Stuart Scott Died 10 Years Ago, Since Then He’s Been Often Imitated, Never Duplicated

Hard to believe that this weekend will mark ten years since the passing of ESPN’s Stuart Scott, who we lost on January 4, 2015. Scott was just 49 years old when he died from appendiceal cancer, which he was first diagnosed with in 2007 after having his appendix removed.

July 16, 2014, is a night many sports fans will always remember. It was when Scott was honored with the Jimmy V Award at the ESPY Awards. It turned out to be his last public appearance before passing away. This was where Scott uttered his famous words, “When you die, it does not mean that you lose to cancer. You beat cancer by how you live, why you live and in the manner in which you live.”

ESPN has had many super talented anchors and a few that are the best of the best. From Chris Berman at the beginning up to Scott Van Pelt today, and in between, you had Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann, Kenny Mayne, Rich Eisen and Stuart Scott. While the others are truly some of the best to ever do it, Scott was not only one of the best, but he also completely changed the game.

For most of us, Scott came into our lives in the mid-90’s on ESPN2. He was brought in because the network believed he could be relatable to a younger audience. Think about that for a moment. That is an issue many in broadcasting are dealing with today. It’s also something a heckuva lot easier said than done. I’d say it worked out pretty well for ESPN.

Scott was at WESH, the NBC affiliate in Orlando prior to landing at ESPN. He also had stints in Florence, South Carolina, and Raleigh, North Carolina after graduating from the University of North Carolina.

Those that knew Scott in his early days say it was obvious he was going to be a star in the business. People talk about how hard of a worker he was and clearly, he oozed talent and charisma. Throughout his career, you rarely heard anything but great things about Scott from those he interacted with. I had the chance to interview him over the phone a few times when he was writing for ESPN The Magazine and met him in person once at a golf major, and I can confirm he was as cool to talk to as you would imagine.

Those who worked with him at ESPN say Scott was the type of person who treated the janitor and the head of the network the exact same. One of those rare people who was universally liked and handled their success about as well as one can.

I can’t help but think what a Stuart Scott might be like in today’s media world if he were still with us. You get the feeling he would’ve loved to engage with people on social media and had some great posts. At the same time, Scott would be someone who would set a great example for everyone, by ignoring any hate that would’ve undoubtedly come his way. I can also see where he would be someone who would have meaningful things to say when things were at their worst and everyone needed people to help unify.

I feel like a Stuart Scott podcast would’ve been a home run or in his words, it would’ve been “as cool as the other side of the pillow.” Scott was really the first to bring culture and sports together in the way that he delivered the highlights. I’ve read where those who were at ESPN when Scott first started had told him to back off the hip-hop references and not to push things too far. Thank goodness Scott stuck to his guns.

From “Boo-Yah!” to “Hallah,” to “He must be jelly cause jam don’t shake like that,” to “Can I get a witness from the congregation!?” Scott had a flare and a style that nobody had really had before him, and everyone wanted to attempt after him.

When you think of a lot of the successful sports broadcasters today, you can almost see the influence Stuart Scott had on them in some way, shape or form. He was a broadcaster, but he was an entertainer. He looked like he was having the time of his life delivering sports news to his audience.

We were all lucky to get to witness the talents of Stuart Scott and to have the memories of what he did when he brought something completely new to our television screens. Gone, but never forgotten, Stuart Scott was truly one of the most talented sportscasters in history and he was someone who would score quite high if you measured his life simply by how he lived, why he lived and in the manner in which he lived.

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The Best/Worst Thing I’ve Heard/Watched/Read Recently

Say what you want about any one individual college football broadcaster on ESPN’s roster, but as a whole this group is hard to beat. The ESPN college football talent has been busy with the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff and despite several of the games being one-sided, the ESPN crews have it covered wall to wall.

For me, I always feel like the people who are working on college football programming on ESPN are as passionate if not more passionate about the game than I am. It’s all very genuine. Whether it is the guys on College GameDay, the play-by-play crews calling games or those back in the studio, you just feel like everyone is on the same ride.

The flip of the calendar sadly means college football is almost coming to an end, so let’s all soak in the remaining time we have for this year. Tip of the cap to the ESPN (and TNT) crews knocking this year’s coverage out of the park.

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In Case You Missed It

I’m a big fan of John Ourand’s work with Puck. While I do miss he and Andrew Marchand doing a podcast together, in this new world of content consumption, it makes sense why both Ourand and Marchand made career moves this year. Derek Futterman had the chance to talk with John about his move and why it made so much sense for him.

I really liked Ourand’s comment when he said to Derek, “People feel that I’m writing right to them, and it invites people to respond to me, and in ways that writing for a magazine and having a byline or even a website and just sort of having a byline doesn’t quite work. All you have to do is hit ‘Reply,’ and our style of writing and our way of getting things out makes it very conversational, and that just seems to work really well for us.”

Make sure if you missed it, you check out Derek’s feature on John by clicking here.

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