Indy native Jason Whitlock out at Fox Sports

Dana Hunsinger Benbow
Indianapolis Star

Indianapolis native Jason Whitlock, an outspoken and controversial TV personality known for his takes on sports and black America, is no longer with Fox Sports.

The Warren Central and Ball State graduate co-hosted “Speak for Yourself,” a sports debate show on FS1 the past four years alongside Marcellus Wiley. Whitlock's contract expired Sunday and, by Monday, he was gone from the show.

“Friday was Jason Whitlock’s last day with FOX Sports,” the network said in a statement. “We thank Jason for all of his hard work and dedication to the network, and we wish him the best in his future endeavors.”

Whitlock did not immediately respond to a text message from IndyStar and his usually active Twitter feed, with 325,000 followers, makes no mention of a job loss. 

His most recent tweet was Sunday at 5:29 p.m.: "God's design. One mouth. Two ears. Two eyes. We should all do 4 times as much listening and observing as talking. Don't be afraid to reflect, acquire knowledge and listen to others with more wisdom. Social media compels us to speak even when we have little of substance to say."

Jason Whitlock's run at Fox Sports ended Friday.

Through the years, as a newspaper columnist, radio host and in various stints at ESPN and Fox Sports, Whitlock has riled plenty of people with his opinions on race, politics and sports.

One of his most controversial takes came two years ago in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that concluded "Black people have no reason to fear political free agency." 

“I don’t really like politics much at all,” Whitlock said at the time, adding he is a non-voter. “If you just say, ‘I think Trump has a good idea here,’ you get kicked out of the black race.'"

He went on to say that in the immediate aftermath of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, the Democrats marketed liberalism as the solution to black people’s problems.

“And liberalism now is like a cigarette. It’s been marketed to us the same as the cigarette — fashionable, sophisticated,” he said. “It’s supposed to be liberating but I think it needs a surgeon general’s warning: Hazardous to your families and all the values you were taught as a child.”

Whitlock said 95 percent of African-Americans “are afraid to even admit that we have conservative values.” He is not.

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No sugarcoating

Whitlock was raised in a tiny apartment in a neighborhood off of 38th Street on Temple Avenue that he described to IndyStar in 2015 as rundown and seedy. He lived there with his brother and single mom, a factory worker at Western Electric.

Whitlock was a strong-willed fireball of a kid and far from deterred by his circumstances. He didn't run the streets. He didn't get into trouble.

Instead, Whitlock read the newspaper every day. He sifted through stacks of Sports Illustrated magazines piled around his bed, hand-me-downs from a friend. He called into local sports talk radio shows to give critiques of his beloved Indiana Pacers. Indianapolis Colts announcer Bob Lamey knew him by name.

Jason Whitlock is shown in an Easter outfit he wore as a young boy growing up in Indianapolis.

When Whitlock was in third grade, a burglar broke into the family's apartment. It scared his mom enough that she took on a second job as a cashier at a supermarket.

She wanted to move her boys to the suburbs or at least what was considered the suburbs in the 1970s. The family moved to 21st Street and Post Road into Nottingham Village apartments.

"For a kid from the hood? It had two outdoor pools, an indoor pool, a clubhouse, a lake," said Whitlock. "We thought we had moved to … well we were the Beverly Hillbillies or the Jeffersons is better. We had moved on up."

Whitlock told his story after being inducted into the Indiana Sports Writers and Sportscasters Association's Hall of Fame in 2015.

He talked about how he doesn't sugarcoat and prides himself in telling it like it is.

"I'm not shy about it," he said. "No reason to be."

Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on Twitter: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via email: dbenbow@indystar.com.