ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith is everywhere. A candid off-air chat, and the fear that drives him

Beneath the bombast, the bluster and the bravado, there is something else very real and very raw inside Stephen A. Smith: a healthy fear.

The man who in many ways has become the signature personality of ESPN, Smith -- the youngest of six children born to Caribbean immigrants -- knows what it’s like growing up poor in New York City: the mostly-empty refrigerators, the roaches scurrying across the floor, the holes in the wall, the need to sit by the oven simply to keep warm on cold winter nights in Queens.

He remembers how he felt when he was fired from ESPN in 2009.

“I was scared to death I had lost everything,” he said.

He holds onto those two memories –- growing up without money, and his firing -- very tightly, as fuel, as a reminder that he needs to remain atop his game.

“When you grow up poor and you see your mom sacrifice the way that she did and you struggle the way we struggled, I’m scared every day of being broke, even when I’m nowhere near broke,” Smith said last week, sitting courtside at Kaseya Center, before an NBA Finals game.

“I’m scared every day. I still wear it on my sleeve. Those things wear on my soul. And that’s why I’m the way that I am because I never want to be in that position again. At one point… every single day, that stuff radiates in my head, my mind and my soul. And I always go about the business of making sure, come hell or high water, that I always have something in my pocket, that I always have opportunities available to me.

“I’m never going to be stagnant or take for granted what I have ever again. I would rather wear myself into the ground than be broke, without the ability to provide for my family. For me, my choice is to make sure my daughters, my 15 nieces and nephews, my sisters, my loved ones are to some degree taken care of because of my efforts.”

Smith, during his second tour with ESPN, has been able to do that, reportedly commanding a salary of $8 million annually.

As usual, he has been ubiquitous during ABC’s and ESPN’s coverage of the NBA Finals. He hosts his weekday ESPN TV program, “First Take,” with a series of rotating co-hosts/sparring partners; appears as an occasional guest on the show that precedes him (“Get Up”); debates with Jalen Rose and Michael Wilbon on the networks’ NBA studio shows before, at halftime, and sometimes following the games; makes time for a podcast; and does essentially anything else that ESPN asks him to do.

Smith, 55, has evolved into perhaps ESPN’s most popular and polarizing figure, an unusual talent that can unleash four-minute rants seemingly without taking a breath, able to change his inflection (from a whisper to a screech) on a dime.

“NBA Countdown,” ESPN’s NBA pre-game show, is better when he’s on it; studio programs are driven by big personalities, and there’s none bigger on his network than Smith.

Though the hyperbolic rants are an acquired taste, there are a couple of things I’ve admired about Smith over the years:

1) His preparation and work ethic.

He said he works a “minimum 16 hours a day if you take into account watching games, being on the phone, cultivating contacts, prep for the shows. To be honest with you, I haven’t always liked it. I like to be at the games. I like to be in the locker room. It kills me that I can’t be on the road at the games as much as I used to be” - when he was a sportswriter in Philadelphia and elsewhere.

He’s known around the company as never saying no when ESPN asks him to do something. Appear on “SportsCenter” at all hours? Will do. Go on somebody else’s show to fill a segment? Absolutely.

“When ESPN asks me to do something, I know it’s about ratings, it’s about revenue,” he said. “I bring ratings and I bring revenue.”

Nobody should feel badly for Smith about sacrificing because he has chosen this life, and many would take it - the fame, the money, the forum to tell a nation what to think about sports.

But there have been sacrifices.

“Some peace,” he said of those sacrifices. “Some sleep. When you’re not getting enough sleep, it compromises your health. There have been times I wasn’t healthy because I pushed myself to the limit and wore myself into the ground. On a deeply, deeply personal level, I would say [I sacrificed] marriage. Even though I’m a proud daddy, the reality is if I didn’t work as much as I do, if I wasn’t committed to my craft as much as I am, I probably would have been married by now.”

2) His courage to speak his mind -- whether it’s calling for a player to be traded or venting, during the Heat-Knicks series, that Julius Randle made him want “to throw up.”

Has Smith’s criticism of athletes created animosity and awkwardness?

Some “people have reacted in a very salty fashion – the Russell Westbrooks of the world,” he said. But “I’m not just a person who gives his opinion. I was in the newspaper business for many, many years. I was in those press rooms, those locker rooms. I prioritize making sure that folks I talk about have access to me to be able to talk to me anytime they want to. I try to make sure they have access to me and they can call me on or off the record and have a conversation.”

Sometimes they’ll pass and respond on social media instead.

Years ago, “when they refused to talk to you, [they had very few alternatives to respond],” Smith said. “Now they just choose to ignore you because they believe they have a voice and all they will do is keep their distance.”

Why has the occasional backlash from players about his comments not deterred him from criticizing athletes?

“I grew up idolizing the likes of Howard Cosell, Peter Jennings, Bryant Gumbel, Sam Donaldson - who covered the White House - and my obligation is first to my audience,” he said. “And number two, I have an obligation to be humane and fair. If I know I’m humane and fair, I sleep well at night. I’m not here to make friends… or create enemies…

“There isn’t a single player, coach, executive or owner that can tell you ‘I had a problem with what Stephen A. had to say and I wanted to talk to Stephen A. and he wouldn’t talk to me.’ I hide from nobody.

“If you choose to ignore me, that’s on you. There have been occasions where I have been wrong about something publicly and people have seen me go right on the air and acknowledge publicly I was wrong. If you’re not interested in that, that means your problem isn’t with what I said. Your problem was with me and you’re looking for an excuse to justify your dislike for me.”

In retrospect, the 2009 firing from ESPN helped him in some ways.

“I was humbled because I thought I was a star and I thought I knew the business,” he said. “The criticism I received I deserved. I thought I was bigger than I was. I thought I had accomplished more than I had.

“You see my name advertised on bus stops, commercials; that was my definition of knowing the business. And I could not have been more clueless. When I was let go and realized how ignorant I was about the business of television, it changed my life.”

For Smith, the goal became “mastering my field, knowing how marketable I can be, what level of value I truly had in the company and what value I did not. When I was let go, it slapped me in the face because nobody called, nobody wanted me. I never forgot that.”

The next frontier for Smith?

Acting.

“I’m going to do it,” he said, smiling. “I have a recurring role on General Hospital. They swear up and down I can act. I have never taken an acting lesson in my life… It makes me better on television. When you do that, you feel like you’ve achieved a great thing. I like that high, that feeling. It is something I intend to do because I think it’s going to make me better in everything I’m doing in my career.”