“We just liked being silly, and we did it to make other people laugh,” Tindal said. “It would be a lot better place if everyone had that mentality to try to make someone smile. You know?”
A style of his own
Tindal remembers it just like it was yesterday. Stuart started his day with the same routine every morning in Ehringhaus.
“He would wake up in the morning, every morning with Run-DMC playing on his big radio. He would wake up every morning rapping,” Tindal said. “So that was kind of weird to wake up to. And he wouldn’t let me turn it off until he was finished doing his dance. I guess you can call that a quirk.”
But when ESPN hired Scott in 1993 for the launch of ESPN2, it was just that — his quirks — that made him famous.
Known for his signature phrases “Booyah!” and “As cool as the other side of the pillow,” Scott brought a fresh perspective to his industry, and didn’t care that it wasn’t traditional.
“I think when Stuart came on, it seemed revolutionary. And I think it’s two things. People say he showed that it was OK to be himself. He also showed that it was OK to be himself as an African-American in the hip-hop culture,” said fellow UNC alumnus and ESPN President John Skipper. “He came in, and that’s the music he listened to, that’s the language he spoke, and he wasn’t going to change it based on somebody’s rules of diction and order for how sportscasting works.”
The spunk wasn’t just when the cameras were rolling, though, even when his illness continued to worsen. Diagnosed with cancer in 2007, Scott’s final months became increasingly difficult, and his physique increasingly thin. That didn’t stop him, though.
“I will say that I never ran into him (a time) that he wasn’t engaged, that he didn’t stop to talk, that he wasn’t happy. Including when he was very sick,” Skipper said. “Stuart never became anything less than engaged, and wanted to know how you were and didn’t want to dwell on how he was.”
No one watching on television would have known, but on July 16 at ESPN’s ESPY Awards in Los Angeles, not long after he gave his Jimmy V Perseverance Award speech that moved listeners to tears, Scott’s body was in an immensely fragile stage.
“It may be the last personal moment I had with him,” Skipper said. “He really, really needed to sit down, if not lay down. Because he was exhausted.”
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Two pieces of his heart
Tindal remembers when he called to tell Stuart some especially good news. He and his wife had just given birth to a baby girl. Originally, they planned on naming her Courtney, but a week before the birth, they came up with another name. One Stuart was quite fond of.
“Hey man, Cydney’s here,” Tindal told his best friend.
“Who is Cydney?” Stuart replied.
“That’s my daughter.”
“No, Sydni is my daughter’s name.”
The two roommates, who kicked Tindal’s original roommate out so that Scott could move in, each had daughters — born a month apart — with the same name, just different spellings.
Stuart’s two daughters meant the world to him. Whenever cameras were rolling, people got to see Stuart Scott the broadcaster. But he was always, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Stuart Scott the father.
“He gave me some of the best fatherly advice I’ve ever had. He told me to enjoy all the stuff that you think is going to be bad,” said longtime ESPN commentator Michael Wilbon, one of Stuart’s closest friends. “You’re gonna like changing diapers, getting peed on, getting stuff spilled on you. When I had my own son, it was great advice. Probably the most memorable dad advice I’ve gotten. And I live by that for sure.”
During his ESPY speech, Stuart showed he also lived by his own advice.
“The best thing I have ever done, the best thing I will ever do is be a dad to Taelor and Sydni,” he said. “It’s true. I can’t ever give up because I can’t leave my daughters ... Taelor and Sydni, I love you guys more than I will ever be able to express. You two are my heartbeat. I am standing on this stage here tonight because of you .... My littlest angel is here. My 14-year-old. Sydni, come up here and give dad a hug because I need one.”
Watching the award show on television from home, ESPN commentator Dick Vitale couldn’t hold back his emotions.
“It just, honest to God, brought me to tears,” he said. “Cancer’s just vicious. It’s such a vicious disease.”
‘He’s my best friend’
There will never be another Stuart Scott. Not in Phil Ford’s mind. While Scott would always tell Ford, the North Carolina basketball legend, that he was Scott’s favorite player to watch growing up, it was Stuart who was the real hero in Ford’s mind.
“He’s the first. It’s kind of like Michael (Jordan) — like MJ,” Ford said. “I don’t think there’s ever going to be another MJ because what he did on and off the basketball court — he kind of became the first one to do that. I think (Stuart) and MJ are kind of linked.”
It was Scott’s love for his daughters, his uniqueness in sports broadcasting and his effervescent love for others that make him irreplaceable.
“If Stuart were here right now, I would tell him I love you and I appreciate everything you did for ESPN,” Skipper said.
“I’d just say, ‘Go Heels,’” Ford said. “If he was struggling, then just the same thing that you say to all friends and family members when you’re struggling: Just, ‘I love you.’”
Tindal agrees: there’s no one like Stuart.
“Stuart is — he’s my best friend. But he’s more like a brother to me than anything,” Tindal said. “I grew up without knowing most of my family, so his family became my family in high school and college. He was a big part of my life.”
The last time the two friends spoke was on New Year’s Day.
Stuart called, and of course, the Super Bowl came up.
“I told him I was going to be coming back during the Super Bowl and we could watch it together,” Tindal remembers.
“It’s too late, man,” Stuart replied. “I’m being realistic. I still love you, and I’ll see you soon.”
Three days later, Tindal received a call from one of Stuart’s family friends. Stuart’s seven-year battle with cancer had ended. On Saturday, Tindal will be back in the U.S. for Stuart’s funeral.
As for their Super Bowl tradition?
“I’m going to watch it,” Tindal said. “I will be a little saddened, obviously, because he’s not going to be a part of it. But yeah, I’m going to watch it.”
After all, the Super Bowl always was their thing.
sports@dailytarheel.com
