIDS. I woke up on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons. A handful of them couldn’t be missed. Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! was strangely addictive despite featuring a talking dog, four teenagers who never changed their clothes, and the exact same ending to every episode: a thwarted villain saying, “I would have pulled this off without you meddling kids!” There was also Jonny Quest, an adventure series where two families traveled the globe finding evil, like the one time when they discovered the giant spider whose eye was a camera sending pictures back to the bad guy Dr. Zin. I don’t want to go too deeply into the details, but that shit was real.
I followed the path of most boys, seduced into the shows that chronicled the exploits of crime fighters and superheroes. Spider-Man, Batman, the Green Lantern, Plastic Man—they all had a place in my heart. I would try to decipher in my head which one of them I would choose in a battle to the death. I would assess from all angles, analyzing strengths and weaknesses, sort of an early sabermetric version of advanced-metric cartoon analysis.
As I’ve aged, I’ve come up with a superhero that would defeat them all. He isn’t very big, and he probably can’t lift so much as a couch without the help of several other people. There’s no X-ray vision, although there’s a chance he could be a recent recipient of Lasik surgery. His speed, even among the rest of his out-of-shape friends, is pedestrian.
And yet this guy’s magic is undeniable. He can stop any person—even any group—in his tracks. He can petrify even the most powerful among us; he is unable to stop a steaming locomotive but perfectly capable of creating corporate chaos with just a few well-placed words. Even the other superheroes don’t dare cross him.
Who is this unmasked man? How can someone be so powerful and mundane at the same time?
Let me introduce you to Claiming Racism Man.
The first thing you need to know is that he doesn’t need proof. He can work his magic without the benefit of evidence—no repeated actions caught on tape or in writing necessary. He can claim racism against a company without poring over recent hiring practices or disputed firings. No, the source of this superhero’s power comes from the overwhelming randomness and impulsivity of his words. If you make a claim that doesn’t fit his political leanings, you’re in danger of being targeted.
It’s a bird, it’s a plane—wait, he’s not up in the sky at all. In fact, he’s writing on a blog, of all things.
It’s . . .
Claiming Racism Man.
If you think I’m exaggerating the power of race and the irrational way in which we treat intentions that are inherently reasonable, I’ll offer you a quick and easy example.
Starbucks launched a campaign in early 2015 called “Race Together,” and it was intended to decrease racial injustice and bring a better understanding of the issues affecting people of all races. Baristas, if they so desired, could add the hashtag #RaceTogether on the side of cups in hopes of sparking discussion—or even simple consideration—of the issues facing minorities. The idea was to plant the idea that no matter who you are or where you came from, we’re all in this together.
There was absolutely nothing sinister at work here.
Baristas weren’t instructed to take your order and proclaim, “I see you ordered another vanilla latte today. Isn’t it about time for some dark roast, if you know what I mean?” There were no reports of baristas holding out a customer’s Breakfast Blend and refusing to hand it over until the customer came up with the right answer to the question “Do you think Oprah got hosed at the Oscars?”
Oh, but you wouldn’t know that from the outcry. Within a few days, we had ourselves a veritable firestorm over two voluntary words on paper coffee cups—words that, frankly, would have little or no impact on the systemic issues that create the kind of racial tension that results in the death of someone like Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown.
Nobody can deny that racism exists here, or nearly anywhere. Even among the better educated, there is closeted racism, or—in the case of the most affluent among us—walk-in-closeted racism.
But how did a simple campaign seeking potential civilized discourse on the subject pick up so much momentum, not to mention unmitigated scorn?
I’ll tell you why: because we’re so petrified of being called a racist or forever labeled a racist that even thoughtful discourse can lead to unintentional misinterpretation or manipulation. It’s better to keep your damned mouth shut than to end up saying something that might inadvertently end with you having an exit interview in human resources forty-five minutes after you opened your mouth.
Claiming Racism Man has a posse behind him, too, making him even more powerful. The racial police, often working behind the scenes in support of Claiming Racism Man, feel that they—and only they—have the superior intellect to discuss any aspect of the topic. Really? Is the club that exclusive? We have governors and presidents who make wide-ranging economic decisions affecting hundreds of millions of people without having a single professional career in their backgrounds, and yet discussions of race—the act of merely talking about the topic—should be reserved for a chosen few?
The beauty of Claiming Racism Man is his dexterity. He has an amazing ability to twist and reconfigure someone’s words to unearth the hidden meanings that lie within the most innocuous comments. You want a concrete example? You’re in luck.
My friend Max Bretos, a SportsCenter anchor at ESPN and one of the nicest humans I’ve ever known, used the phrase “chink in his armor” to describe a bad game by former New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin. Bretos’s comment came as Lin’s incredible surge of popularity—known as “Linsanity”—briefly dominated the New York sports scene in 2012. Claiming Racism Man leaped into the manufactured controversy, and when it was over, Bretos was handed a thirty-day suspension.
Such is the power of Claiming Racism Man that nobody cared about the origins of the phrase, which dates back to the fifteenth century and has absolutely no connection to the Asian racial slur. Let me repeat: it is an innocuous phrase, no more demeaning to Asians than saying “That’s his Achilles heel” is demeaning to everyone of Greek descent.
And such is the power—excuse me, superpower—of Claiming Racism Man that it didn’t seem to matter that Bretos is married to an Asian woman. His children are Asian, and somehow he’s not only a racist but a racist against Asians? Go, CRM, go.
When the issue is literally black and white, African Americans often feel that Caucasians don’t understand the black experience. That may be true, and in many cases it is undeniably true, but how can anyone learn anything without discussing it?
Racism—the word, not the act itself—is now a weapon used viciously and cavalierly without discretion or proof. It’s sure to get clicks on blogs and create debates on cable sports and news shows, but it has also become tired and overused. It has one purpose—Gotcha!—and it has reached the point where I become cynical before I even know the details of the story behind the claim.
In the end, Claiming Racism Man uses his power to simplify a complex topic, turning it into a seventh-grade name-calling contest rather than an attempt at civic improvement. Instead of discussing policies that are institutionally racist and have generational consequences for minorities—housing discrimination, for instance, or economic redlining—we yell and point and get all worked up over isolated sentences that have no real impact beyond defaming a single and often powerless person.
I should probably wrap this up now, because I think I can hear the footsteps of Claiming Racism Man as he closes in on me. It sounds dangerous, I know, but I’d love to sit down with him and examine my opinions—the ones he derides so angrily. But, alas, we know how this game works. I’m not black enough. I’m not smart enough.
Claiming Racism Man’s power is exceeded only by one other quality: his ability to annoy. It’s one of the reasons Spider-Man no longer calls him a friend.
I WAS LIKE MOST KIDS. I woke up on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons. A handful of them couldn’t be missed. Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! was strangely addictive despite featuring a talking dog, four teenagers who never changed their clothes, and the exact same ending to every episode: a thwarted villain saying, “I would have pulled this off without you meddling kids!” There was also Jonny Quest, an adventure series where two families traveled the globe finding evil, like the one time when they discovered the giant spider whose eye was a camera sending pictures back to the bad guy Dr. Zin. I don’t want to go too deeply into the details, but that shit was real.
I followed the path of most boys, seduced into the shows that chronicled the exploits of crime fighters and superheroes. Spider-Man, Batman, the Green Lantern, Plastic Man—they all had a place in my heart. I would try to decipher in my head which one of them I would choose in a battle to the death. I would assess from all angles, analyzing strengths and weaknesses, sort of an early sabermetric version of advanced-metric cartoon analysis.
As I’ve aged, I’ve come up with a superhero that would defeat them all. He isn’t very big, and he probably can’t lift so much as a couch without the help of several other people. There’s no X-ray vision, although there’s a chance he could be a recent recipient of Lasik surgery. His speed, even among the rest of his out-of-shape friends, is pedestrian.
And yet this guy’s magic is undeniable. He can stop any person—even any group—in his tracks. He can petrify even the most powerful among us; he is unable to stop a steaming locomotive but perfectly capable of creating corporate chaos with just a few well-placed words. Even the other superheroes don’t dare cross him.
Who is this unmasked man? How can someone be so powerful and mundane at the same time?
Let me introduce you to Claiming Racism Man.
The first thing you need to know is that he doesn’t need proof. He can work his magic without the benefit of evidence—no repeated actions caught on tape or in writing necessary. He can claim racism against a company without poring over recent hiring practices or disputed firings. No, the source of this superhero’s power comes from the overwhelming randomness and impulsivity of his words. If you make a claim that doesn’t fit his political leanings, you’re in danger of being targeted.
It’s a bird, it’s a plane—wait, he’s not up in the sky at all. In fact, he’s writing on a blog, of all things.
It’s . . .
Claiming Racism Man.
If you think I’m exaggerating the power of race and the irrational way in which we treat intentions that are inherently reasonable, I’ll offer you a quick and easy example.
Starbucks launched a campaign in early 2015 called “Race Together,” and it was intended to decrease racial injustice and bring a better understanding of the issues affecting people of all races. Baristas, if they so desired, could add the hashtag #RaceTogether on the side of cups in hopes of sparking discussion—or even simple consideration—of the issues facing minorities. The idea was to plant the idea that no matter who you are or where you came from, we’re all in this together.
There was absolutely nothing sinister at work here.
Baristas weren’t instructed to take your order and proclaim, “I see you ordered another vanilla latte today. Isn’t it about time for some dark roast, if you know what I mean?” There were no reports of baristas holding out a customer’s Breakfast Blend and refusing to hand it over until the customer came up with the right answer to the question “Do you think Oprah got hosed at the Oscars?”
Oh, but you wouldn’t know that from the outcry. Within a few days, we had ourselves a veritable firestorm over two voluntary words on paper coffee cups—words that, frankly, would have little or no impact on the systemic issues that create the kind of racial tension that results in the death of someone like Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown.
Nobody can deny that racism exists here, or nearly anywhere. Even among the better educated, there is closeted racism, or—in the case of the most affluent among us—walk-in-closeted racism.
But how did a simple campaign seeking potential civilized discourse on the subject pick up so much momentum, not to mention unmitigated scorn?
I’ll tell you why: because we’re so petrified of being called a racist or forever labeled a racist that even thoughtful discourse can lead to unintentional misinterpretation or manipulation. It’s better to keep your damned mouth shut than to end up saying something that might inadvertently end with you having an exit interview in human resources forty-five minutes after you opened your mouth.
Claiming Racism Man has a posse behind him, too, making him even more powerful. The racial police, often working behind the scenes in support of Claiming Racism Man, feel that they—and only they—have the superior intellect to discuss any aspect of the topic. Really? Is the club that exclusive? We have governors and presidents who make wide-ranging economic decisions affecting hundreds of millions of people without having a single professional career in their backgrounds, and yet discussions of race—the act of merely talking about the topic—should be reserved for a chosen few?
The beauty of Claiming Racism Man is his dexterity. He has an amazing ability to twist and reconfigure someone’s words to unearth the hidden meanings that lie within the most innocuous comments. You want a concrete example? You’re in luck.
My friend Max Bretos, a SportsCenter anchor at ESPN and one of the nicest humans I’ve ever known, used the phrase “chink in his armor” to describe a bad game by former New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin. Bretos’s comment came as Lin’s incredible surge of popularity—known as “Linsanity”—briefly dominated the New York sports scene in 2012. Claiming Racism Man leaped into the manufactured controversy, and when it was over, Bretos was handed a thirty-day suspension.
Such is the power of Claiming Racism Man that nobody cared about the origins of the phrase, which dates back to the fifteenth century and has absolutely no connection to the Asian racial slur. Let me repeat: it is an innocuous phrase, no more demeaning to Asians than saying “That’s his Achilles heel” is demeaning to everyone of Greek descent.
And such is the power—excuse me, superpower—of Claiming Racism Man that it didn’t seem to matter that Bretos is married to an Asian woman. His children are Asian, and somehow he’s not only a racist but a racist against Asians? Go, CRM, go.
When the issue is literally black and white, African Americans often feel that Caucasians don’t understand the black experience. That may be true, and in many cases it is undeniably true, but how can anyone learn anything without discussing it?
Racism—the word, not the act itself—is now a weapon used viciously and cavalierly without discretion or proof. It’s sure to get clicks on blogs and create debates on cable sports and news shows, but it has also become tired and overused. It has one purpose—Gotcha!—and it has reached the point where I become cynical before I even know the details of the story behind the claim.
In the end, Claiming Racism Man uses his power to simplify a complex topic, turning it into a seventh-grade name-calling contest rather than an attempt at civic improvement. Instead of discussing policies that are institutionally racist and have generational consequences for minorities—housing discrimination, for instance, or economic redlining—we yell and point and get all worked up over isolated sentences that have no real impact beyond defaming a single and often powerless person.
I should probably wrap this up now, because I think I can hear the footsteps of Claiming Racism Man as he closes in on me. It sounds dangerous, I know, but I’d love to sit down with him and examine my opinions—the ones he derides so angrily. But, alas, we know how this game works. I’m not black enough. I’m not smart enough.
Claiming Racism Man’s power is exceeded only by one other quality: his ability to annoy. It’s one of the reasons Spider-Man no longer calls him a friend.
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