Stuart Scott: 1965-2015

[Nick Setta]

I thought this thread was like a sick internet joke before I opened it. I had no idea he was battling cancer, R.I.P Stuart you'll be missed.

 

[Rhode Irish]

I have to be honest and say that I really did not enjoy him as a broadcaster at all, but as I followed his battle with cancer over the last seven years I discovered he was an absolutely fantastic human being. I am surprised there are people saying they didn't realize he was sick....his strength in the face of his illness was always inspiring, but that he showed so much strength that people didn't even realize he was sick is a testament to what a special guy he was. Everyone that knew him loved him, that is also a testament to the type of guy he was.

RIP to Stu and godspeed to his two brave daughters. Sad day for the sports world for sure.

 

[ulukinatme]

One of the best in ESPN, he symbolized the good things on that channel. Get's me a little choked up to see how much he cared for his daughters, great family man. RIP

 

[KPENN]

Rich Eisen remembers Stuart Scott - NFL Videos

 

[woolybug25]

Rich Eisen remembers Stuart Scott - NFL Videos

Anybody that can watch that with a dry eye simply isn't human.

 

[IrishJayhawk]

Anybody that can watch that with a dry eye simply isn't human.

My allergies have been acting up all day.

 

[Grahambo]

Just wanted to add that as the day has gone on, I have continued to be more saddened by this. It's truly an end to an era. Stuart Scott has been the voice of my sports since I was 11 years old. Truly a sad day.

Me too. Him, Rich Eisen, Dan Patrick, Kenny Mayne, Linda Cohn, Charley Steiner, and Keith Olbermann are the ones I really remember from growing up in the '90s. I really couldn't tell you who the main cast is now nor do I even care. They don't hold a torch to the crew from the '90s.

 

[ohara831]

When you see these professional sports anchors just breaking down on the air as they speak of Stuart Scott, you see just how much he touched their lives. And how much they respected him as a broadcaster and as a man. The world lost a very good and inspiring man today.

 

[BGIF]

I believe Keith Jackson first used "Cooler than the other side of the pillow" in the 60's possibly before Stuart Scott was born. Jackson had a distinctive voice but when Scott said it, it was lyrical.

I watch very little ESPN outside of games they carry and wasn't aware Scott had cancer until I saw a news clip on the Jimmy V Award speech. It was moving.



Stustrong R.I.P.

 

[irishff1014]

Me too. Him, Rich Eisen, Dan Patrick, Kenny Mayne, Linda Cohn, Charley Steiner, and Keith Olbermann are the ones I really remember from growing up in the '90s. I really couldn't tell you who the main cast is now nor do I even care. They don't hold a torch to the crew from the '90s.

It feels like that was ages again. They are the real sports center.

 

[twig21]

Anybody that can watch that with a dry eye simply isn't human.

agreed, my family broke down during the SC tribute. Stu was talented, inspiring and adored his girls. Truly a sad day.

 

[Bishop2b5]

I guess I've known this day was coming for some time, but it's still such a sad thing. What a good guy and outstanding sportscaster. Probably my favorite ESPN guy ever.

 

[Irish#1]

Anybody that can watch that with a dry eye simply isn't human.

Flipped over to ESPN before the Colts game to watch the tribute and his speech. Inspiring and emotional.

 

[BobD]

RIP Stuart. My condolences to his family and work family.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/htX689cOnb0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[Redbar]

RIP Stu, like others have said one of the best in the business, certainly one of my favorites. Courageous man. May God bless his family.

 

[FDNYIrish1]

Always thought he seemed like a cool dude, but didn't pay much attention. Watching that ESPY speech, I have a newfound respect for him. I honestly don't know if I would be able to handle myself with such dignity and grace as he did that night. Watching the people who worked with him all these years break down today made me realize he must have been an awesome human being.

 

[Polish Leppy 22]

Booyah. RIP.

 

[KPENN]

ESPN pays tribute to the late Stuart Scott, poor Winter Classic ratings, more Media Circus - More Sports - SI.com

They all talked about what it would mean if the piece ever aired. It meant their friend and colleague was dead. But the small group of ESPN staffers who worked on the feature honoring the life of Stuart Scott believed they owed it to their colleague to produce something with love and care if that awful day ever came.

On Sunday the awful day came when Scott passed away from cancer at the too-damn-young age of 49. A popular anchor on ESPN for two decades, the network ran a 14-minute feature on his life and career, a piece that appropriately first aired on SportsCenter, the show that gave life to his television fame.

The video obit, a beautiful, moving tribute that should be watched and shared, was completed months ago. ESPN feature producers Mike Leber, Miriam Greenfield and Denny Wolfe, the point people for the project, began working on it shortly after Scott’s emotional speech at the ESPYs last July 16, when the anchor amplified how difficult his cancer had hit him. The group completed the feature on September 18 and silently hoped the original would stay buried in Leber’s desk forever.

“All of the people interviewed for the piece, and all those working on it, we all said at one point during the process that we hoped this would sit on the shelf for a long time,” Lieber told SI.com on Sunday afternoon. “It was something that nobody wanted to think about or talk about but to pay the proper tribute, we knew we had to do it.”

Leber said he and Greenfield cast a wide net for subjects; they wanted people who had worked with Scott for a long time, including those that had left ESPN like the NFL Network’s Rich Eisen and NBC’s Dan Patrick. Out of respect and care for Scott, Mark Gross, an ESPN senior vice president for production and remote events, informed Scott’s longtime agent, Jacqueline (Jackie) Harris, that the piece was being constructed. Gross asked Harris if she thought Scott would want to know about the piece. Harris suggested they go forth without informing Scott. Most of the ESPN people I spoke on Sunday believe Scott never knew such a piece existed.


“We definitely discussed whether to include him and the discussion was along the lines of maybe he would want to contribute in some way, or maybe he would feel hurt if someone said the wrong thing and he found about it through other means,” Leber said. “But the other side of it was he was in a position where he needed so much positive energy and positive reinforcement and the idea that his friends and colleagues were preparing for the end is such a negative. Being a professional, he may have known something was up and chose not to ask about it. But to my knowledge, he was not aware of the piece."

Greenfield had the task of interviewing many of the people, including Gross, who said he watched the piece by himself in his office for the first time last month.

“I shut the door in my office and just watched,” said Gross whose father Harvey passed away from colon cancer last month. “And I was sort of numb from watching it because I could not believe what I was watching. I was a producer on [ESPN2’s] Sports Night when Stuart came here from Orlando [in 1993] and doing something called Sports Smash updates. I was working with him then and worked with him on all sorts of things. I remember like it was yesterday when he went into the hospital in Pittsburgh after a Monday Night game [in Nov. 2007] for appendicitis and that’s when this all this started. They discovered cancer during that procedure.

"I just want people to know that this was a great guy whether he was on TV or at home or playing basketball. It wasn’t an act. Some people loved him on the air. Other people did not love him. The bottom line for me was he was who he was and he never altered from that. There will never be another Stuart Scott. He made shows feel bigger and you wanted to be producing a show that Stuart Scott was part of because he had the ability to make it bigger. He was a great and caring guy, a hardworking guy.”

Leber and Greenfield found out Scott had passed before sunrise on Sunday and hustled to get the piece ready for air. Leber said producers were working on some of the auxiliary Scott pieces that ran on Sunday as late as two weeks ago. There are a lot of advanced pieces that live on ESPN’s servers until they run but Leber and Co. intentionally did not put the main Scott feature on the servers because they did not want the piece living electronically. “God forbid someone hits a wrong button or sees that we are preparing it and starts to talk, and word got back to Stuart,” Leber said.

The Scott family asked ESPN to hold the piece until 9:45 a.m. ET so relatives, friends and loved ones could be informed it was running. ESPN, in my reporting experience, has always been an exceptionally good employer when illness hits one of their own and this was another example. Scott is survived by his two daughters, Taelor, 19, and Sydni, 15; his parents, O. Ray and Jacqueline Scott; and his three siblings Stephen Scott, Synthia Kearney, Susan Scott and their families. Scott’s companion, Kristin Spodobalski, informed close ESPN colleagues early this morning that Scott had passed away.

Asked what he hoped viewers took away from the piece, Leber cited his own growing family. “As a new Dad [of a 10-month old girl] what I take away from this whole process is this was a guy who was good at his job and cared about his job and changed the way sports broadcasting is done, but there was no question where his priorities were and especially later in life and that was his daughters,” Leber said. “I hope the piece tells a complete story of both the professional Stuart Scott was and the personal man he was, too.”

 

[PLACforever]

Apparently I'm not alone, but I had no idea.
Damn shame, true journalist, which is rare these days.
Hell of a sportscaster. RIP.

 

[KPENN]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Graffiti artists have created this Stuart Scott mural in Los Angeles. (via <a href="https://twitter.com/never1959">@never1959</a>) <a href="http://t.co/80pje2kuAA">pic.twitter.com/80pje2kuAA</a></p>— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) <a href="https://twitter.com/SportsCenter/status/553049440161116160">January 8, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[Irish Insanity]

That's pretty bad ass

 

[ND NYC]

read or saw somewhere that he had a lways had a lifelong problem with his right eye, and then, after he got hit by that football at a jets practice, which messed up his other (good)left eye really really bad, and the combined result for him was that he COULD HARDLY READ the teleprompters and so he would MEMORIZE ENTIRE sportscenters as this was all happening and his vision getting progressively worse, so no one would know that he could hardly see the teleprompter. a determined man to be sure.

the more i learn about this guy the more i get inspired and am impressed by him. he worked hard, and he worked for everything he got, and was a true trailblazer for the modern day 24 news cycle sports anchor.

i am constantly amazed and inspired how him (and all people) fight their cancer battles (this dude was doing P90X workouts after chemo sessions)

many try to imitate but have never duplicated this most original of sports broadcasters.

RIP

and Cancer sucks!!

 

[KPENN]

This is really awesome.

Stuart Scott's daughters receive Ernie Johnson's Sports Emmy - Extra Mustard - SI.com