Earned a variety of awards while working as a sports columnist for The Miami Herald, Los Angeles Times, The Dallas Morning News, Dallas Times Herald, Chicago Tribune and San Jose Mercury News
Parlayed his long-time access to the Dallas Cowboys into a trilogy of books about the team, including God's Coach: The Hymns, Hype and Hypocrisy of Tom Landry's Cowboys; The Boys: Jones vs
Johnson - The Feud That Rocked America's Team; and Hell-Bent: The Crazy Truth About the "Win or Else" Dallas Cowboys
Added radio and television to his repertoire in the 1990s, helping to launch the all-sports 1310 "The Ticket" in Dallas, while also appearing often on The Jim Rome Show, The Sports Reporters, NFL Prime Monday, Jim Rome is Burning and Golf Channel
Established a daily sports-commentary role on ESPN First Take (formerly Cold Pizza) in 2004, eventually dropping his columnist role on espn
com to focus on the show's "1st & 10" segment
Appeared in the 2006 film Rocky Balboa along with fellow ESPN commentator Woody Paige
Bayless played himself, mocking Balboa's participation in an upcoming fight
Inducted---as part of the inaugural class---into the Vanderbilt Student Media Hall of Fame in 2009
Bayless attended the prestigious school on a Fred Russell-Grantland Rice Sports Writing Scholarship