Leaving ESPN and Joining AOL, Whitlock Won't Back Down

After his unceremonious departure from ESPN, Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock has made his debut appearance as an AOL Sports columnist. In the first edition of his column, Real Talk, Whitlock says he has big plans for an exchange with fans that will feature insight, opinion and argument.

It's that last one, argument, that has had Whitlock in the news lately. Except when he's being mistaken for Ruben Studdard, most people who recognize Whitlock know him from ESPN, where he regularly appears on The Sports Reporters and Pardon the Interruption. Or, rather, he regularly appeared, something that came to an end after a wide-ranging interview with The Big Lead in which he called fellow Sports Reporters panelist Mike Lupica "an insecure, mean-spirited busybody." The two of them had it out on the Sports Reporters set when Whitlock said that while he's not a Barry Bonds fan, he also doesn't particularly care whether Bonds used steroids. That sent Lupica into a fit of apoplexy.

After his comments about Lupica (and about ESPN.com Page 2 columnist Scoop Jackson, whom he called "a clown" whose "fake ghetto posturing" amounts to "a bad Nat X impersonation"), ESPN told Big Sexy (as Whitlock likes to be called) that he wasn't welcome anymore. Whitlock recounted his exit from ESPN in a Kansas City Star column that stopped short of burning bridges but probably didn't make his ex-bosses happy. Getting dumped by ESPN is serious -- although the big-time sports blogs like Deadspin have spoken highly of his candor, ESPN is by far the biggest player in the world of sports, and if you're on ESPN's bad side, it's not easy to have a comfortable life in sports. That's why Bill Simmons, the best and most popular columnist at Page 2, said (as noted at Kissing Suzy Kolber) that while he likes Whitlock, "I don't see what he had to gain by venting to a blog. What's the benefit?"

I think the benefit is clear: By speaking his mind publicly -- to a blog or to anyone else -- Whitlock lets his readers know that they can count on straight talk from him, not the words of someone who's trying to please the boss. Oh, and there's one other thing Whitlock's readers know: His rational, level-headed analysis of football goes out the window when a certain washed-up but strong-armed quarterback's name comes up. Whitlock surprisingly gets through the first edition of Real Talk without any mention of Jeff George, but he makes up for that with his "10 Rules" sidebar, which begins with, "I'm a homer for one thing and one thing only - my old high school quarterback Jeff George." Some things never change.