{"id":8126,"date":"2023-01-16T15:47:31","date_gmt":"2023-01-16T15:47:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atswins.ai\/blog\/stephen-a-smith-battled-dyslexia-became-passionate-voice-in-sports-rolling-stone\/"},"modified":"2023-01-16T15:47:31","modified_gmt":"2023-01-16T15:47:31","slug":"stephen-a-smith-battled-dyslexia-became-passionate-voice-in-sports-rolling-stone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atswins.ai\/blog\/stephen-a-smith-battled-dyslexia-became-passionate-voice-in-sports-rolling-stone\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen A. Smith Battled Dyslexia, Became Passionate Voice in Sports \u2013 Rolling Stone"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tIn an exclusive<\/span> excerpt from his new memoir, \u2018Straight Shooter\u2019, Stephen A. Smith, America\u2019s most popular and tenacious sports media figure, looks back on a formative experience of developing grit in his hometown of Hollis, Queens, after he was held back in elementary school as the result of undiagnosed dyslexia.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\n\tFrom the time I was six, I thought I was stupid. Although I talked well \u2014 and a lot<\/em> \u2014 and articulated my thoughts fluidly enough that some folks swore one day I\u2019d become a lawyer or a public speaker, it was all a facade. I couldn\u2019t comprehend what I was reading, a deficit that my oratory skills only served to hide.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt got worse each year, stunting my ability and willingness to grow intellectually. Before long, I was in the second grade but reading at a first-grade level. Then I was in the third grade \u2014 still at a first-grade reading level.<\/p>\n

\n\tI got decent grades anyway, mostly As and Bs. For much of the time inside the classroom, squirming at my desk with all those other squirming kids at PS 134, I don\u2019t remember feeling like there was anything wrong. Then, at the end of each school year, we\u2019d take a reading comprehension test to determine whether or not we should be promoted to the next grade. I was helpless on those tests.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s when I felt the profound shame of thinking I just wasn\u2019t smart. When I was left back the first time, in third grade, a stint in summer school was enough to get me moved up in September. But my reading deficiency continued through the fourth grade, and when I bombed the comprehension test at the end of that school year, I was left back yet again, this time for the whole next year.<\/p>\n

\n\tHad I not been so determined to get myself together and rid myself of the shame I felt, I truly believe I eventually would have wound up dead or in jail, like many of my childhood friends wound up, because without an education, the streets of Hollis were eager to claim me. I was lost. I was the only one I knew in the neighborhood left back, and the kids on my block \u2014 smart-ass New York City kids \u2014 were merciless. Donald, Mark, Willie, Billy, and Tony \u2014 practically everyone in Hollis within shouting distance of 203rd Street was laughing at me at earsplitting volume.<\/p>\n

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\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\t\u201cBoy, you got left back again! Ha ha!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEverybody laughed except Poolie, my closest friend. He lived right across the street. Big and tough and eager to show that he was both, Poolie took care of anybody who messed with me. He always had my back, always took my side in any argument, and never backed down from anyone.<\/p>\n

\n\tForty years later, I still remember all those kids\u2019 names and faces and the things they said. But they were just kids. They didn\u2019t know any better. I knew that even then and didn\u2019t hold it against them, as much as it hurt \u2014 as much as it still<\/em> hurts.<\/p>\n

\n\tInstead, I held it against myself. I believed I deserved their abuse and absorbed accountability for it. But I also was convinced I\u2019d get better. I knew that if I could stomach the embarrassment of that setback and still march forward, I could withstand anything.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut there was something else that caused me to let them off the hook, a bigger chip that was dropped on my shoulder: their laughter and taunts weren\u2019t anything compared to the shame delivered by my father. I\u2019d get over that, too, but I would never let it go.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe day I learned I\u2019d be repeating the fourth grade, I sat on the steps of our back porch and cried. I was hiding from the world, too ashamed to show my face to anybody. But between sobs and sniffles, I overheard my parents talking through an open kitchen window. My mother had just told my father that I\u2019d gotten left back for the second consecutive June. Her voice sounded worried, empathetic, in search of a solution.<\/p>\n

\n\tMy dad\u2019s voice was the opposite: matter-of-fact, resigned, dismissive.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cGive it up, Janet,\u201d he told her, like he was talking about a sink he\u2019d never be able to fix. \u201cThe boy just ain\u2019t smart. He\u2019s not going anywhere. Accept it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMy mother must have heard one of my sobs and peeked out the window. She cringed when she realized I\u2019d overheard every word that my dad had said about me. She was so hurt by that knowledge that she looked as if she were in more pain than I was \u2014 something I wouldn\u2019t have thought possible. That made everything even worse.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd my dad?<\/p>\n

\n\tHe did what he always did: retreated to the living room, sank into his chair, and read the paper or watched TV.<\/p>\n

\n\tMy mother became so consumed by the fiasco of my hearing my father\u2019s cutthroat dismissal that it distracted her, for at least a little bit, from his other shenanigans. She did whatever she could to cater to my emotional needs. She knew I was a wreck.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor instance, a few days afterward, she shocked me by taking me to a movie theater to see Grease<\/em>, starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. I remember that day so vividly because it was the only time that either of my parents ever took me to a movie theater. I knew we couldn\u2019t afford it.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen I asked my mom, \u201cWhat are you doing? You never go to the movies yourself, so why would you take me?\u201d she said, \u201cBecause I love you and I want you to know that, always.\u201d And she left it at that.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe fact is, the words my father had muttered about me did hurt like hell. They really did wound me deeply. Yet somehow I knew almost instinctively that blurting out those blunt, unthinking words was the best thing my father ever did for me. From the moment I heard him insult me, my determination kicked in.<\/p>\n

\n\tMy dad had counted me out. Not only that, he\u2019d implored my own mother to give up on me too. Thank God she refused. His doubts were my fault, I thought. It became my responsibility to change his thinking. I didn\u2019t go about it alone, of course. I wasn\u2019t that damn smart. My sister Linda, working that summer before she went off to college at Stony Brook, on Long Island, leaped into action. As the oldest child, with my mother now working sixteen-hour days, Linda ran the house- hold and saw this problem as hers to fix. The second she heard about my struggles, she started helping me with my reading comprehension. Tiver, the brilliant older brother of my buddy Ronnie, who lived around the corner in a house I hung out at all the time, also took it upon himself to tutor me, which I never told Linda about. So I was getting massive help from two people who genuinely cared about me.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs bright as both of them were, they were flying blind, at least at the start. My problem wasn\u2019t labeled dyslexia yet. Back then it rarely was. At school they simply called it a reading deficiency. But ultimately, as the weeks and months passed by, my sister and my friend\u2019s brother were the ones who discovered that dyslexia was the cause of my problems. They tutored me day after day until, slowly but surely, I started to comprehend what I was reading.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo this day I have no idea how they did it. I just sat there and did what they told me to do. I do remember that my sister was big on repetition and made me do things over and over until they became automatic\u2014like I was shooting jumpers in the park. And as I became more comfortable reading and writing, I gained more and more confidence. I became both smarter and more analytical in everything I did. One thing fed the other.<\/p>\n

\n\tI never got left back again.<\/p>\n

\n\tJust how far I\u2019d come was underscored for me at a parent-teacher night a few years later, in seventh grade, at P.S. 192. I dutifully stood at my mother\u2019s side, trying not to fidget as she talked with my social studies teacher, Mr. Caravan. Tall and thin, and extremely robotic and deliberate when he spoke, Mr. Caravan made a point of coming up to my mother after his general presentation to speak with her personally.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPlease allow me to tell you this, Mrs. Smith,\u201d he began inside the no-frills classroom. \u201cYour son is not a dummy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMy ears perked up; my attention shifted from whatever was distracting me in the hallway or on the ceiling or outside the window and settled directly on Mr. Caravan. I never knew his first name; I don\u2019t think any of us kids even thought teachers had first names.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSometimes he believes he\u2019s a dummy, because he never fails to acknowledge that he got held back twice in elementary school,\u201d Mr. Caravan went on. \u201cIt sticks with him. He never lets it go.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMy mother nodded. I don\u2019t think she was sure where this was going.<\/p>\n

\n\tNeither was I.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBut here is what I\u2019ve noticed about him,\u201d Mr. Caravan continued. \u201cHe gets extremely bored very easily. So, if there\u2019s something he is not interested in, he drifts. He pays little to no attention and misses things. But when he\u2019s interested in a subject, he\u2019s as sharp as they come. Find out what he\u2019s interested in and have him do that. You\u2019ll have a star on your hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs he spoke, I tried my damnedest not to get antsy, not to look around, not to break away and find something else to mess with. I wouldn\u2019t have believed what Mr. Caravan said if I hadn\u2019t heard it with my own ears. I still had minimal confidence, because I believed so little in myself.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut his words were one small sign: change was under way.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Mr. Caravan said those words to my mother \u2014 words so different from what my father had muttered just a few years earlier \u2014 they lit up all kinds of thoughts and dreams in my head. I suddenly fantasized about being a lawyer, a profession I knew about mostly through watching TV murder mysteries and dramas like Matlock <\/em>and Perry Mason<\/em>. I pondered becoming a politician, because I loved watching presidential debates. As a young teenager, I watched World News Tonight <\/em>with Peter Jennings and Nightline <\/em>with Ted Koppel. They defined credibility and substance, new concepts I\u2019d learned about since my reading breakthrough, and traits I knew I would need if I was ever going to be taken seriously at whatever I chose to do.<\/p>\n

\n\tYet what I gravitated to most was sports. While I grew up practically in the geographic center of America\u2019s sporting universe \u2014 two Major League Baseball teams, two NFL football teams, two NBA basketball teams, and two NHL hockey teams all played their home games within about twenty-five miles of my front door \u2014 I only experienced it from watching the games on TV. I had never watched a game in person.<\/p>\n

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\n\tMy regular seat for any sporting event remained in front of the tube. I watched sports all the time. I\u2019d even take breaks from playing touch football on the rock-solid concrete of 203rd Street to check in on the Yankees with my dad. He\u2019d celebrate a strikeout from pitchers Ron Guidry or Goose Gossage, a home run from Reggie Jackson or Don Mattingly. I\u2019d witness him yelling at the TV screen, applauding a demonstrative diatribe by manager Billy Martin or owner George Steinbrenner.<\/p>\n

\n\tOther times, I watched games with my sister Linda, who always knew her sports. It was a joy watching with someone who was an even bigger fan than my father or me. Neither the NBA\u2019s Knicks nor the New York Giants of the NFL had a bigger fan than Linda Laverne Smith. She knew the names of every single player. Screaming at the TV one minute, throwing something at it the next, Linda became so volatile when she got frustrated watching either one of them that we\u2019d all just leave the room and let her watch the games by herself.<\/p>\n

\n\tConversely, no one was happier when the Giants won Super Bowls in 1986 and 1990, led by Phil Simms and Jeff Hostetler, respectively. In fact, I had actually forgotten that the Giants won Super Bowls in each of the last four decades (1986, 1990, 2007, and 2011) until Linda reminded me.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat other team has done that shit?\u201d she asked rhetorically. \u201cUh- huh. Try this answer: No Goddamn body!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMost of the times, though, I\u2019d watch games by myself. But there was a purpose to it. While my father, my sisters, and others watched the games for the sheer enjoyment, I appreciated the commentary just as much as the action on the court or field.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlthough I was only five years old, I vividly remember Howard Cosell\u2019s call of \u201cDown goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!\u201d when former heavyweight boxing champion Joe Frazier got smashed by George Foreman in two rounds on January 22, 1973; there isn\u2019t a year that goes by when I don\u2019t watch the replay of that fight, along with the call from Cosell. Plus, my father laughed for the next forty-five years over Foreman knocking Frazier upside the back of his head, labeling it the funniest knockout in boxing history.<\/p>\n

\n\tI sat in awe of Bryant Gumbel, marveling at his hosting ability. From NBC Sports to the Today <\/em>show on NBC, to The Early Show <\/em>on CBS every weekday morning, his ability to transition from sports to news was seamless. I viewed Gumbel as royalty, knowing that he was the standard-setter. And I admired the hell out of him for being a Black man, capable of putting himself in that position, swearing to myself that I\u2019d never truly arrive in the broadcast business unless I received his stamp of approval one day.<\/p>\n

\n\tI heard the language of broadcasters; from Cosell to Gumbel, to Brent Musburger, Jimmy the Greek, Bob Costas, and, of course, the late, great Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes. <\/em>I absorbed the things they brought to the table \u2014 their interviewing skills, poignant delivery, and overall respect they commanded \u2014 just as I absorbed the run-on rhymes of rappers in the park.<\/p>\n

\n\tFrom very early on, I just knew how to talk. I didn\u2019t try to emulate anybody, didn\u2019t try to create a distinctive voice. It all just got slapped together and came out in the form of a sharp tongue and a talent for rapid-fire, informed responses. I always had something to say and always had a comeback for everybody \u2014 everybody, that is, except my mom. When she talked, it was the beginning and the end of the conversation.<\/p>\n

\n\tMaybe I absorbed some of that, too.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat I saw on TV seeped onto the playground. I played football in the street and baseball in a local police athletic league, but my real love was basketball. My brother, Basil, played on the neighborhood\u2019s outdoor courts. So, when I was nine years old, not long before he moved out, I followed suit.<\/p>\n

\n\tI tried to emulate what I watched, or what I saw others on the playground trying to emulate: Dr. J, then Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.<\/p>\n

\n\tFilthy fakes, no-look passes, bombs from the outside \u2014 the must-see TV in our living rooms filtered down to the court at P.S. 192, on 204th Street and Hollis Avenue, a block and a half from my house.<\/p>\n

\n\tI went there every chance I got, to the exclusion of nearly everything else. Many times I felt as if that was the only escape from what ailed me, mentally and emotionally. I went there to get away from doing homework, to get away from my sisters\u2019 telling me what to do, to get away from Mommy throwing chores at me, to get away from my father getting away from us. At night, I loved the solitude I often felt even as I stood in the middle of the country\u2019s biggest, baddest city \u2014 the incessant sounds of honking car horns and ear-piercing police sirens were replaced by the squeak of my sneakers and the jazzy beat of my dribble.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe more I practiced, the better I got, until I was one of the best players in the neighborhood. We played three-on-three or one-on-one. When nobody was around, which was usually early evening, I shot by myself for hours\u2014stepping back and shooting, sliding and shooting, head-faking and shooting. Or just shooting and then shooting again. I launched a minimum of two hundred jumpers every evening. The ball and the net were barely visible in the alternating flicker of the green, red, and yellow glow that emanated from a stoplight across the street. It was the park\u2019s lone illumination. The late Kobe Bryant told me on many occasions: \u201cWhen you\u2019re in the gym alone you can do anything you want.\u201d I was already developing that belief those evenings on that playground.<\/p>\n

\n\tEarly evening was also when the local drug dealers began to filter into the park. For me, they were saviors. They thought I had potential as a basketball player, and knew I wasn\u2019t built for the streets \u2014 my one altercation, getting busted and held for two hours for jumping a subway turnstile at Forest Hills station when I didn\u2019t have the fare, scared me straight and made me vow to never run afoul of the law again \u2014 so they not only left me alone but provided protection from anyone else who tried to mess with me. They only had one rule: I could shoot until the sun went down; then it was time for them to take over the playground and handle their business.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTime for you to get home, lil\u2019 man,\u201d they\u2019d tell me, and without another word I\u2019d dribble down the sidewalk \u2014 bam! bam! bam!<\/em> \u2014 all the way back.<\/p>\n

\n\tIf I walked into the house on a night when my father was home, I\u2019d invariably sit and watch whatever game he was watching. As complicated and confusing as our relationship could be, he was still my dad \u2014 flawed, bullying, infuriating, but still my dad. To a kid that age, that was enough. He was it<\/em>. It\u2019s not like a friend you fall out with and replace with another friend. It\u2019s your damn dad. He\u2019s the person you have to answer to whether you like it or not \u2014 whether he believes in you or not. And if he doesn\u2019t believe in you? You make <\/em>him believe in you.<\/p>\n

\n\tI would amount to something, damn it!<\/p>\n

\n\tMy dad had an insatiable appetite for sports, especially baseball. He was a die-hard Yankees fan who literally forbade us to watch the Mets before we turned eighteen \u2014 even though they were less than fifteen minutes away, at Shea Stadium in Queens. He\u2019d sit there watching the Yankees day and night, no matter how late it was. He religiously read the New York Post <\/em>and the New York Daily News<\/em>. He loved the opinion pages, constantly gauging the credibility of the columnists, a determination he made by putting their opinions up against his own.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs I got older, I joined in. I mastered sports because I loved the sub- ject matter, just as Mr. Caravan had predicted. The more I read, the more I felt compelled to read, elevating my knowledge and adding substance to whatever came out of my mouth.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs I\u2019d hoped, my father took notice.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat the hell is going on with this boy?\u201d he asked my mother once, after my thirteen-year-old self decided to debate him about wanting the Yankees\u2019 then third baseman, Craig Nettles, traded. \u201cYou listening to him? He actually sounds like he has some damn smarts after all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tI liberally stole sports opinions from him, the only thing I\u2019ve ever taken from him in my life. He\u2019d critique how managers handled pitchers, and then how they all failed in comparison to former Yankees\u2019 man- ager Billy Martin, the brilliant, feisty, hard-drinking throwback who was his all-time favorite. He\u2019d lament when pitchers were left in too long or taken out too hastily. How they\u2019d throw sliders when they should\u2019ve thrown fastballs and fastballs when they should\u2019ve thrown sliders. He\u2019d constantly complain about hitters swinging at bad pitches, or trotting to first base instead of sprinting all out, or foolishly attempting to steal when a power hitter was at the plate. But nothing upset him more than a third-base coach waving a runner around the bag only to have him be thrown out at home.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat man is an ee-dee-ot<\/em>, me son,\u201d he\u2019d blurt in his harshest West Indian\u2013ese. \u201cFire his damn ass right now!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMy dad loved irascible Yankees owner George Steinbrenner precisely because of that: George had my dad\u2019s impatience and fired anybody for the slightest reason.<\/p>\n

\n\tYet while my dad taught me about baseball and how to analyze the game, he indirectly taught me, without ever knowing it, things that I would use to my advantage throughout my career \u2014 things I use to this day.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe taught me that listening to what someone else wants could be a quick way to turn a foe into a friend. He taught me to develop a passion for what I do and never to be apologetic about it. And most of all \u2014and this was absolutely not his intent \u2014 he taught me to recognize and appreciate the benefits of criticism, instead of folding to it.<\/p>\n

\n\tKnowing that my father once considered me a lost cause and said as much to my mother, I could have avoided him and given up. He really was a damn bastard at times. But instead, I embraced the challenge of simply being around him, inhaling and dissecting what he said about me, and then figuring out ways to make those unforgettable words he once said to my mother as meaningless to me as possible. I\u2019d have many tough editors and producers at newspapers and in TV during the years that followed, but never anyone as brutal as he was.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt took months of sitting in front of him, absorbing his looks of discontent and disappointment, but the longer I looked, the easier it got. Eventually, I began to challenge his opinions instead of challenging the very legitimacy of his having an opinion at all. The result: as I approached my sixteenth birthday, my father wanted to talk to me more<\/em>, not less, and I wanted to listen <\/em>more so that I could respond. I was put- ting myself in the lion\u2019s den that was him, to help me sharpen myself and everything that I wanted to be. I was gathering intel about sports and life, even if he didn\u2019t know that that\u2019s what I was getting out of it.<\/p>\n

\n\tAbsorbing my father\u2019s criticism and being able to take it constructively made me feel better about myself, which made me better at everything I did. It made me grow and feel more confident in verbalizing what I had studied and learned, which was incredibly important, because now the possibility of a college education was no longer merely a fantasy. This self-imposed learning I had undertaken with my father was allowing me to dream about one day being anything or anyone I might want to be, envisioning possibilities for myself I had never envisioned before. I became open to any and all possibilities, excluding one: becoming like him.<\/p>\n

\n\tYep! We finally reached a point where he would test me by asking what I had seen as we were watching a game \u2014 the equivalent of those reading-comprehension tests that once determined whether I could move on to the next grade. But I wasn\u2019t fazed. I was a teenager now. I knew how to read now. And I had a passion for what I was learning, because it was sports. So, to me, my father was no longer intimidating at all, no matter how intimidating he tried to be.<\/p>\n

\n\tI would watch the games intently, study the highlights, pinpoint what mattered most to him. Eventually, my father went from trusting my evaluations and soliciting my opinion to simply conceding that I knew more than he did about certain sports-related particulars. He made this concession because I actually watched more games than he did. He had come not only to depend on me but to respect me.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s as good as I ever got from him. Over the years that followed, right up until he passed away in 2018, my dad never called me once to ask about college, to check up on my career, nor to inquire about my personal life, even after my daughters were born.<\/p>\n

\n\tSports was the whole of our conversational relationship. If we didn\u2019t talk sports, we didn\u2019t talk at all.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd that appeared to be okay with him.<\/p>\n

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\t\tTrending<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tBefore my sixteenth birthday, it was perfectly okay with me too.<\/p>\n

\n\tFrom the forthcoming book <\/em>STRAIGHT SHOOTER: A Memoir of Second Chances and First Takes by Stephen A. Smith. Copyright \u00a9 2023 by Stephen A. Smith. Published by 13A\/Gallery Books, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Reprinted by permission.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n