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A Conversation With Shaun King
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Published: May 8, 2008
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Shaun King is no stranger to Tampa Bay area football fans. He played at Gibbs High in St. Petersburg and became the quarterback of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. King currently is out of football and working for ESPN as a professional football analyst. His duties include being a part-time color analyst during ESPN's Monday night Arena Football League telecasts. King was in town Monday for the Tampa Bay Storm's game against the Chicago Rush.
You've had plenty of football memories here in the Bay area, and you're making a new one by being in the booth in your hometown. How much have you been looking forward to that?
I've been looking forward to it a lot. This is exciting. I actually got an opportunity to pick the games that I did, so I definitely took the Orlando game earlier this season and this Tampa game.
Was the booth somewhere you always envisioned yourself ending up, or did you somehow just fall into this role?
I knew that I wanted to do studio stuff that was on TV, like "NFL Live," and that type of stuff. I did that this past fall. Jay Rothman, who is over "Monday Night Football" for ESPN and he's also over Arena Football, he asked if I would be interested doing game analyst stuff for the Arena Football League. I thought about it and thought it would be pretty interesting and unique and so I was like, "All right, let's do it."
Being a color analyst now for the Arena Football League, to you, what are the most appealing factors of the AFL game?
I think it's a really exciting game. I think it's fun. One of the things I've tried to do as an analyst is shine a light on the commitment the guys that play Arena Football have toward it. I played briefly in Las Vegas last year so I got a first-hand experience, and that's what stood out to me, how committed they are and that the team really matters to them.
It has been only a year since you were last on the field. Are you viewing your current job as something to hold you over until another playing option opens up, or are your pads in the locker for good?
You never close the door on anything. I haven't filed my retirement papers. Sometimes the window of opportunity in the National Football League closes, sometimes justly and sometimes unjustly. I just think life is about moving on, about making adjustments, about finding new ways to push yourself to continue become a better person, a better analyst, a better football player. So if the opportunity presents itself to go to the NFL I would surely go, but I'm content. When you're talking about covering sports, I mean, ESPN is the pinnacle, as far as that goes.
If you're unable to get back on the field, if that opportunity doesn't present itself, looking back at your football career in its entirety, are you content with how things played out for you?
Well, I mean it's one of those things that sometimes in life you give everything you have to something and you don't necessarily get back what you feel like you deserve from it. But I just think when you do your best and you walk away from something and you don't have to say "What if I would have done this, what if I would have done that," I think you can be satisfied with where it is that you're at. If you look at my NFL career, and you put what I was able to accomplish when I got the chance to play, I mean there's no reason that I shouldn't still be in the league.
But I mean there's a lot of guys who probably still should be in the NFL that aren't. So for whatever reason I haven't gotten that chance, but I'm not bitter about it. I'm grateful that I was able to play six years, that I was able to be a part of a Super Bowl team. I met a lot of great people, and I just thank God that I was able to transition.
Adam Adkins
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