Skip Bayless Explains Why He Prioritizes His Job Over Marriages and Children

The third episode of The Skip Bayless Show dropped yesterday. At one point Bayless peeled back the curtain into his personal life to explain why he has such respect for Tom Brady, a man who has been able to balance an insane career, the march of time, and family life. In an extremely revealing digression, Skip explained why his work has always and will always come first.

"I chose in my 20s, as I was coming up in this business, to not have children. I married not my high school sweetheart but my junior high sweetheart and one reason we didn't make it was I knew she wanted kids and I knew the deeper I got into my career, I just couldn't have kids. I am obsessed to this moment with what I'm doing right here, right now with you. I live for this. It's my whole life. It's my calling. It's not a job, it's my passion. It's what I was born to do and what I want to continue to do as long as my personal situation will allow it.

"Then, after that relationship ended, my first marriage, I had a longer-term relationship with another woman and in the end she just had to have children. I said, 'I can't.' I tried to get there and I couldn't get there. I just knew I was going to have to move to move up — that's how this business works — and I just knew that if I continue to work nights and weekends the way I do obsessively, that I'd be a horrible father. I'd be as horrible a father as my father was for other reasons and I wasn't going to inflict that on kids. Not fair, not worth it, no. I'm married to this. Then I met my wife, Ernestine, 17 years ago in New York City. On our first date, as she will attest, I said 'hey, if this happens to go anywhere, I'm sorry but I'm declaring myself up front, you'll always be No. 2 to my job, which is my life.'"

The guy really likes his job, huh? Would that we could all be as passionate about something.