WASHINGTON — The ESPN sports network announced Sunday morning that its longtime anchor, Stuart Scott had passed away. He was 49.
The network reported that Scott had been battling cancer. A Chicago native and father of two daughters, ages 15 and 19, he had been with the network for 22 years, accompanying the once tiny sports enterprise on its amazing growth as a global giant. In that time, he was popular on and off the set and was known for such legendary catch phrases, like “Boo Yah!”
“Among the features of the new ESPN studio in Bristol is a wall of catchphrases made famous by on-air talent over the years,” ESPN writer Steve Wulf said Sunday. ” An amazing nine of them belong to one man — from his signature “Boo-Yah!” to “As cool as the other side of the pillow” to “He must be the bus driver cuz he was takin’ him to school.”
“He defied convention and criticism to help bring this network into a new century. He spoke to the very athletes he was talking about with a flair and a style that ESPN president John Skipper says, ‘changed everything.'”
“He brought so much to the party, and he will continue to do so, through the people he inspired, and the language that he liberated, and the audience that will remember him.”
Scott accepted the Jimmy V Perseverance Award at the ESPYs in July. During his speech, he told his teenage daughters: “Taelor and Sydni, I love you guys more than I will ever be able to express. You two are my heartbeat. I am standing on this stage here tonight because of you.”
Scott attended high school in North Carolina. After graduating from the University of North Carolina in 1987, Scott worked at three TV stations in the southern U.S. before joining ESPN for the 1993 launch of its ESPN2 network. He often anchored the 11 p.m. “SportsCenter,” and went on to cover countless major events for the network, including the Super Bowl, NBA finals, World Series and NCAA Tournament. He also interviewed President Barack Obama, joining him for a televised game of one-on-one. In 2001, Scott returned to Chapel Hill as the university’s commencement speaker.
Scott was first diagnosed with cancer in November 2007 after he had to leave the “Monday Night Football” game between Miami and Pittsburgh to have his appendix removed. Doctors discovered a tumor during surgery. He underwent chemotherapy again in 2011.
Scott made a point of continuing to live his life — at work and outside of it.
“Who engages in mixed martial arts training in the midst of chemotherapy treatments?” Skipper said in ESPN’s statement. “Who leaves a hospital procedure to return to the set?”
Scott is survived by his parents, O. Ray and Jacqueline Scott; siblings Stephen Scott, Synthia Kearney and Susan Scott; his daughters Taelor, 19, and Sydni, 15; and girlfriend Kristin Spodobalski.
As he accepted the award named for former N.C. State coach Jim Valvano, who died of cancer in 1993, Scott noted: “When you die, that does not mean that you lose to cancer.
“You beat cancer by how you live, why you live, and the manner in which you live,” Scott said. “So live. Live. Fight like hell.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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