Stephen A. Smith Claims Golfers, NASCAR Drivers Aren’t Athletes—Why It’s Explosive
Stephen A. Smith drew sharp backlash by arguing golfers and NASCAR drivers aren’t athletes. The debate exposes how “athlete” gets defined in modern sports culture.
Professional athletes are often separated into boxes—strength, speed, endurance, skill—and on his show Stephen A. Smith decided to redraw the lines in a way that landed with a thud.
Smith recently pushed a provocative claim: golfers and NASCAR drivers. despite elite performance. should not be considered “athletes.” The discussion started around LeBron James and longevity. then spilled into listeners calling in with other legends.. When Richard Petty came up. Smith reacted as if the premise itself didn’t qualify. insisting the conversation had to stay within a strict definition of athleticism.
The core of Smith’s argument
Smith’s logic was blunt: golfers aren’t athletes because they walk a course and swing for precision. and NASCAR drivers aren’t athletes because they “just drive.” In his view. the ability to do the activity in later decades—like driving a car in your 60s or walking a golf course—makes it less “athletic” than sports built around relentless. repeatable physical tests.
He also treated the idea of NASCAR and golf as Olympic-adjacent athletic endeavors as almost laughable, framing it as if the definition of athlete should be reserved for activities that look more like what grandparents and grandkids can’t do.
Why the “athlete” debate refuses to die
The issue here isn’t just whether golf or NASCAR requires skill.. It’s that “athlete” is a cultural label, not a single measurable standard.. People use it to mean different things: some hear “athlete” as speed and contact; others hear “athlete” as body control under pressure; still others treat it as the overall mix of training. mental toughness. and physical readiness.
Smith’s phrasing—“are you kidding me?” and “you’re skilled. you’re phenomenally skilled”—tries to acknowledge excellence while still stripping away athletic identity.. That’s a key rhetorical move: it reduces the work to technique without granting the same status granted to sports that more visibly punish bodies.. And for many fans, that framing feels backward.
What gets overlooked in the dismissal
Smith’s argument leans heavily on the idea that if an action can be performed by older people. it can’t be athletic.. But that skips the difference between “being able to do” and “being elite at doing.” Riding a bicycle is something millions can do casually; racing at a high level is a different universe—where precision. stamina. nerves. and repetition become the product.. The same principle applies to sports that don’t look like nonstop sprints.
In golf, the sport’s demands aren’t simply the act of walking and swinging. Elite performance requires tight mechanics, repeated execution under fatigue, and physical consistency across rounds. Mental endurance matters just as much as form—especially when a small mistake can erase hours of work.
In NASCAR, the physical part isn’t limited to “driving.” High-level driving involves concentration at speed, rapid decision-making, and enduring intense conditions for long stretches. The body has to stay engaged—eyes, reflexes, balance, and tolerance for stress—while the margin for error is tiny.
Smith may see “walking the course” or “getting behind the wheel” as casual markers. But in elite contexts, those motions become controlled, sustained performance problems—ones athletes train for, monitor, and refine.
The backlash isn’t just about sports—it's about identity
This claim is also a reminder that sports arguments are rarely only about sport.. They’re about status.. Calling someone an athlete is a social recognition of effort, risk, and discipline.. When Smith denies that label to two major categories of elite competitors. fans don’t just hear a hot take—they hear a dismissal of their preparation.
For viewers, the frustration lands because Smith’s definition of “athlete” feels oddly narrow and, frankly, circular.. If the ability to perform a basic version of an activity in later life disqualifies it. then by extension a wide range of elite sports would struggle to qualify.. The sport itself becomes less important than what a person can do in a casual setting.
That’s the contradiction at the heart of the argument: it treats athleticism as something you either have in a specific look—or you don’t.
A telling exception—and what it suggests
Smith did leave a doorway open when he suggested some golfers could be athletes, even if not “because” of golf.. His underlying standard seemed to shift toward physical fitness as the main credential, not the sport’s own demands.. That concession may feel even more awkward to fans, because it implies the athletic value is external to the competition.
If athletic identity is only granted when the person matches Smith’s preferred image of training. then the definition becomes less about what athletes actually do and more about what counts as recognizable effort.. In practice. that can flatten sports into stereotypes: contact sports get the full stamp. while precision and endurance get treated like smaller forms of athleticism—even when the pressure is enormous.
For Misryoum readers, the takeaway is simple: this isn’t just a disagreement about golf or racing.. It’s a live argument over what society chooses to reward and how quickly we shrink complex performance into a single sentence.. Smith’s take may be provocative. but the discussion it sparks shows how hungry sports fans are for definitions that respect the full range of elite work.