Celebrity Drive: ESPN’s Opinionated Stephen A. Smith

Quick Stats: Stephen A. Smith, featured commentator, ESPN
Daily Driver: 2015 Range Rover Autobiography (Stephen’s rating: 10 on a scale of 1 to 10)
Other cars: see below
Favorite road trip: Greensboro, N.C.
Car he learned to drive in: family and friends’ cars
First car bought: 1994 Honda Accord

Despite the outer manifestations of success in reaching the top of his field, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith takes an inspiring and important “worst favorite” road trip each year that transports him back in time to the lowest point in his life, a time when he could barely afford gas in his car, and he lost his beloved brother.

“On a sentimental level, the worst favorite, I think it’s a necessary one,” Smith says. “Every year, I take a drive from New York or New Jersey down to North Carolina. I go through Greensboro to Winston Salem, around High Point and through Archdale, back to Greensboro. It’s almost like a big U-turn spanning 30 miles. I go that route because that’s not only where I was living when my brother died, but it was also where I was living when I was making $15,300 annually, working for the High Point bureau of the Greensboro News & Record, living off of tuna fish and Kool-Aid, barely with enough gas, and all I had to eat at night was tuna fish, toast, maybe some vegetables. All I had to eat every morning was cereal.”

Smith circles the same streets he frequented back then. He stops outside an apartment complex near Main Street in Archdale, North Carolina, where he was living at the time of his loss. “The combination of those two things was the lowest point of my life.,” Smith says. “And I stop, I park there, and I sit there for at least 15 to 20 minutes just staring at my old apartment where I was and reminding myself what I endured, what I went through in order to get to where I’m at.”

Smith always schedules the important road trip in his calendar. “I literally drive and make that road trip every year to remind myself of how far I came and how determined I was to make a better life for myself and ultimately my family,” he says.

His meditative moment isn’t spoiled by anyone around because he doesn’t get noticed. “I’ve got on a baseball or a hoodie, [so] it’s not like people see me standing on the road or anything like that,” he says. “I don’t drive my car sometimes, sometimes I fly, sometimes I rent a car and drive. It depends what mood I’m in because I don’t like putting that extra mileage on my ride, but I think like that and those are the things that I do.”

Car he learned to drive in

Growing up in Queens, New York, Smith’s brother was the one who took him to his driving test and gave him words of advice on the way there.

“The first thing he said to me was, ‘Whatever you do, don’t speed,’” Smith says. “He called me ‘lead foot’ because he said, ‘The one thing you will do is push the petal to the metal, that’s what you do. You do it when you talk, when you’re riding a bicycle, you do it when you’re driving,’ he always told me, ‘You’re one to start off at 100 mph first. You like to do the hardest things quick.’”

Smith’s brother died in October of 1992 in a car accident in El Paso, Texas. “He always said to me, ‘Your confidence stems from the fact that you will embrace a challenge head on, and then you know it will get easier from there,” Smith says. “He said, ‘That’s not how it works when you’re taking driving lessons, and it better not be how it works when you’re taking the driving test because they’ll fail you immediately.’”

Besides his driving tips, Smith’s brother was a teacher for his life. “My brother was everything to me, everything,” he says. “He was everything a big brother was supposed to be—a father figure, a big brother, a mentor, an adviser. He was a lot of different things, and he was my greatest inspiration.”

Smith passed the driving test on his first try, his brother’s words echoing in his mind. “They put these cones, and you had to zip through it in parking lot,” Smith says. “And then after that, you had to go out on the street, and I almost failed the test because the driving instructor asked me to slow down. And then I remembered what my brother told me.”

He slowed down, but he also had to consciously change his bad driving habits for the test, which included: driving with one arm and turning the wheel with one arm. “When I was younger, I did it because it looked smooth,” he says. “When I got older, I did it out of habit, but I’ve always done it that way. For the driving test, I had two hands on the wheel, putting one hand over the other. It was driving me crazy because you had to be disciplined, and it’s hard when you’ve been doing something one way all the time and all of sudden you have to do it that way.”

Smith didn’t have any particular car he learned in. “My brother had a car and my dad because you’re living in a New York City, you’re taking public transportation most of the time,” he says. “So it wasn’t some family car that we had for years or anything like that. I drove numerous cars growing up; it was nothing definitive. Whether it was my dad, my brother, or friends of the family, when they’d get in the car I’d ask them to let me get behind wheel and half the time they’d say ‘yes.’ So I was driving from the time I was 14 and a half years old and then took the test when I was 16.”

Daily driver

Smith spoke to Motor Trend from his 2015 Range Rover Autobiography after the show. It’s the ride that takes him on his long commute to the ESPN headquarters in Bristol each day. “I would rate it a 10,” he says. “It’s the best SUV I’ve ever had in my life. It’s black, it’s got British tan interior, and it is a driving machine to say the least.” Smith has had other SUVs including the Escalade and Explorer. “I’ve driven in every SUV you can imagine. I’ve never been in anything like the Range Rover.”

What makes the Range Rover stand out for Smith is its sturdiness. “You feel protected in it,” he says. “It’s heavy. Just opening the door itself, you know that if you get in an accident, chances are you’re going to be more protected than most considering the way most rides are made in this day and age. It has a lot of power, a lot of speed and a lot of acceleration, but also comfort. The ride is pretty smooth, and I’ve driven in other cars like BMW and Mercedes-Benz. As an SUV, it’s almost right up there with the luxury sedan vehicles that are out there. That’s how comfortable it feels.”

When he drives his family around in the Range Rover, everybody feels protected as well. “It’s got leg room in the back because it’s the Autobiography, so it’s the extended version of the Range Rover,” Smith says. “It’s got a lot of legroom in the back. It’s got legroom in the front. It’s very, very comfortable for me. I’m 6’1” and a half. I’m all legs, so it’s comfortable enough for me.”

2015 Mercedes-Benz S550

Rating: 10

Smith also enjoys his other ride, the Mercedes-Benz S550. “It’s ultra smooth, it’s a luxury sedan, and it’s incredibly comfortable,” he says. “I love it, I love both rides.”

The S550 also gets a perfect 10 from Smith, but the Range Rover still tops it. “I feel they’re both a 10 because they both live up to the expectation,” he says. “It’s just that the reason why I rave so much about the Range is because I expected it from the Benz. I did not expect it from the Range.I bought the Benz hearing so much about how smooth it was, and I had a BMW for years, but I bought the Benz expecting it to be everything it was advertised as. I did not expect the Range Rover as an SUV. What I didn’t expect was that I would love driving around in the summertime in the Range because of how comfortable the ride was as well. That’s what the surprise was for me there.”

First car bought

Smith’s mom bought him a Mercury Topaz 1985, which was an instrumental vehicle that helped him on his career path. “My mother treated me to that car in 1988 when I was in college,” he says. “That’s the first car I ever had. I needed to get it because I kept having to drive back and forth from Winston-Salem State. I was very, very determined to be successful. You had these journalism conferences and internships, and we were poor. My mother was struggling to afford anything, and I would beg her, ‘Mom if you give me the car, I’m going to make this into something.’ She was hesitant. I said, ‘I’ll tell you what, if you give me the car, I’ll be able to work and I won’t need to bother you for money,’ and the second I said that to her, she turned around the ride for me within 48 hours.”

Smith drove the Topaz everywhere until he got a job as a journalist full time and bought a 1994 Honda Accord. That was his first new car.

“I wanted a brand new car, and that’s exactly what I got,” he says. It went everywhere with me, and it was very important. The biggest thing about it was it was the first car that I had that I felt comfortable bringing a girl in. When you’re a guy, and you’re young, you want to be impressive. And so you meet a girl, you want to make sure that you’ve got a nice ride, and the Mercury Topaz wasn’t that nice.”

The Accord was black with grey interior, and it rode smoother than the Mercury Topaz, Smith says.

It wasn’t difficult by then for him to navigate New York City traffic in his brand new ride, but it helped teach him another valuable life lesson. “It was a piece of cake; there was nothing challenging about it” he says. “It’s just that you learned the value of a dollar even more because of gas prices and toll prices in New York City. Even though for most part you were getting reimbursed by the newspaper, the reality is that you still have to come out of pocket initially and then get reimbursed. It just elevated the level of responsibility that you ultimately felt, and you had to monitor your dollars.”

It might have been a bit unusual to be a city reporter with a car, especially with the newsroom in the heart of Manhattan, but having one was part of Smith’s attitude about life. “I was trying to win, and if you’ve got to go in the subway, you find yourself in situations where you’re depending on something else or somebody else or circumstances in order to be successful,” he says. “I needed to get up and go, and I was the kind of person that I was a night crawler. I prided myself as being one of those individuals. While other journalists were asleep, I was awake and I was working. I was pounding the pavement cultivating sources and doing the things that I needed to do. I would meet guys at clubs at two in the morning. I would meet sources at the diner at midnight. I would do all of that.”

Smith comes across as inspiring, even when talking cars. It’s no wonder he does a lot of speaking engagements. “I just speak from the heart,” he says. “I’m happy that I’m able to inspire folks, but when I give speeches, I never write them down. I just might have a couple of bullet points, and that’s it. Other than that, I speak as genuine from the heart as I possibly can.”

ESPN’s “First Take” moves to ESPN Jan. 3

Smith might be one of the busiest guys covering sports. He hosts his Stephen A. Smith Show on SiriusXM weekdays from 1 to 3 p.m. EST, is a featured commentator on First Take 10 a.m. to noon EST, and is an NBA analyst on SportsCenter.

“First Take” moves from ESPN2 to ESPN on Jan. 3. The show will help to anchor the channel with Smith’s passionate opinions.

“It’s going to be the same show, hosted by Molly Qerim,” Smith says. “It’s First Take. Obviously with my former guy Skip Bayless gone, the show is on my shoulders, and I take that with incredible and tremendous pride. It’s a lot of hard work that goes into it and the show’s going to evolve.”

Smith and Kellerman are still working on their chemistry. “What Skip and I had together was special,” he says. “It was a one of a kind of pairing, but at the same time Max Kellerman is incredibly smart. He’s an intellectual, he works very, very hard, he’s very knowledgeable about a lot of different things and the chemistry that we’re developing, we hope, will be something that will last for a very, very, very long time.”

Smith will continue to be on the road to cover NBA games as well as commute to his job at ESPN’s headquarters. “What I’m most happy with as well is our leadership,” he says. “We’ve got a new boss Dave Roberts, who’s overseeing the show. He’s an exceptional television mind, incredibly creative, and I’m incredibly confident that with each passing day, he’ll be coming up with new and innovative ideas to help the show evolve and make it even better.”

Read more Celebrity Drives here:

• Richard Rawlings of ‘Fast N’ Loud’
• Hatebreed Drummer Matt Bryne
• UFC Light Heavyweight Champ Chuch Liddell
• ESPN Radio’s Ryen Russillo

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