Top 70 Jemele Hill Quotes

There’s a long history and a pattern of Black athletes – and Black people, period – being told to shut up and accept whatever it is they’re given.

The Lakers got Pau Gasol for 10 rubles and a John Tesh DVD.

Just because I’m a black woman doesn’t mean I’ve got an automatic sensitivity chip for cultures outside of my own.

A NASCAR guy can drop-kick another driver through his car window and it is just considered part of the sport. Hockey players drop their sticks and pound on one another on a regular basis and no one dares blame it on anything other than just a boiling, competitive spirit.

I don’t dig ditches for a living and consider it pretty special that I’m able to watch games for a living, cover athletes and get access the average person can’t.

I don’t stick up for Al Sharpton often because I consider him an agitator, but Sharpton’s views on ‘gangsta’ rap have been consistent and clear.

As an NBA fan, there is nothing more irritating than when the league’s credibility is challenged by cockamamy conspiracy theories.

Shaq is like an oversized muppet, and who doesn’t love muppets?

Not to oversimplify what football coaches do, but their success or failure hinges on concepts that aren’t foreign to any coach.

I used to think my dad and I talked sports because it was just an easy way for two people who didn’t know each other that well to make conversation. I see now it’s also a way for me to see who my dad really is and, if I’m lucky, see why he made the choices he did.

I prefer rappers who have something intelligent to say.

Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson and Patrick Ewing will be among the best centers ever, but none of them affected the league the way Shaq and Tim Duncan have.

I routinely get e-mails from readers who are disgusted because they feel the race card is played too much and inappropriately. (By the way, can someone put the phrase ‘race card’ in a cryogenic chamber and never thaw it? It demeans what is still a real struggle).

Perspective should never influence punishment. Too often in our society, we practice selective perspective. We’re willing to see all the angles only when it suits us. When perspective becomes inconvenient, we can be unflinching, even cruel.

I’m usually fine with NFL players holding out. Considering the risk of injury and no guaranteed contracts, you can’t blame them for getting what they can when they have the most leverage.

Anyone who generates opinion for a living is going to get plenty of feedback, positive or negative. Some people indeed don’t like the fact that I’m a woman with strong opinions. And if they disagree with me, they are quick to point out what my gender is. I chalk it up to being the nature of people.

Sports has always been a great entry point for us to discuss issues that are pretty widely known in society.

Two things you almost always see when ‘MTV Cribs’ features a black superstar: a poster of Tony Montana and a poster of the Godfather. Montana and Michael Corleone, though fictional, are considered heroes by young black men everywhere.

When it comes to race, uncomfortable is best. How can we learn if we always feel good about where we are? The best checks and balances require that we re-evaluate, learn and grow.

I’ve learned a lot about guys through Twitter and I’m for any channel that allows athletes to express themselves openly.

I had very simple goals. They weren’t about destination or place. It was about being good.

Detroit is known as ‘Hockeytown,’ but the Lions are truly the soul of the city.

When a country doesn’t respect Black lives, maybe it doesn’t deserve to be entertained by Black athletes.

Kobe Bryant is better than Michael Jordan. Not more successful. Hasn’t had a bigger economic impact. Hasn’t won more MVPs. Hasn’t won more titles. But he’s a better player.

When I was at The Orlando Sentinel as a sports columnist, it was embarrassing that I was the only black female sports columnist at a daily newspaper in North America.

Yes, I do realize that men in sports media also face criticism and backlash, but the vitriol that is directed at women, especially women of color, is far more severe.

There is no way American sports are any cleaner than cycling.

Someone taught us how to craft a resume, what to wear to a job interview and not to put our elbows on the table. Athletes also must be trained as professionals. Their livelihoods depend on it.

Although study after study shows black men are more likely to be victims of crime, rarely do they receive victim treatment. When black athletes are crime victims, the undertone seems to be they somehow were at fault.

SportsCenter’ is the legacy brand at ESPN, I had a great year doing the show. But it was not a fit for me because ultimately I had a lot of things that I really wanted to say and wanted to express, and the ‘SportsCenter’ vehicle is not necessarily set up for that.

Even though I’m from Detroit, my favorite NFL team is the 49ers. My mother went to junior college in the Bay area and Joe Montana was her favorite athlete. So somehow I became a 49ers fan.

Race impacts 90 percent of our society – and I’m probably undershooting that figure. I find this fascinating and like to address it when pertinent.

America hasn’t been able to grapple with the uncomfortable reality that police brutality is encoded in this country’s DNA.

Far too many athletes have been unable to let go of their troubled roots or just have failed to fully understand their new lives and what’s expected of them.

Personally, I love athletes on Twitter. I think it gives them an opportunity to engage and show some of their personality.

If the lead line in my obituary is ‘She once tweeted that the president is a white supremacist,’ I will see my life as a professional disappointment.

We Americans can be haughty. We can be delusional.

Newsflash: competitive athletes fight sometimes. They also are egomaniacs.

Can I just say that PBR is one of the most underrated beers of all time? And good God it’s cheap.

One of the worst things in sports is when selfishness gets disguised as truth.

Our country has had a painful, racial history, and there are many issues that bear discussing.

Every day, we read about athletes who let their sport define them.

It’s something most people of color and most women have been burdened with their whole lives, having to suppress your natural emotion to make everybody else feel comfortable. Repeatedly having to do that takes its toll.

The sports world provides a great platform for racial discussions. It’s also one of the few places in society where, 99 percent of the time, performance trumps race. Most times, but not always.

My father played hockey until he was 18.

Yes, I discuss race openly, honestly and, hopefully, intelligently.

Athletes are no different than many of us.

A studio gangster dupes people into believing he’s a tough guy, but in reality he’s the former student body president and member of the National Honor Society. Once Vanilla Ice was fingered as a studio gangster, his career was over. Thank God.

Stereotypical and hurtful tropes about Jews are widely accepted in the African American community.

If you’re paying taxes in this country, you have a right to voice your criticisms of your own government. That’s pretty much the foundation of American freedom.

Racism has never been outright gone in the history of this nation, but I think we’ve had moments where everybody has been really fed up with its presence.

The paid professionals who navigate the complications of playing their sport during a pandemic at least share in the financial rewards. Far worse off are college football players – who lack the union protection and financial resources of their professional counterparts.

Professional athletes have a special relationship with their cars. Some treat their cars better than their wives or girlfriends. Some are more loyal to their cars than their teams.

I don’t know of any coach – black, red or green – who could have coached Lawrence Taylor better than Bill Parcells.

It’s very easy on social media to manipulate people’s emotions, to manipulate their belief systems.

I am the columnist who plays the would-this-happen-to-a-white-guy game because there are just too many double standards. But I’m equal opportunity with the game, including Hispanics, Asians, women and men.

I hate running.

When you’re young, you do dumb things. I just can’t understand why some other athletes never were extended that same excuse.

Even for a billionaire, a divorce isn’t easy.

When you’re in the public eye, it allows people to see you inhumanely. There’s this idea that you have to take the abuse. And when younger journalists, especially young female journalists, ask me how I handle social media, I hate myself when I have to tell them to condition themselves and develop a thick skin.

Think about the most successful coaches in sports. What did they all have in common? It wasn’t their knowledge of X’s and O’s. It was their ability to lead, motivate and manage – traits you need no matter what or where you coach.

Americans love to be entertained, often at the expense of our judgment, morals and values.

I think one of the innate challenges that comes with being on ESPN is that it is a sports network. It is an entertainment space largely, and because of that – as should be the case – politics aren’t expected to be addressed in a meaningful way at a sports network.