American sports journalist and television personality Skip Bayless was born John Edward Bayless II on December 4, 1951 in Oklahoma City, OK. His father called him Skip or Skipper and the name stuck. He was never called John by his parents but he is Skip Bayless always to them so he legally changed his name to Skip. Rick Bayless, chef, restaurateur and TV personality, is his older brother. He attended Northwest Classen High School and played with the school’s basketball team that made it to the 1970 Oklahoma State Finals. When he graduated, he was awarded the prestigious Grantland Rice Scholarship and attended Vanderbilt University where he majored in English and History while being a member of Phi Kappa Sigma. He is also a member of the inaugural class of the Vanderbilt Student Media Hall of Fame.

Skip Bayless has an estimated net worth of $7 million with an annual salary of $500,000 as a commentator for ESPN. He began working as a writer for The Miami Herald for two years and then for The Los Angeles Times. He was hired away from The L.A. Times by the Dallas Morning News. He was then offered one of the highest salaries for any sportswriter nationwide to write for The Dallas Herald Times that prompted The Wall Street Journal to do a story on the development.

Bayless was named Texas sportswriter of the year three times. However, he chose to move to the Chicago Tribune in 1996 after spending 17 writing years for the Times Herald. He left the Chicago Tribune and transferred to write for the San Jose Mercury News. He became a fixture on ESPN’s Rome is Burning while in San Jose. He also had a weekly SportsCenter debate program soon after. He became the full staff member of ESPN and ESPN.com in 2004. By 2007, he became fully concentrated in his television programs ESPN First Take and First and 10. He also wrote three books for the Dallas Cowboys: God's Coach: The Hymns, Hype, and Hipocrisy of Tom Landry's Cowboys (1990), The Boys: The Untold Story of the Dallas Cowboys' Season on the Edge (1993), and Hell-Bent: The Crazy Truth About the "Win or Else" Dallas Cowboys (1996).

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