“As you go to bed tonight, flip your pillow over to the cool side and before you go to sleep, as Stuart would say, you lift your knees tonight and pray to the big man for his beautiful daughters who he loved, Taelor and Sydni. Pray for Stuart and his family, his parents, his siblings, his girlfriend, his ex-wife, everybody who he loved and that includes you the sports fans, even those who hated on him. He thrived on it. That’s because he is who he is, and was … I can’t believe it’s past tense, who he was. Stuart Scott is dead at the age of 49. I love you Stuart, wherever you are. Godspeed. Rest in peace.”
This was also the case with Hannah Storm on ESPN who fought back tears in her delivery. After a 15 minute tribute to Scott, ESPN cut to the NFL Countdown where Scott also appeared from time-to-time. There the current panel of Chris Berman, Tom Jackson, Keyshawn Johnson, Cris Carter and Mike Ditka all spoke on their memories of Scott.
Below are Johnson’s remarks:
“Like CC said, one of the things Stu told me when I first took this job was to not change who I was, be exactly who I’m supposed to be. That looking at him and knowing he was able to bring the hip hop culture, that urban feel to television sports broadcasting, something that’s never been done before, gave me the hope that I didn’t have to be some corporate guy to feel like I needed to wear the white shirt with the red tie and sit there and talk a certain way.”