Skip Bayless Recounts Growing Up With Abusive Alcoholic Father on Facebook

On Tuesday, sports' reigning hot take artiste, Skip Bayless, turned 67. As way of marking the day, he published a lengthy autobiographical essay on Facebook that details his hardscrabble upbringing in Oklahoma. Bayless has always been persona non grata among thinking sports fans who believe in nuance and shades of gray, as opposed to Skip's world of the binary where every take is a bloodsport between two sides. His megalomania remains untethered to reality, and when you hear him describe his upbringing, it's easy to see why.

"I was 'raised' by an evil creep of an alcoholic father and a self-absorbed mother who eventually fell to the bottom of the bottle herself," he laments after outlining his code for life: "Trust only yourself and your instincts. Never back down. Survive and prevail." Those three brief maxims might as well be the guiding mantra of America's 45th President.

Regardless of how you feel about Bayless, the childhood he describes is brutal and unsparing—particularly his unflinching look at the violence he encountered at the hands of his alcoholic father:

Eventually, Skip fought back and knocked his belligerent dad to the ground. The rightful derision he holds for his long-dad father is clear by how he talks of his passing:

According to Bayless, his mom battled alcoholism as well, but went to Alcoholics Anonymous and faced her addiction head-on. As disgusted as Bayless sounds when he chronicles his father's various transgressions, there's real love for his mom, whose strength he sees in himself.

You should read the rest of his birthday essay because it's an unvarnished narrative by a man whose own self-mythology goes a long way towards explaining his professional behavior. We're glad his hardened belief system helped him survive a childhood that may ruined many others, but we wish it had also allowed him a modicum of humility and decency. The world has long since reached its capacity for egomaniacs who think everything they say and write should be emblazoned on the very stones in the Book of Exodus.