Stephen A. Smith Has Always Been Stephen A. Smith

Stephen A. speaks in stanzas, extemporaneous and emphatic, his verses peppered with Smithisms and triumphant declarations about the world according to Smith. It’s lyrical, melodious, but there’s a looping trajectory to his answers, too, and any question is clearance for takeoff. Ask him about a famous joke tweet where he’s talking to a P.F. Chang’s waiter, and you'll get a stunning soliloquy about his life lived as the man in the arena, the one whose talk the others chatter about. He’s right, of course: ESPN’s $12 million man is a titan of the entertainment world, not unlike the athletes he covers and comments on, an attraction in and of himself.