Clark addressed his dismissal from the network after 12 years on an emotional episode of ‘The Pivot,’ and cleared up the belief that Stephen A. Smith could have kept him from getting laid off.
Ryan Clark might not have been the biggest name during his NFL playing career when he walked away as a Super Bowl champion. After recent layoffs at ESPN, Clark took some time to gather his thoughts and used his platform to let the world in on one of the most difficult days of his professional career.
In an emotional episode of his “Pivot” podcast alongside co-hosts Fred Taylor and Channing Crowder, Clark let all of his emotions out about being let go from ESPN after an on-air career that saw him win multiple Sports Emmy awards and be hailed for spotlighting former LSU football player Greg Brooks and giving a human aspect to Damar Hamlin’s near-death experience on the field.
“I wasn’t laid off, I was fired,” he bluntly said about the much-reported conversation he had during his final “NFL Live” appearance. “They’re using layoffs as a cover and a camouflage for what they already intended on doing, but there was no cause for it, right? So, because there was no cause for it, you couldn’t just fire me. So, you had to wait for the layoff so you could camouflage it and veil it, right?”
Clark says he didn’t deserve to be fired, especially in the manner he was fired, and took issue with the fact that his dismissal was leaked to an outlet that has vilified him on numerous occasions.
When asked if he’d change anything about his 12-year tenure at ESPN, Clark told Taylor and Crowder that “acceptance” was the main thing on his mind and that maybe not playing the relationship game doomed him.
“There’s some things I’d do differently,” he admitted around the 30-minute mark, in reference to individuals who might still be on television that he feels he’s better than. “Because I feel like I let them win. I feel there’s a group of people, a faction of individuals who wanted to devalue my voice, who wanted to take away my platform … I feel like I let them win.”
He added, “Then there’s the other side of it, of like my platform isn’t as big anyway, or it’s not as impactful anyway if I don’t do those things. If I’m not that person, if I’m not authentically me, right? It’s not even something I can prove that if I was different, they wouldn’t fire me. I’d hated to be fired being something I wasn’t.”
Tearfully, Clark found pride in being himself on air and how it translated when he would return home to his native New Orleans or whenever he was seen in public.
“You ask me like when I see people in public like OGs and aunties and they tell me they’re proud of me and they’re proud of the way I represent the community? I wouldn’t change anything. Cause that means the world to me. When I go home and this kid from the West Bank is so accepted in New Orleans now? I wouldn’t change that. Never.”
He added, “All I ever wanted to do is be accepted, you know, and and wanted. That, I wouldn’t change.”
The three men shed tears throughout the interview but Clark revealed that he had received intel that how he stood up for the Black community had created “enemies” at the executive level and that he couldn’t respond to certain criticisms of him or even disrespect.
“I knew, for lack fo a better word, I couldn’t be too Black,” he said. “What makes me sad is even in trying to adjust to be at least more of what certain people wanted, they still fired me.”
Clark also addressed the belief that Stephen A. Smith, one of the network’s highest-paid talents, could have prevented him from getting put on the chopping block.
“Stephen A with all of his power, with all of his influence, is not a true decision maker at ESPN,” Clark said. “That’s that’s not his that’s not his job title, right? That’s not in the repitoire of what he’s asked to do. I get it all the time, ‘Why do you ride for him all time?’ I tell him when I think he’s doing too much, but when this company was treating me in a way that in my opinion was unfair as it pertains to what I accomplished? He was the first one to say, ‘I want you.’”
“That will never be forgotten by me. I will forever be grateful for that.”