The sports world, the broadcasting world, and the Tar Heel community is mourning the loss of Stuart Scott, the groundbreaking ESPN anchor who passed away Sunday at the age of 49.
Born in 1965, Stuart Scott graduated from UNC in 1987 and joined ESPN in 1993. As the anchor of SportsCenter through the 1990s, he became famous both for his catchphrases (“Boo-yah!”) and for his personality. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2007 but continued to work, even after the cancer came back again and again. At the ESPY Awards in 2014 he was honored with the Jimmy V award – named after another local legend, Jim Valvano – for his perseverance and courage.
“When you die, that does not mean that you lose to cancer,” he said that night. “You beat cancer by how you live, why you live, and in the manner in which you live.”
Watch Scott’s ESPY Award acceptance speech.
As a Tar Heel alum, Scott wore his school loyalty on his sleeve – returning year after year to host Late Night With Roy and delivering UNC’s commencement address in 2001. Along the way, he inspired a generation of sports fans, broadcasters, writers, and Tar Heels with his insight, his dedication, his passion, and his wit.
Read the text of Stuart Scott’s 2001 commencement address.
Stuart Scott leaves behind two daughters, Taelor and Sydni, and a legion of countless fans.
We remember Stuart Scott – a great broadcaster, a local legend, and a national hero. (Comments from Roy Williams via GoHeels.com; clips of Scott via ESPN.)
UNC issued a statement Sunday in response to Scott’s death:
“Our hearts go out to Stuart Scott’s family and friends, including his daughters Taelor and Sydni, and his colleagues at ESPN. He loved his home state and his alma mater. Stuart taught us that sports is about joy and laughter, not just achievement and results. More important, he showed us how to fight with dignity and honor. He blazed a path in broadcasting that is often imitated, but never duplicated. His legacy will live on in many ways – as a friend, a son, a father, a professional and forever, a Tar Heel. All of us at the University he loved so richly feel a profound sadness in his passing. We will miss him but we will honor his memory and continue the fight he endured so bravely.”
UNC head basketball coach Roy Williams shared his thoughts about Stuart Scott:
“Extreme sadness. It’s the kind of thing where you watch someone on TV and then you get to know them personally and you love so many things about them that it hits you in a sense that you were much closer to them than you really were because he was a part of your life. And so extreme, extreme sadness, and hurt.
He really is an inspiration. Always has been and always will be. He was a pioneer in the media world with his catchphrases. He was a pioneer in saying things that nobody else would say, or he was the first one to say them. But at the same time, the toughness that he showed and the public perception that was so true about how he fought this battle was something that would make John Wayne envy him. The persona of John Wayne fighting cancer, the persona of Stuart Scott fighting cancer and telling me his dream was to walk down the aisle with his two daughters at their weddings is something that he had to be a tough pioneer, a tough person to let that drive you and he did let it drive him. The last few years showing up to our Late Night, handling our Late Night celebration for eight or nine years, was just one of the true gifts that I was fortunate to be involved in.
The fun side of just listening to him on the TV. ‘Vince Carter – Tar Heel. Antawn Jamison – Tar Heel.’ I loved that part of it. He was probably the first broadcaster in any form that could show that and it didn’t bother people. But he could handle it if it had bothered them because he was showing where his heart was. He came back here so many times and talked to our crowd, particularly to the students, about how much he loved the University and what the University of North Carolina was to him. It was a place in his heart, a special place in his heart and it was never going to go away. I remember him saying, ‘I could be gone a year and still when I come back I get those cold chills because I am a Tar Heel. Coming into Chapel Hill to the University of North Carolina, this is our school.’ And the message he got out in every one of those statements that he would make in front of the 21,750 people was so evident in the way he lived his life, and so evident in his broadcasts and the whole bit.
To me personally he was a friend, he was a guy that I idolized. Stuart Scott, he was a hero to me. Stuart Scott. Tar Heel.”
Comments on Chapelboro are moderated according to our Community Guidelines