Remembering ESPN’s Sly, Cocky, and Cool Anchor Stuart Scott

Stuart Scott, a longtime anchor on ESPN, 49 years old, died Sunday morning.

Among the features of the new ESPN studios in Bristol over the years made famous on-air talent is a wall of catchphrases. An amazing nine of them belong to one man - his signature "Boo Yah!" "Pillow as cool as the other side to" "She School bus drivers must be cuz it was TAKIN." To

Stuart Scott is the man, and his contribution to sports dictionary are writ large. But they are only one aspect of his legacy. When he died, he left so much behind. His sheer talent, his work ethic and devotion to his daughters, Taelor, 19, and Sydni, 15. He said that a new century network to bring in violation of the Convention and criticism impressed with their peers. He is a fluent and ESPN President John Skipper, say that I was talking with a style that was very players "changed everything."

"They did not just push the envelope," sports radio host and former ESPN anchor Dan Patrick said. "They demolished the envelope."

Other athletes on Twitter and statements from his alma mater, by colleagues and fans through an outpouring of tributes was missed, his legacy will live on in many ways, "said the University of North Carolina, - as a friend, a son, a father for professional and always a tar Heel, "and President Barack Obama.

.. "This people for more than twenty years, public service campaigns have my family twenty years ago, Stuart Scott, who plays our favorite teams and it's best to talk about to help usher in a new way will recall - but. I went, wherever, I can flip on the TV and the students and colleagues were there on SportsCenter over the years, he we entertained, and in the end, he inspired us. - with courage and love Michelle and I offer my thoughts and their family, friends, and colleagues prayer, "said the president.

Moments of silence Dallas Cowboys vs Detroit Lions vs Indianapolis Colts and Cincinnati Bengals NFL wild-card games between the Sun and sporting events across the United States, was held in, and several college basketball game in Cleveland your- Cavaliers at Mavericks NBA game.

Scott on the air for the last year saved his best. ESPYS on July 16, his 49th birthday soon and before the second round of cancer surgery, Stuart strength, humor, grace and eloquent with words Jimmy V Award for Perseverance accepted: "When you die, it cancer does not mean that you lose. you, and why you are the way you live, how to live by the beat cancer. "

So is our gratitude, grief over the death of Stuart Scott, and if ESPN is deeper. He worked through and over the last 22 years had passed airports as popular as it was in the campus. Bring something to the party, and he inspired people through, continue to do so, and that he is liberated language, and that the audience will remember him.

In August 1993, shortly before Stuart came to ESPN and the new studio last June before the "SportsCenter" for serving as co-host Steve Levy, put it this way: "The audience I think Stuart was recognized that, there's going to be something special. and his credit, he was certain he was brought up every night. "

"SportsCenter" anchor Jay Harris, who grew up watching - and expected - Stuart, says, "This phrase, Think 'pillow as cool as the other side.' Wow, this is good, and it looks great, is that you have trouble sleeping. A warm, the stifling night. But then you think to change the pillow, and.

"Well, that's Stuart. He, on the other side of the pillow cool 'is the man who made sportscasting. He thought it had to rearrange the beds at ESPN, which is no good."

Stuart was born in Chicago, but he, along with two sisters and a brother, his father, who always had time to play after work, where a postal inspector, North Carolina, was spending his early years. Stuart R.J. Reynolds went to Winston-Salem High and wide receiver and defensive back on the football team played club where North Carolina, University of time, joined Alpha Phi Alpha and the student radio station, WXYC work. With a degree in speech communications After graduating in 1987, in Florence Stuart WPDE-TV, hired by South Carolina. He said he first came up with the metaphor pillow where it says that. "People say I stole it from a movie," he told an interviewer in 1998, "I first thought about it and it was my first job ... I just did not like it."

His career path in Orlando, Florida Raleigh, North Carolina, took him to Florence, and in the ESPN clips, you hear their music and feel his energy can feel his charisma on camera are. WESH, the NBC affiliate in Orlando before he started his own career was ESPN producer Gus Ramsey, met. Ramsey was a pit stop him you walked in the door knew each other, and that ", said he was one day going anywhere. It's a big star, he went out and did a piece on Rodeo , and how he just nailed it to the NBA Finals ESPN will nail. "

The first Tampa, Florida ESPN anchor Chris Berman said. "He stuck out his hand and said," I look forward to working with you one day, '"Berman said. "And I said, 'Well, we'll save you a seat, I tell you.' And I really am excited that he was right. [Then] I said, 'student, maybe you were born. ""

Bristol Stuart ESPN2 to bring the most responsible person can appeal to a younger audience who was looking for a sports Al Jaffe, ESPN's vice president for talent was. "We were doing a story on the Orlando Magic in terms of productivity, he sent me a tape. Stuart contract soon followed up and found that I was. He told me about this young man really liked , and even then, they had a wonderful presence - I was on the air when the audience sit up and take notice "feel.

His first real ESPN assignments "SportsSmash," ESPN2's "SportsNight" program was for one hour twice a brief sportscast. Keith Olbermann "SportsNight" ESPN's graduation "when SportsCenter," Stuart took his place in the anchor chair. "The door was like a ball of fire walking," ESPN senior vice president Mark Gross, then a coordinating producer says. "I had never met anyone like Stuart Scott."

"I have always called Boo Yah," Norby Williamson, during those early years, who helped guide Stuart says ESPN senior vice president. "It's the first time that the catchphrase used, and we looked at each other and said, since" what the hell is that? "

Was the future, and it looked and sounded different situations. "I was successful African-American sports," The studio programming for ESPN2, who oversaw the Vince Doria, ESPN's director says. "But Stuart is a very different language ... a young demographic, particularly appealed to a young African American demographic discussions."

Suzy Kolber, who also began ESPN2, ESPN anchor fortune. Some of us start this brand new network and trying to spend all this time together, Stuart his TV wife called me, but we really were like a family ", that lasted no more than ESPN2.

When the ESPN ", Stuart has not changed his style - and there was some resistance, probably to take a more traditional approach is encouraged even, but he wanted to be on the There was a strong morale and sound. they wanted to project, and clearly, he was right, and we were wrong. "

Gus Ramsey, who arrived in Bristol in 1994, he had found a new audience knew exactly when Stuart recalls. He Greenwich, Conn. My high school football game in return if I wanted to go "in the fall of '95, I asked him, and said," Sure, let's go. ', Children have more 'start up mid-first quarter we got there, and we just kind of walked up the side, and one after another. It was the man of the moment do not hit me. "

But as Stuart's star rose, so their color, or the hip-hop genre, or vitriol in his race to be resented. That is the most obscure, get a lot of hate mail. Barring a name and address of the sender if, Stuart answer and ask them to tell him what the problem really was.

He along with the other methods was disarming. He can represent the new school, but willing to come in after he was decidedly old school. Nobody ever says they did not work hard, or his "SportsCenter" lead-ins can work more. "He really was conscious of getting it right," ESPN anchor Linda Cohen says Leila. "He was entertaining and had a great balance of being right."

And as he was as arrogant and brash, a duet every night, liked nothing better than to sing. And frequent participation - many years he and Rich Eisen just that 1 am "SportsCenter," the next day cold water, thanks to their chemistry that made such a show would be. Yes, the show was not an Ebony and Ivory, but more importantly, the other for the benefit of young sports nuts running away from each other were two young sports nuts.

Eisen, the lead anchor for the NFL Network, the best man for me, a Jewish girl from Staten Island, North Carolina roots would have thought would be an African American boy says "? Sometimes neither one of us knew what the other was talking about, but it worked. it always with Stuart SportsCenter 'was a journey. "

ESPN anchor John Anderson of NASA's astronaut program likens wave of talent in the network. "Chris Berman and Bob Ley's, teleprompters up the great pilots who went there or whatever. Then. He Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick to us, like the Apollo astronauts Rich Eisen and Stuart, was taken to us Mercury was not in the program, space shuttle flight to the moon ... and left the rest of us. "

Stuart could not stop the confines of a studio. Before the millennium, the MLB playoffs, Final Four and NBA Finals is hiding. He wrote for ESPN magazine interview with Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan went one on one. After century rolled around, the, game shows and New Year's Eve special hosting President Obama sat down with, and become the guiding light for the NFL coverage, too much everything. Mixed in with a few downs, though, were there. Put out of work for a few months that required surgery, a New York Jets mini-camp while trying to catch a pass that he suffered an eye injury. Kimberly Scott, the mother of his daughters married, came to an end. Between the Steelers and Dolphins a "Monday Night Football" game and 26 points in November, 2007, Stuart require additional surgery revealed a malignant tumor that had an emergency appendectomy.

Through this, Stuart are encouraged and fearless. "This is what I love about it," Kolber said. "No, he is nothing, he never changed how bad, how big it was. He loved his job, loved his daughters, he loved being a student."

And he continued to do "SportsCenter." "No one, with the possible exception of Chris Berman, students as well as highlights," Kolber said.

Therefore, mind, and with the help of his colleagues, here are the top 10 played for Stuart ESPN:

Competitor. "He was as good a player as he was not," Harris, a frequent golf partner says. "But of course he was the best-dressed man."

Patrick YMCA remember an epic basketball game. "It was the seventh game of the NBA Finals, as Stuart was playing, and I'm Michael Jordan as he is protecting me. I drive to the hoop, he fell on his back and almost pass out, I undercuts. I go back out on the floor, say, Stuart D ', shot to make me go off the floor and I go to the emergency room because the edges of the vertebrae, I kick the ball two '.

"I recently, you may have scored, but to the hospital. ', The story on the air. And my Stuart Stuart has told tweets."

The competitive nature made for a better performance. Anchor Scott Van Pelt said, "Stuart always, 'Game recognizes game." I would ask the person next to you can bring out the best in your endeavor to bring you the best. "

Friends. For all his fame, Stuart was in Bristol with all the buds, the production assistants or co-host or executives. "He was for students in the halls," Anderson says, "but it was Stuart. I actually quite off than he is on TV, which is good become one of the few people in this business he got. he was the only one of the first people to say, 'Hey, I come with me, I'm going to play golf?' "

It offers friendship to the ESPN vice president Tim Scanlan took on a deeper meaning. "She was my wife that they had the same type of cancer found that they helped me out to to reach the people that was first. I started giving advice ... and in return I will talk to my wife. and he did it all the time on the air, you passion and energy and ambition to fight another day could see a significant pick-up. "

Moving trucks were in my house ", and Stuart to say goodbye to his girlfriend, she was there with her family in Los Angeles, the show moved from Connecticut to Arizona to be closer to the" NBA Countdown "anchor sage Steele is the last day we remember, and my 10 year old son Nicholas across the street had to say goodbye to his best friend, his best friend in the world, leaving back sobbing, sobbing.. ... Stuart said, 'I've got. "And he took one hand and just sat with Nicholas and, as a child, moving away from a 10-year-old boy as losing your best friend described how he handled it. he felt it would help, spent 20 minutes sitting there with Nicholas better.

"Stuart pain, spent three hours in our house that day and hardly able to stand, but he did it. And he sat there for my children."

Celebrity. At a certain point, Stuart became famous as the players he covers. That's why he starred in many "Boo Stewart to celebrate a touchdown with no idea who rejected the Tiger, Kobe, Keyshawn, saw LeBron, Mr. Matt ... and Chad Johnson, as well as advertisements," This is SportsCenter 'is "partially"

Eisen was not the birth of his fame. "Saturday in New York City. Stuart night before the NBA All-Star game and in the morning we got a lead about 2 feet from Times Square ', SportsCenter' 11 hrs had to do, and Gretzky and Shaq all-Star Party at the cafe with Tiger, and a police officer gives us the coordinates for the afterparty. is giving out, and now we're going to 33rd Avenue and 10th street on Stuart was like Elvis entering the building. people were stopping every two feet. a Stuart and I went up and said, I will never forget, Stuart Scott, Wow, Wow! 'The man looks at me and goes, 'the white man. I, the white man loves you.' It's like they have provided me with street Cred confirmed his belief that he and Stuart laughed so hard. "

African American. ESPN NBA and NFL players, 80 percent to 70 percent of them not to mention, representing 45 million Americans knew enough sports. Stuart got here as long as we did not know what, it can relate to them how important it was someone who had.

"She was a trailblazer," ESPN anchor Stan Verrett ", says not only because he was black - black, of course - but his style, his demeanor, his presentation, he said he was do not shy away from the truth, the. black man, and that's just for being themselves, as well as allowing the rest of us who have come. "

Harris says, "Yes, he told brought hip-hop" "But I will go ahead. The barber shop, church, R & B, soul music. Spirit, brought to term."

He was a preacher's personality when adopting some of his best moments came: "Can I get a witness to party?!" He is a producer, something more universal like Animal House, the, of Omega PSI Phi, Michael Jordan and Shaquille O'Neal NBA show their community by reference to the proposed change and when they stopped broadcasting the best moments came from.

"I have no idea what this film is about friends," Stuart said. "This film was two decades ago, and black communities have been around since 1906."

Worker. "I back up what he was saying it never without a data," says Patrick. "He said that he was talking about was that I wanted to know, and they never fail."

His friends that he was working too hard is concerned in the last few years when I was there. "They will be tired," said anchor John Buccigross. She sat on the chair once "But ... they only focus on and get it to zero will begin ..." Where is this man? '... Is the all-time most triples? 'Once he got on the show, you just forget about everything, and it's just fun Stuart Scott's Havin ', SportsCenter' 'was. "

Poet. "Listen to their lead-ins," Buccigross says.