Stuart Scott Remembered by ESPN Colleague Scott Van Pelt During ‘SportsCenter’

On Dec. 4, ESPN honored the late Stuart Scott with “Stuart Scott Day.” Scott, a former anchor for the ESPN flagship show SportsCenter. passed away in 2015 after battling appendiceal cancer and he was respected by all of his colleagues. One member of the ESPN family, Scott Van Pelt, paid tribute to Stuart Scott on SportsCenter one month before the fifth anniversary of his death.

“Yes, Stuart Scott Van Pelt was a cool way to begin to show when we push each other to get the best from each other, but I don’t miss that, I don’t miss this,” Van Pelt said. “I miss 1 o’clock in the morning standing in the halls outside our offices talking through it. Not the games, not Carolina-Maryland, though we did that too. Life, love, the stuff that matters, the stuff that scared us. We’d go deep, it would get late, just me and him, and we’d always say, ‘I’ve got love for you,’ because it’s easier for fellas to say it that way, isn’t it? But in the end, he knew I loved him and I know that he loved me.”

Van Pelt continued: “He became a star for what he did here. He became truly legendary, and I choose that word with intent for what he said the last time you saw him, the last time we all saw him, his body riddled with that bastard cancer. Weak, frail, he stood on the stage at the ESPYs and he spoke from his soul.

“The urgency, the honesty of his message demanded you do the thing his style made you do when he was sitting right here: that you watch. What an amazing way to walk off the stage and leave this earth with that kind of clarity and a message that will be remembered longer and mean more than a catchphrase ever could. It moves me.

“And it haunts me because it’s unfair as hell. Stuart’s presence remains here. He’s thought of often. He is felt. ESPN has designated this as his day and the truth is you could make it any day and every day. Because that light ain’t ever going out.”

Scott joined ESPN in 1993 and became a star on the network. He was known for his catchphrases such as “Boo-Yah” and “As cool as the other side of the pillow,” and he became the lead host for ABC’s coverage of the NBA in 2008. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2007. In 2014 he was honored at the ESPY Awards as he won the Jimmy V Award for his fight against cancer.

“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,” he said when he won the award. “So live. Live. Fight like hell and when you get too tired to fight then lay down and rest and let somebody else fight for you.”