ESPN's Jemele Hill On Race, Football And That Tweet About Trump

One of the biggest stories in a year of big stories was the intersection of sports, race and politics, and it's looking like that story won't go away in 2018.

And at several key moments one of the people who seemed right in the middle of this story was ESPN's Jemele Hill.

Back in February, ESPN relaunched the evening edition of its flagship sports news show, SportsCenter, with Jemele Hill and Michael Smith as its new anchors.

The subtext was hard to miss: The dominant force in the sports media world was promoting two young, popular black personalities, known for their chemistry and candor, in hopes they might bolster sinking ratings by attracting a younger, hipper and, yes, browner audience.

And then all hell broke loose, as the sports world became one of the most contentious battlegrounds around race and politics. Professional athletes whose teams had won championships said they would skip the traditional White House meet-and-greet out of distaste for President Trump's rhetoric around race. And then came the massive controversy around the NFL, the national anthem, Colin Kaepernick and black players taking a knee to protest racial inequality and police violence.

ESPN's coverage came in for particular scrutiny: Was the network promoting a liberal agenda by covering the ongoing protests? Couldn't its anchors