Ryan Clark has revealed that he made it his "trajectory" to reach the level of Stephen A Smith, after seemingly being shunned by the famous sports anchor.
The Pivot Podcast co-host joined Complex's Noah Callahan-Bever for the latest episode of Idea Generation, and revealed that he was once snubbed when Smith was naming his media successors. But years later, Clark has established himself as one of the top sports personalities, as Pivot Podcast has 1.2 million YouTube subscribers.
"I told this story maybe once: Stephen A. was asked years ago who are like the next Stephen A.s, who are the athletes who would be the next guys." Clark said around the 5:15 mark of the video above. "And he didn't mention me."
Since Clark was the "first active football player to ever work in TV," he considered himself a "trendsetter" and thought he deserved to be named by Smith. "But you said those two dudes? Aight, bet. I got you. I'll show you," Clark said.
The athlete then positioned himself to be in "competing" mode against the two people that Smith named.
"And when I walk off this set I want to know and feel in my heart, 'Man, I killed dude,'" Clark added. "As great as I want him to do, because he might be my friend, he might be my colleague, I want to crush him. And that was kind of how things started to change for me."
Smith has recently backed Clark as an ESPN NFL analyst, not wanting him to be fired after his recent feud with Robert Griffin III. The two former football stars were debating Caitlin Clark's hard foul against Angel Reese when things got hectic over social media.
