Inside the Game: Insights From Hall Of Fame Reporter Marc Spears

Join us for an engaging episode of Rise and Grind as we sit down with Marc Spears, the accomplished ESPN sportswriter and Hall of Fame NBA reporter known for his insightful coverage of the league! In this episode, we dive into Marc's remarkable journey in sports journalism, discussing his experiences, challenges, and the evolving landscape of media in the sports world.

Discover the secrets behind his success, the pivotal moments that shaped his career, and why he believes integrity and authenticity are vital in reporting. Whether you're a sports enthusiast, an aspiring journalist, or just looking for inspiration, this conversation with Marc Spears is packed with valuable insights you won’t want to miss!

Incredible stories, expert analysis, and motivation await. Tune in and be sure to like, subscribe, and join the conversation in the comments! 

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Remember, your journey might have its challenges, but with grit and determination, you can rise above and achieve your dreams. Keep grinding, and we'll see you next time!

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

The guy asked me, What do you want to do when you grow up? And I'm like, I want to play for y'all. And he's like, Well, son of Michael said you can't, but what else are you going to do? You know, you can't play basketball forever. And I was like, I don't know. And he goes, Well, if you combine what you love most in life with what you do best in school, you'll find a job you're happy with every day.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Welcome to Rhonize and Grind. I'm your host, Phil Bailey, and today we have a special guest who's made a significant impact in the world of sports journalism. Joining us is Mark Spears, the senior MBA sports writer for Anscape ESPN's Black LED Media Platform and a seasoned expert in covering the NBA. With over 20 years of experience, Mark has established himself as a trusted voice in sports media, known for his in-depth reporting and his unique storytelling. In 2023, Mark was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. Yes, sir, recognizing his outstanding contributions to the sport and journalism. Throughout his career, he's covered some of the biggest stories in basketball and has developed close relationships with players, coaches, and executives. He's recognized not just for his insight analysis, but also for his commitment to addressing social justice issues and the mental health challenges that athletes face. So in this episode, we're going to dive into Mark's journey as a sports journalist, discusses his impact on sports media, on the sports media culture today. So get ready for an engaging conversation filled with valuable insights and stories that highlight the grind, the grit, the dedication that define success in sports and journalism. Without further ado, Mark Spears. Welcome to the show. My brother, man. How you doing? I'm doing great, man. I wish I was half as good as you. How are you doing? I know you're tired. You've been traveling. This is playoff time.

SPEAKER_02 2:24

Yeah. No, man. I you're my favorite people in the league. And you want me some video games when I was a kid, man. I used to use you on the 402K. Oh my God, man. Like when I was in college and I always used the jazz. And you know, when Carl and Stockton uh weren't getting it done, I just give it to Thor, man. Glasses look good. Hook, mid-range dunk dunked on somebody. Always got me a bucket. And then when I met up, I was like, man, that's my boy from the video game. Incredible person. Utah's blessed to have someone like you in their lives for so long, man. So I appreciate you, Mark. I appreciate you and your and your friendship. And uh just just great people, man.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Thanks for being on, man. I appreciate those words. Um yeah, I know it's a busy time for you as of right now. We're deep into you know the NBA finals and uh and and I know you're just moving all over the place. As this season kind of comes to, you know, you you've seen the evolution of the sport. And so as you're in the thick of it right now, what's probably been the kind of the most surprising thing for you at this point?

SPEAKER_02 3:41

I don't know if I call it surprises, but I think uh I call it great to see is when Magic and Bird walked away, thorough. I know everybody wondered like nobody could take that torch. I guess this Michael Jordan guy can, but you know. Then Michael takes it when Michael's retiring in in 2003, I believe it's 2003, it was like who's gonna take the torch here? And so every time you think like that the NBA is doomed because their stars are going away, there's somebody that's gonna take the torch. And I'm very confident that when LeBron and Steph and KD walk away, this latest generation of stars walk away, and you know in the last couple years there's been a lot of stars that have retired. But when you see Went and B, when you see SGA, you know, when you see some of these young guys, Donovan Mitchell, uh it just seems like every you you guys got a couple guys that I love. Um I feel like the NBA is gonna be in a good place for a long time coming. And then when we see this draft coming up, you know, y'all gonna get y'all boy, y'all y'all, y'all about to be really good. Um you know, I I feel like this draft is is gonna add to the what's gonna be a great group of young stars going forward.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

So let's let's dive into to your origins, man. Let's tell the listeners where you're from, uh, what it was like in the Spirits household, you know, and then we'll get more into your passion.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

Um I was born in St. Louis. Uh probably surprised you. Like, people want to wonder why I'm a Cardinals fan. It was because I was I was actually born in St. Louis, and um my mom um she couldn't get into a black nursing school in New Orleans growing up. So she actually moved to St. Louis and went to a historical black nursing school called Homer G. Phillips. Um got her nursing degree, met my father, they got married, had me when I was like three years old. Respectfully to San Jose, I mean, uh to St. Louis, we moved to San Jose like at the beginning of the Silicon Valley era, right? And she got a job at Stanford Hospital. And it was a blessing to grow up in a city that was just so diverse. Um, Thor, I was like confused as a kid because I had Mexican kids, Puerto Rican kids, Vietnamese, Thai, you know, Chinese, Korean, black people were mixed. My best friend growing up was Filipino and black. Like I grew up with so many people from so many different ethnicities that I just thought that was normal. Um until I went to uh visit my mom's family in New Orleans and my dad's family in St. Louis, and I was like, only black people around here where we're at, you know. Um, I remember having like in elementary school uh a day where it was like called International Day, and every family was asked to bring a dish that was you know something that was treasured to their ethnicity, and my mom made some jambalaya. And but I remember being in that room and there was like a hundred different dishes, like maybe even more than that, but like that African-American table, the Chinese table, the white table, which probably had the most interesting food, right? The white table. But um, it was just a blessing to grow up in that. There were there was also some challenges. Uh, you know, I dealt with a lot of little racism issues growing up. Um, that I'd I could spare you the details on that. Um, but the black community in San Jose was very, very close, especially on like I went to an all-black church. Um Juneteenth was always a big deal. Martin Luther King Day was a big deal. And so it was certainly a blessing to grow up in such a diverse place because you know, I feel like if the world was built like that, then everybody would have so much more sympathy for the next human being because you know where they would come from, you know what they've gone through, and then you realize that they're human just like you, right? Like they're just people just like you. They just they're just different. And so um I I considered it a huge blessing to uh grow up uh in San Jose and um uh end uh playing high school basketball was pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

And and and listen, I can relate to those uh racial issues. I grew up in DC. So uh actually my mom was uh going to school to to to be a nurse. She wanted to be an RM. So that was in the 60s. So yeah, I feel you. Yeah. Uh yeah, tell me about your your sports career. My guess is that you know you needed uh an outlet.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

So where'd that take you?

SPEAKER_02 9:19

I was a sports fanatic since I was a baby, man. Like uh my mom actually put me in soccer in the first grade. So I played soccer. I played little league baseball. Little league baseball was amazing to me, man. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. You go there on Saturday, and if you had the 9 a.m. game, I'd just stick around there all day. And you know, you get the hot dog and the sunflower seeds and the big league chew and watch all the other teams play. Like little league baseball is great. Like, I recommend that for every kid, man. It was really, really fun. Um, I didn't really start playing basketball to fifth grade. Um, and and I just remember like loving soccer, loving uh baseball. And then one day I was bored at lunch in elementary school and they were playing basketball and asked me to play. I'm like, man, I don't know how to play that game. I don't really like that game. But then I just walked in and started playing. I'm getting all the rebounds because I was tall, man. I'm blocking shots. I was like, hold on, man, this might be for me. And so I really, really fell in love with basketball in the sixth grade, played on a school team, and then I ended up going to San Jose State basketball camp when I was in the sixth grade, and then it just blossomed from there. Um I actually played football for a little bit, got a concussion when I was in the eighth grade, hit somebody. I caused my own concussion, nobody came to help me. Ninth grade, I got speared by my own teammate in practice, and I missed like a third of the basketball season, and I I was like, I was done with football. I never played football after my uh because I felt I was like, man, I could die playing this sport. Like, this don't feel good. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

It helped me with my physicality and playing basketball, but I ended up um breaking my leg in a game, actually basketball game, my sophomore year. I had a uh stress fracture that wasn't fully healed. Um went up to block a shot in the game and it snapped. Wow. And so I've had a lot of knee and leg problems since. Um but I ended up my senior year at Andrew Hill High School in San Jose, I was all league. Um I averaged 16 or 15, had a couple 30-plus games, plus a couple 20 plus rebound games. Uh the sad thing, Thorough, was when I was going into high school, I went to a high school where there wasn't a lot of kids who were had parents that had finished college. And my parents both got like their bachelor's degrees. My mom got her bachelor's degrees in her 30s, my dad in her 40s, right? So no one was on my butt about grades and stuff. I when I went into high school, they were talking to us about trades. Do you want to like work on cars? Do you want to go to the service? There, they're they weren't talking to academics. And I was just like, what do I need to do to be eligible? They're like, you need a 2.0. So I just made sure I had a 2.0. It was one of the worst things I've ever done. And when I finished at uh going into my senior year at Andrew Hill High School, Columbia wanted me to play there. Ivy League School. I knew I wanted to be a sports writer. They had one of the best journalism schools, if not the best journalism school in the country. Then they saw my GPA and they said, Mark, nope, thanks, but no thanks. You can't come here. And that's when I woke up and started taking my academics uh much more seriously. And um I ended up playing junior college basketball at Foothill College, played there for two years, was supposed to sign with Tuskegee Institute. Coach got fired right before I signed. So I ended up going to the University of District of Columbia, started there, the academics there weren't to my liking. Now I'm like a big-time student and wants to be a sports writer, and then um transferred from there to San Jose State, where I registered for a year. And um I wrote a story in a school paper at a registered year before I played, I wrote a story in a school paper about the lack of black uh coaches in college basketball, and how, and I think you remember this, Nolan Richardson, John Thompson, and John Cheney wanted to sit out of game, and I wrote in my story that all black black basketball players should sit out of game to protest this. And the coach at Soundsley State at the time he was upset that I wrote that, had one of the assistant coaches challenge me on that. He didn't challenge me himself, but he challenged me on that. And I just told him I'll do everything you guys asked me to do, but I'm not gonna compromise what I write. And ultimately they figured out a way to get me off the team. I had a knee injury that probably was gonna take me to December to be ready, but I was gonna be ready. And he kind of used that to figure out a way to get rid of me because he wasn't happy with what I wrote.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

So, I mean, uh obviously that takes courage on your part. Especially during that time. Yeah. Uh, you you did mention you you knew you wanted to be a sports writer. What was it? When did that start and how did that lead you into that passion for being a sports journalist?

SPEAKER_02 14:55

It's one of the greatest blessings of my life. Um I was in a very creative kid, loved sports, as I told you. I I convinced my dad to give me sports illustrated when I was a kid. Uh I read the Sound Z Mercury News every day, only for the sports section and the living section. I didn't read it. Everything else was too basic, right? And uh I was in a program in in junior high school called Horizons. It was like creativity without walls. And so they put me in this program, and then we had a career day, which I wish every junior high in the country, man, would have a career day. I think it does wonders for kids. You're at a time where you're starting to figure out what you want to be, what you want to do, but you just need some good guidance. So actually, a guy from the Warriors came and spoke to at my school. Why he drove the 45 miles, I don't know. Maybe he was dating one of the teachers, I don't know. But he made the drive down to San Jose from Oakland. I want I went and listened to him because I was hoping for some free tickets. I want to go to game, right? I want to go see Sleepy Floyd. Um for some reason he pointed at me and he said, Well, what do you want to do when you grow up? And I said, I girl, I said, I want to play for y'all. And at that time, there was actually a stat in Sports Illustrator that just resounded with me. And we're talking about 1984.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

That less than 2% of all college basketball players make it to the NBA. I was really, really a style kid, man. So that certainly resonated with me. And when I was in my driveway shooting, talking about 3-2-1, I was saying UCLA, Georgetown. I wasn't saying Utah Jazz, you know what I mean? Like, I just after I read that stat, I thought that playing in the NBA was very unrealistic. Um, but he the guy asked me, What do you want to do when you grow up? And I'm like, I want to play for y'all. And he's like, Well, I'm son, I'm not gonna say you can't, but what else are you gonna do? You know, you can't play basketball forever. And I was like, I don't know. And he goes, Well, if you combine what you love most in life with what you do best in school, you'll find a job you're happy with every day. It's amazing advice to give a seventh grader. And I really, really thought about it, and I'm like, what do I do best in school? I suck in math, I suck in science, but I could write. And what do I love most in life? Sports. And I I really like came to this conclusion in seventh grade that if I couldn't play in the NBA, Major League Baseball, soccer, NFL, whatever, the next best thing is to be there. And so I'm like, sports, writing, why not be a sports writer? So my teacher, Miss Thompson, I don't know what happened to this lady. If I would love to take her to dinner, um, but she's like, everybody needs to write somebody in a field that they're interested. And so I wrote Mark Purdy from the Sounds A Mercury News, legendary writer. Imagine him just like, he just got this letter and he opened mine, and I asked him about can you please give me some advice about being a sports writer? He gave me a letter back explaining everything to do from seventh grade through college. I got a cheat code from Mark Purdy in the seventh grade, and it was like, write on the school paper, write on the school yearbook in the junior high, take the top English classes. I did that. I covered the eighth-grade flag football team uh immediately for the school paper. So Mark J. Spears, my pen name, was a seventh grader's decision. I've been writing on this, I've been writing on a newspaper since seventh grade. And he said, when you go to high school, take the top English classes, take typing classes. I would not have thought to take the typing classes. I took typing one, two, and three. I was a master typist, wrote on the school paper, and then when he said get to college, um, you know, get his uh writing a school paper, major journalism, and get as many internships as possible. And I listened to everything. I had three internships while I was in college, I was ahead of everybody.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 19:15

Um, even by my senior year, I wrote for the San Jose Mercury News uh as a high school basketball writer. So the paper I grew up reading, my senior year in college, I was actually writing for them. So by the time I graduated left San Jose State, obviously I'm not an NBA prospect. I didn't even play my last year. I actually got a call about playing in Mexico, but I felt like I was a first-round pick from a sports journalism standpoint. And then from there, my first job, I got paid nothing. I got paid $19,000 before taxes. But I was covering the Southeastern Conference, Arkansas football and basketball for the Tulsa World. So the unique thing is I wrote this story about these college basketball coaches and what they're doing, which ultimately got me kicked out the basketball program at San Jose State. And I ended up graduating at the school. But the first coach I cover is Nolan Richardson.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

That's a powerful story, man. That's a powerful story. It is. And my mom used to remind me of my mom and dad used to say, ask the right questions to the right people. And he told me this when I was young. And it it it sometimes it takes some risk, and that's those are the things that you're addressing right now, right? I mean, you said you got the cheat code early, but it was your choice to follow it and and uh obviously help help launch your career. So you talked about the article about black coaches. What are I know you've had some other pivotal moments uh in your writing career. Can you touch on one or two of those?

SPEAKER_02 20:50

One thing I think that stood out for me, Thor, I don't know if you knew this, I was covering Major League Baseball. Uh, did you know that? I did not. Yeah. So my first job, I covered Arkansas's football and basketball team. Then I got a job at the LA Daily News covering the Angels and the Dodgers in Cal State Northridge football and basketball. So I was like, okay, baseball. I like baseball. Maybe this is for me. It's covering baseball, and I was like, dang, it's too long of a day, man. You had to get to the park for a night game at like two o'clock, and I would leave to like one in the morning. I was like, boy. And I was working for the paper, was in Northridge, and if you know LA, driving Northridge to Adahide.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Yes, I do.

SPEAKER_02 21:38

And so uh, but I was doing that job. I was covering Major League Baseball at like 25, which is pretty big. But then one day, uh or actually I I remember though that I enjoyed covering Cal State Northridge basketball and football or basketball in particular more than I did Major League Baseball. And that was kind of resonating with me. And one game, Angels game, I had a guy, a media guy, sit next to me and he was calling out the pitches. He was like, curveball, slider, screwball. Like, man, how you know all these pitches? And he goes, Oh man, I played uh college baseball. I was like a catcher or something. And I'm like, man, I need to become basketball, man. What am I doing? So I like bet on myself. I left covering baseball and went to Louisville, Kentucky. So I left the LA Daily News to go to Louisville, Kentucky to cover college football and basketball. So I was like the backup writer on Louisville, bad baskup writer on Kentucky, covered basically college sports in Kentucky. And um, so I got I went from covering Nolan Richardson to Denny Crum and Tubby Smith. Like that's great education, man, early on. Yes, sir. Um I got to do football as well, but like it was the basketball part that I was attracted to. And then in 1999, I got a call from a guy named Neil Scarborough, and he was a sports editor at the Denver Post. And he's like, Man, how are things going for you and Louisville? I'm like, yeah, man, they're good. I'm about to get promoted to be the U of L writer. And he's like, man, well, I got this job covering the Denver Nuggets. I'm like, uh, when can I leave? So never been to Denver before. Um took the job covering the Denver Nuggets in 1999. That was certainly a pivotal moment for me. And I've been covering NBA ever since. So this is like my 27th season covering NBA. And so I covered the Nuggets for eight years. It's interesting. I dinner with Carmelo Anthony and some other folks last night. And Mello goes, man, this dude knows all my secrets, man. Because I covered Mello when he came into the league. I love Mello, and so proud of him, man. And then but I got a job covering the Celtics for the Boston Globe, and that was career changing. Uh, you know, being in Denver was great, but uh being in a market where people like all over the world love this team and covered a championship team. I covered KG, Paul, and Ray, Rondo Perk when they won in 08. Um still remember when KG blew out his knee in Utah, which like changed his career dramatically. Um then from after covering the Celtics for two years, I got a national riding job with Yahoo Sports with Adrian Wojanowski, and they told me I had to move out west. So I moved back home to the Bay, moved to Oakland, and the Warriors just happened to have this rookie named Stephen Curry. So I just coincidentally showed up in the Bay as a national rider when Stephen Curry showed up. One of the greatest human beings I've ever met in my life, one of the greatest players ever, maybe pound for pound, the greatest player ever, if you think about it from a pound-to-pound standpoint. And then in 2016, I made the leap to ESPN with then it was called the undefeated, now it's called Anscape. And uh it's best, certainly the best job I've ever had. And I've been at ESPN now for 10 years.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Well, when we come back, we're gonna dive a little bit more into some of the relationships that Mark has established during his career. And also for a lot of you aspiring sports journalists out there, we're gonna get some advice from Mark Spears when we come back. Hey guys, I'm out. Your family, and your responsibilities.com. Victory starts within. Welcome back, everybody, to Rise and Grind. We're having a great conversation here with Mark Spears, senior NBA sports writer with ESPN. And Mark, you were talking about some of those relationships that you've developed um over the years. How do you build that trust and rapport with athletes to get the best stories?

SPEAKER_02 26:41

You know, Thor, I think it's kind of, you know, kind of being like you, man, like just being a good human being and trustworthy. Um, you know, I have to do my job. Something happens, I have to write it. But ultimately, man, I ain't got no hidden agenda to work, I mean, to write something bad about anybody. I, you know, I write the truth and what happened. And, you know, a lot of what I write is stories of perseverance and and painful things that people go through. But I think when I started covering MBA, the nuggets were so bad that I oftentimes would get what I need from them and would go into the other locker room and talk to the other players and get to know the other players. And I think one key in being a journalist is you can't be shy.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Right.

SPEAKER_02 27:34

Also, and I learned this from my father, um, God rest his soul, uh talk to everybody. He always told me, like, everybody is important. I don't care if they the CEO, I don't care if they the person that sweeped the floors. You speak to everybody. And you treat everybody with respect. And so that's what I did. I always just spoke to everybody and um kind of learned that once one player trusted you, he would tell the next player to trust you. And Greg Popovich once gave me the greatest compliments ever, one of the greatest. He said, he said, one thing I like about you, man, is you're fair. The time you write, you're fair. So you start building a reputation of being fair, you start building a reputation of like, I love storytelling, telling great stories, and then the PR people are like, I mean, I I'll tell you one thing. I did a story that I interviewed you for about what it's like to be black playing for the Utah Jazz, which is one of my favorite stories I've ever written. And I wanted to interview George Hill and um Reinhardt your boy Reinhart. I don't think he's there no more. He um I knew him from Denver, and he told George Hill, Mark is a great journalist, good guy. You should trust him because George, you know, you know George didn't trust a lot of people. And so George, you know, gave me an amazing interview, and we're like, to this day, we're we're tight. But like I'll have veteran players tell people like, yeah, man, you you you should let Mark tell your story, or they'll reach out to me. And I I built that um through trust, through the storytelling that I do, being able to talk about sensitive issues, um tell people's deepest stories of triumph. And so I think, you know, every year your your level of trust and your I guess your nest gets bigger, right? Because with every story, there's one more person that's like I like what he does. Uh I want him to, I would hope he tells me, you know, that he wants to write my story one day. So a lot of times I get tips on stuff that opened end up being amazing stories because people feel like for this sensitive story, we need we look, we want Mark to take tell it.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:00

Because he'll tell it with the right sensitivity. So I've been I've been blessed with that. But I think it all just started from just being a sponge, talking to people. I had a great mentor named Mike Monroe, who was an NBA writer when I first covered the Denver Nuggets. I don't know if you I'm sure you remember Mike. I do remember Mike. So Mike took me under his wing, which was great because I was a young so-called hotshot reporter coming to Denver, and he put to put his arm around me instead of being jealous of me or trying to work against me. So I I always loved Michael Monroe. But you know, I had a lot of great mentors from the National Association of Black Journalists. Um and and so I just kind of use their their advice, uh their words of professionalism. Squeaky wheel gets the oil. Don't waste moments. Like if the locker room's open, I'm in the locker room. But I, you know, I'm not just talking to the star, I'm talking to everybody. You know, like I'll tell you this. When I remember like three years ago going into y'all locker room, and what was Keontae George doing that season? Keontae George. He wasn't really doing nothing, right?

SPEAKER_01 31:22

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 31:22

But I think he recognized me maybe from TV or because of my career, and I introduced myself to him and talked to him. And every time I saw him, I said hello, and then boom. Now what is he? Um I saw him in Chicago at the pre-draft camp. Got a great interview, wrote about the Jazz last week. And so it's just like I I remember when I met Rondo, he was third string point guard. And I was covering the Nuggets at the time. Bill Duffy suggested I introduce myself to him. Next thing you know, I'm in Boston, and he's a starting point guard. Like you never know what somebody could be. Even if somebody's the last guy on the bench, they could turn things around. So that to me is like the lesson of treat everybody great, treat everybody the same. And uh especially in basketball, because you you just never know how their career can turn. And who knows, maybe they're not a great player, but they end up being a coach. They end up being a GM, which a lot of times has certainly happened, you know. Uh Mark Pope, I cover Mark Pope. He certainly wasn't Michael Jordan, you know what I mean? But now I look at what he's doing, right? Like, so that to me, to me, it's not just journalism. I think it's just life in general, right? Like, just treat everybody with respect, you know, and and I just and I try to do that, you know, and if I could help somebody, I will.

SPEAKER_01 32:49

That's great, great advice. And speaking of helping, you know, of course, there are a lot of young, aspiring sports journalists out there. What advice would you give them, those who may be a little bit intimidated about entering the field?

SPEAKER_02 33:04

Well, my girl Lauren Green's out your way. I would talk to her all the time, man. Superstar. Thorough, you know, she we at some point, we're gonna steal her away from y'all.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

I can kind of see that.

SPEAKER_02 33:18

You tell people, take pictures with her, get her autograph. She and I know she like a niece to you now, man. She just a mute, beautiful, amazing, humble person, but very competitive and wants to be great. So, you know, I met Lauren a year a few years ago, but for any young journalist, like I I think like you gotta follow the path that Mark Purdy gave me. I feel so disappointed for college students, especially college athletes who want to be journalists, that like once the summer comes, they just go home and chill. No, you gotta get internship, you gotta get experience, like working on the school, TV station, radio station, newspaper is not enough. You got you gotta get experience. And I get kids that call me in the spring, Mr. Spears, do you know about the internships? Yeah, they they were open in the fall. Apply for them in the fall. You waited to the spring, like these schools gotta like teach these kids like what's available, when when to apply, how to get it, and and then like it's great you gave them this degree, but you didn't get them any experience along the way to help them get a job. And then they're like confused behind the eighth ball, and then uh working at a coffee house, not being able to do, not that there's anything wrong with working at a coffee house, but they're just stuck trying to figure out what to do.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:45

And so that's the thing that I think colleges need to do better is when they walk in the door, and I know a lot of kids don't know what they want to do, but you you gotta kind of zero in so you could figure out a way to help them get experience. It ain't gotta be my first journalism uh internship wasn't paid. I called the San Jose Metro, it's a weekly newspaper, said, Hey, I would love to be your intern for free. I noticed you guys don't have any sports stories. Can I write local sports stories for you? And the lady said, Yeah, please join us. Worked there for three months, got some great clips, and nobody in my resume needs to know I didn't get paid for it, right? Like it's on my resume. It don't matter, you know. So I was like a I would say squeaky wheel gets the oil. Like you gotta go get it. Everything ain't gonna be handed to you. You can't wait for it. So whether it was getting an internship, the San Jose Metro or going through the National Association of Black Journalists to get my first big internship in Grand Rapids, and then the year after I graduated, or after I graduated going to Dallas Morning News, which you know in the 90s, Dallas Morning News might have been the best paper in the sports page in the U.S., like I went and got it.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

I went and got it. And I almost, and so that's why I say I I felt like a first-round pick after I graduated from college because my intern, my experience was so much higher than most. And that was with playing college basketball. Like, I made time to write on the school paper, I made time to cover high school basketball games for the Sounds of the Mercury News. And I remember my coach at UDC, Ed Epps, who actually you'll laugh at this. God bless his soul, too. His claim to fame when I played at UDC was he that he went to the Jazz's minicamp. And he used to tell us, it said in the headline, Big Epps shock the rookie camp. I said, So the headline said Big Epps. Like I used to mess with them. Like, I'd never seen a headline that had somebody nicknamed Big Epps shock the rookie camp. And I was like, Did you make the team? Well, I know I didn't make the team, but I shocked the rookie camp. I was like, all right, man. Like, but he he he one time told me, he goes, if you cared about basketball as much as you do that goddamn journalism, you'd be a hell of a player. I said, coach, man, I'm not UDC. Ain't no NBA scouts here, man. Like, like, I gotta get ready. I gotta get ready for what I'm doing next, man. So thanks for that, I guess. But you know, I'm I'm realistic of who I am and where I want to be.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

Well, it it definitely sounds like at some point, like you had to make a decision to stay disciplined. If you had to go back and maybe give your younger self one piece of advice based on all that you've already talked about, your focus, what would it be?

SPEAKER_02 37:57

We need to get straight A's in high school. It all worked out. Like it's funny, me and my boys talk about this. Because I'm still haunted by the fact that I had a 2.2 GPA in high school. Like it still bothers me, man. It still bothered and I actually end up getting my master's at LSU in sports business management. Um and I had a 4.2 GPA. So how am I gonna 4.2 GPA in grad school and 2.2 in high school, right? Like I was a kid though. I was an immature kid. I didn't I didn't know you don't know what you don't know. Right. And so, but I always like wonder like I didn't I didn't have an amazing college basketball experience. I didn't have that amazing college experience. And what I mean by that, like my first two years, junior college, I lived at home. Also, when I went to UDC, we lived in apartments, they didn't have dorms. And then when I came back home to San L State, I was a walk-on. I lived at home. So I never like I never lived in the dorms, I never had that experience. And I always like tell kids today, like people I went to college with that like lived in the dorms and stuff, and they got a bond that I don't have. Like I never, you know, I never got the experience that that life that they had. And that's one of the great things about going to college is you could meet people from all over the world, different backgrounds. Like I was blessed with that growing up, but I think you could just grow so much as a you know, you got kids that went to college, though, like getting out of the nest is is is a big thing for them. So that that's what I would do. Like there's no excuse not to give straight A's to me. Like you you just gotta put the work in and you can get it done. Um now I will say I was terrible in statistics. I was so bad at statistics in college, like I had to take, there's always a class I had to take twice. It wasn't because I wasn't trying. It just for this um creative writing mind, it just didn't compute to me. I wish they would have had maybe I should have taken business class over statistics. But I remember I had to take it over for the second time. I another thing I would do, I'd tell kids in college and in high school, like I sat in the front row. And once I got to junior college and college after that, I sat in the front row because if you sit in the front row, then you can't be distracted by anything else going on. And then the teacher knows your name if you sit in the front row. And so me sitting in the front row helped me in the second time I took statistics because the teacher was like, Mark, you're trying. You hear every day, you turn it over the homework, it's just not, it's just not registering you with you. I can't say you didn't put the effort in, man. It's it's just and he gave me a he gave he passed me just because I I showed up every day and tried.

SPEAKER_01 40:54

Well, lastly, my man, um how you keep grounded, how you keep grounded and motivated, you know, and keep the grind going in an industry that's ever evolving.

SPEAKER_02 41:08

I don't care how good you are. And I always, you know, appreciate the fact I say this all the time when I hear people complaining about travel and this, that, and the third. I write about basketball for a living. You call basketball games for a living. Just drive around, even once you start feeling bad about your job or whatever, just go start driving around town, wherever town you at and go look at people in pr in peril.

unknown 41:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

Doing tough jobs, having tough lives. We get paid, thorough, to watch the best basketball players in the world play. Every night. You got a better seat than me. I still gotta go back to seat. Go to State, don't do you right. New York, probably don't do you right. There are a few places where I might have you beat. Um about basketball for a living, man. I I I there were posters on my wall when I was a kid. Isaiah Thomas, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, uh, Karima Dul Jabbar, Dominique Wilkins, Thurlow Bailey, Carl Balow. I saw Isaiah the other day, and he's like, oh, Mark gave me a hug, introduced me to his wife, had never met his wife. And he used to be on my wall. And so I'm not in the NBA, but I'm in the NBA. And to have made the Hall of Fame without ever scoring one point in that league, it's still incredible to me. Like, they could put my name in the bathroom if they had to, you know, and I'd be like, hey, let's go to the bathroom and see my name in the hall of fame. Like to like make that is still extremely humbling and bring me so much joy. Anytime, like Stephen Curry refers to me when I see him as Hall of Famer. What's up, Hall of Famer? I mean, like, and it was funny, I was talking to Carmelo Anthony about it yesterday. He's like, I never get tired of people calling me that. You know what I mean? So nothing came easy, but it was it's been an amazing ride, and I'm certainly blessed. And this game of basketball has taken me all over the world in a way that I never would have gone. Um my first NBA game I covered was in Vancouver, and I wish basketball was still there. But it's taken me to Africa, Europe, Latin America. I've probably gone to 40 different countries because of the game of basketball. I'm actually doing something um Belize basketball-wise in July. Like, come on, man.

SPEAKER_00 43:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:59

So that bouncing ball, man, that guy from the Warriors give me advice, like thank you. Like, thank you to like I'm like Kobe. Thank you, basketball, right? Like, it's it's it's it's been the biggest blessing in you know um in my life. Other than the godly blessings, but it's it's yeah, it's been an amazing blessing for me.

SPEAKER_01 44:24

Well, we've been blessed to have you. Thanks for taking us on this journey. Uh, you're gonna inspire and help a lot of people listening out there who who have those dreams. And maybe it's not sports journalism, maybe it's something else. But I think the messages that you've sent to your viewers everything.

SPEAKER_02 44:42

It does everything.

SPEAKER_01 44:45

Thank you, my friend. I love you too, and thank you everybody for joining this episode of Lightning Joining Keep Right. Keep reading.