Quotes from Jemele Hill

We Americans can be haughty. We can be delusional.

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.

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.

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

My father played hockey until he was 18.

As a kid, I heard elders in my family say in passing that Jewish people were consumed with making money, and that they 'owned everything.' My relatives never dwelled on the subject, and nothing about their tone indicated that they thought anything they were saying was anti-Semitic - not that a lack of awareness would be any excuse.

I think that a lot of people, especially as technology began to speed up and we became more distant, we kind of started to lose our appreciation for human contact and gathering and friendships and a lot of the things that we really took for granted.

Just because I've written extensively about race doesn't render me incapable of making the same mistakes as the people I've written about.

I once wrote about Don Imus that 'speech is free, but consequences are not.' I never want to be the exception to that rule, and I'm not sure any of us want to live in a world where hurtful things are hurled around without cost.

This country's response to the coronavirus has been disastrous because of poor, incompetent leadership at the national and state levels. More than 4.6 million Americans have become infected with the coronavirus. Basic safety precautions have been manipulated into a political issue.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The things that make for a good journalist - or for that matter, make for good journalism - they've never changed since the craft was invented.

Because Shaq played alongside one of the most disliked, phenomenally talented players in NBA history, Shaq became a great guy without really having to do anything. People love Shaq because he's not Kobe.

Contrary to stodgy opinions, young men have a right to go out. They want to hang with their peers. They want to talk to women. They want to show off a little of their success. Nothing wrong with any of that - as long as they're careful.

No problem in the history of humankind has ever gotten solved by evading it.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.