Jason Whitlock

If all of my instructions to staff during the seven years I hosted a radio show were written down and examined, I'd sound a lot like Bruce Levenson. Hell, I might sound much worse. The path to inclusion and diversity is not paved with precise, pretty words.

I apologize for being the voice of reason here, but this sports fan has almost zero interest in seeing women dunk a basketball. It's a nice little novelty act that has a very short life span.

The more popular and entertaining college basketball is, the more popular the NBA would be.

Basketball should be more popular. In my opinion, the NBA should rival the NFL. At the very least, no way should the NFL be five times more popular than the NBA.

With the pervasive popularity of rap music and a black man sitting in the White House, there's no reason to pretend the NBA has been handicapped by the blackness of basketball.

No other powerful public figure in the history of American media has controlled his narrative as effectively as David Stern.

Coaches don't like lazy, disrespectful, cancerous massive headaches.

You can't be Allen Iverson on a football team. And even Iverson got run out of Philadelphia when he was still a spectacular talent because the Sixers got tired of the headache and his bad attitude.

Words matter, particularly when you're writing a story that could significantly damage a person's or an organization's reputation.

A right to privacy is at the very foundation of American freedoms. It's a core value. It's a mistake to undermine a core value because we don't like the way a billionaire exercises it.

Removing Donald Sterling from the NBA solves nothing. It sets a precedent that will likely boomerang and harm the black players and coaches who are shocked and outraged that an 80-year-old man with a documented history of bigoted actions also has bigoted private thoughts.

Atlanta is Exhibit A in my belief that the marriage between hip-hop and sports is a failure.

In fact, female slam-dunking as a spectator sport died this week when Candace Parker won the McDonald's All-American slam-dunk contest.

As someone who has an affinity and passion for discussing racial and cultural issues, I made it a point to only discuss those issues when they really mattered and not turn the shows into Malcolm X Unplugged.

People who commit crimes are generally reluctant to tell on themselves.

I'm a sports columnist who specializes in social commentary.

Dez Bryant isn't Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees or Russell Wilson. Dez Bryant is a typical, me-first NFL receiver diva, cut from the same cloth as Terrell Owens, Chad Johnson, Randy Moss and Keyshawn Johnson, sprinkled with a heavy dash of Pacman Jones.

Dez Bryant isn't a quarterback. He's not a leader. He's a talented, high-maintenance wide receiver.

I eat raw vegetables. But my 30 for 30 documentary better include sit-down interviews with Ronald McDonald, Colonel Sanders and Little Debbie.

The worst thing to be in America and anywhere on the planet is poor.

Racism is an issue in America but is primarily an issue for the poor. It's not LeBron James' issue.

Black people have no reason to fear political free agency.

In the immediate aftermath of the civil-rights movement, Democrats marketed liberalism to us as fashionable, sophisticated and liberating. Today it needs a surgeon general's warning: hazardous to your family and the values you were taught as a child.

There's no way you can do any homework on Black Lives Matters, and not see that it's a Marxist political organization. It's not about Black Death. It's not about black men. It is a political move. It's a communist political move.

The sacrifices you make in your 20s pay off 30 and 40 years later. The same is true when it comes to financial progress. Every dime saved in your 20s turns into a dollar in your 60s.

The liberal-run institution of journalism does not allow probing of real problems facing black people. That is prohibited. It might lead to actual solutions. It might provoke black people to wake up every day looking for solutions rather than excuses and meaningless verbal offenses.

The Colin Kaepernick Kneeling Trojan Horse has turned sports into the victimhood Olympics, the most powerful venue in popular culture to preach critical race excuse-making.

Modern political liberalism, particularly its racial orthodoxy, is the science of excuse-making, the training of black minds for failure.

The greatest obstacle to success is an excuse.

Remember that the NFL was cultivated into prominence by Pete Rozelle, a pro-war conservative. In the 1960s, Rozelle hired a World War II veteran-turned-filmmaker, Ed Sabol, to produce highlights, commercials and documentaries that marketed the sport as patriotic and militaristic.

True story: In the spring, my first in K.C., I'd written a series of columns in the Star demanding the Royals front office give fans discounted prices at concession stands as an apology for the 1994 strike. The Royals acquiesced.

Baseball died in K.C. - and other small markets - in 1994 when Bud Selig and the players' union stopped the season one week after the Hal McRae-led Royals completed a 14-game winning streak.

Baseball and its 162-game schedule are challenging enough, but try winning the world series of dugout poker with cards supplied by Royals owner David Glass, the Wal-Mart-trained billionaire.

Managing the Royals is a job for a man playing without a full deck.

We won. The media. We destroyed Barry Bonds, drove him crazy, turned the most disciplined and feared hitter the game has ever known into a fence-swinging hack, drained all the excitement out of his 714 home runs.

We've been doing a 40-year end zone celebration of the victories won by our parents and grandparents. We haven't shepherded our history. We haven't taught it so others can learn from it and implement the lessons.

I don't do stand-up anymore. There are no rules in stand-up comedy. Journalists follow plenty of rules.

Investing in your long-term health means cultivating the skills to prepare your own meals, developing healthy eating habits and a willingness to make time to exercise. The earlier you embrace these habits, the healthier you will be in your 50s, 60s and beyond.

It is not, nor will it ever be, white people's responsibility to teach black children our unique American history.

Brady Hoke is an underdog. He has an attitude, a chip. He's self-made. He always has something to prove.

I worked in Ann Arbor for two years, covering Michigan football and basketball in the early 1990s.

I jumped on the Brady Hoke bandwagon in 2003 when he left an assistant job at Michigan to be the head coach at our alma mater. During his six years at Ball State, we were close.

I personally love Brady Hoke. He played football at Ball State a decade before me. He was the third-leading tackler on one of the greatest Ball State teams in history.

Making it financially does not protect you, though. Genetic gifts and a gigantic professional contract do not shield athletes from the effect of damaged childhoods.

Jim Crow had unintended benefits. It forced blacks to build and rely on their own economic, educational and social systems.

Segregation has never been a shadowy, impossible-to-pin-down conspiracy. It's been an American way of life.

Men do really dumb things. We see weapons of mass destruction where there are none. We over-emphasize sports. We place athletic achievement ahead of academic achievement. We spoil and pamper child athletes and then complain when they act spoiled and pampered as adults.

We overhype everything. We create monumental myths. There are people who still believe that Brandi Chastain and the U.S. women's World Cup team pulled off the equivalent of the Miracle on Ice.

I'm a conservative dude from the Midwest. I went crazy out here in LA.

Our conversations on 'The Herd' are irreverent, insightful and original. That's a great combination.