Hall-of-Fame tight end Shannon Sharpe has found his voice on Fox Sports 1’s debate show Skip and Shannon: Undisputed, with Skip Bayless and Joy Taylor. Before Fox, Sharpe spent a decade on CBS Sports’ pregame show The NFL Today, but he was let go in 2014. Two years later, he was hired by Fox, and it was there that he became one of the most important voices on sports television today. His honesty and candor have allowed him to speak out about social issues. GQ sat down with Sharpe to talk about those very social issues, why he thinks he is the best-dressed sports personality on television, and what he would say to Roger Goodell.
On his candor, Sharpe said, “That’s the only way I know how to be. You can tell the truth, but sometimes you can’t always be in your face with it. I found a way to tell the truth, and put it in a nice, neat package for people to receive it. A lot of times, you have to put it in a nice, neat box with a bow tie and when they open it, it’s the truth.”
Sharpe said that race is the biggest social issue in his mind, and it is a very uncomfortable topic because the biggest part of “America was founded on it.” He wants to keep the topic going and he wants to make America better. He told GQ, “It’s my job as a citizen and I demand it.”
As for being the best dressed, Sharpe says it just the “way his suit fits.” “The ensemble that I put together. The combinations that I use. I would be hard-pressed to say that someone on television outdresses me,” he said.
And finally, he would ask Goodell: “What are we going to do to take care of the guys that the NFL was built upon. What can we do to help those guys?”
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