No, I am not talking about the Cubs winning the World Series, which would be nice. I give it a couple of years....and Vegas is getting a little ahead of themselves with the odds.
But I digress. In the last few months of 2014 I've done some serious thinking about my life goals and have decided it's time to crap or get off the pot. I'm 46 years old and I need to stop dreaming about things I want to do in my life and start making sure the rubber hits the road. So I have made two commitments, not resolutions, for 2015 - writing and running. I need to exercise my mind and my body. One of my bucket list items is to write a book. Well, in my thought processes I came up with what I want to write my book about, but I feel as if it is like being an athlete - practice makes perfect. I can't, in my mind, just start writing a book. I need to hone my craft. That's where this blog come into play. This is my practice. Bear with me - the subject matter will vary like crazy. Well, maybe not. :) Most of my musings will be about sports but I'm sure I'll sprinkle in some pop culture and family stories as well. Here's to a new year!
Normally I would hit a various number of topics on a Monday after a busy sports weekend, but one story stood out to me this weekend and that will be the focus of my first post - Stuart Scott.
I didn't get to watch ESPN regularly until I was in college in the late 80's. We lived in the boondocks of Central Illinois and didn't have cable until I went to the big city of Bolivar. MO for college. As a sports fan, this was a dream come true. A 24 hour sports channel? Are you kidding me? Heaven. I watched it non-stop. The signature show was obviously SportsCenter. In my early days there were the no-nonsense anchors for the show - Chris Berman, Bob Ley, Linda Cohn, Tom Mees and Chris Myers. At this point, I didn't know that the show could be anything more than just feeding me sports highlights and I was ecstatic with it. Little did I know...
Early in the 90's the show started to evolve and more personalities were hired to anchor SC. The two that stand out the most are Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann, calling it "The Big Show" during the 11pm SportsCenter. My eyes were opened as to the personality that could come out of the anchor while giving you the highlights and news. Being a people person, this fascinated me. And I was even more hooked, if that's possible. And then, the crew came on. Rich Eisen, Craig Kilborn, Robin Roberts, Steve Levy and Stuart Scott. They made the show FUN. It's as if fans got a hold of the cameras and allowed us to see the highlights as if we were all hanging out together at someone's house going round table about sports. It was great.
Don't get me wrong. I didn't like everyone. To this day I cannot stand Chris Berman. He seems so contrived to me it's ridiculous. Olbermann started to wear on me as the "guy who is smarter than you and never lets you forget it" vibe. So I gravitated towards Eisen and Scott. Their personalities complimented each other so well during the broadcasts that it was must-see TV for me. At first, Stuart was difficult to for me to follow, but as I got out of college and on to my own and met other African-Americans his musings became language I understood and could find funny. It was almost as if he was a Civics teacher for life. He made no bones about the fact that he was going to be who he was, whether you liked him or not, because he believed in himself. There have been MANY anchors that have sat at that desk that were not transparent and came across as fake and unbelievable. One thing you could never call Stuart was unbelievable.
As I have grown older I must admit I have grown apart from SportsCenter. The 90's were the zenith of the show, like SNL, and as society has changed, so has the people who sit at the desk. Don't get me wrong, I love Lindsey Czarniak and John Anderson and anchors like them. However, it's not the glory days of my youth and there was one guy who was still there as the conduit from that age for me - Stuart Scott. I knew he had been sick with cancer. What I didn't know, until the ESPY's this summer was that it bad. Cancer is a scary thing. My wife was diagnosed with breast cancer in November of 2014 so I have a pretty good idea of how scary the word cancer can be to someone. Thank the Lord my wife is now cancer free. Stuart was not as lucky.
I was awoken yesterday morning, sleeping in because I have been sick, by a notification on my phone. It was a SportsCenter update and it said that Stuart Scott had passed away. I immediately logged on to Twitter and began to scroll through all of the condolences. The one that broke me was Rich Eisen's beautiful eulogy on the NFL Network. I came downstairs in tears and my wife wondered what was wrong. I showed her the video and we cried together. She understood my love for sports and how this impacted me. I never met Stuart Scott. But through the TV we became friends because of a passionate love of sports. I lost a friend yesterday. And he was only three years older than me. It is sad, but it has been therapeutic hearing all of his friends tell stories about Stu. He will live on through the magic of TV. But I pray for his family, especially his daughters in this rough time. I've lost my Dad as well, at the age of 27 and I know how tough that is as well. So please keep them in your prayers.
Rest in peace Stu. You were always as cool as the other side of the pillow.
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