Read an oral history of ESPN's Stuart Scott

The Ringer

This month marked the five-year anniversary of the beloved SportsCenter anchor's death at age 49 after battling cancer. "Five years after his death from cancer, it’s easy to forget just how much of sports television Scott helped unlock," says Bryan Curtis in his oral history of Scott's life. "So let’s remember. When Scott got to ESPN, Chris Berman, Dan Patrick, and Keith Olbermann had already made the SportsCenter anchor into a swaggering comic newsman, a coiner of phrases, a pop-culture figure. Scott took the crucial next step. At a company that was hip without being especially diverse, he recast the SportsCenter anchor in his own image. Scott was proof that a SportsCenter anchor could talk about what interested them, no matter what they looked like."