Stuart Orlando Scott was born on July 19, 1965, in Chicago, Illinois. His parents, O. Ray and Jacqueline Scott had 3 other children, Stephen, Susan, and Synthia. When Stuart was 7, his family moved to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In high school, Stuart was a captain of his football team, ran track, served as Vice President of the Student Council, and was the Sergeant at Arms of the school’s Key Club.
While attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Scott was a member of WXYC and of Alpha Pi Alpha. He also played wide receiver and defensive back for their football team. With a BA in speech communication, Scott started working as a reporter for local stations, but his love of sports eventually brought him to ESPN.
(Stuart was hired to bring a younger audience to ESPN, and his first assignments were SportsSmash and SportsNight. As popularity grew, he eventually started winning host chairs and graced the screen on many of the ESPN and Sportscenter commercials.
Scott was also made the studio host for the NBA on ESPN and hosted all of the on-site coverage for Monday Night Football and Monday Night Countdown.
Stuart Scott was known for his lively catch-phrases like “boo-yeah”, “as cool as the other side of the pillow”, and “He must be the bus driver cuz he was takin’ him to school.”
(In his career, Scott was able to interview big names like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Sammy Sosa, President Bill Clinton, and President Barack Obama.
Scott was first diagnosed with cancer in 2007 and has struggled through chemotherapy, remissions, work, and more. On January 4, 2015, Scott died of appendix cancer at the age of 49.
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Kassidy Garland has had a great appreciation for reading and writing since she was young. She graduated from West Chester University in 2017 with a Bachelor’s Degree in English & Women and Gender Studies. With a concentration in creative writing, Kassidy has 5 years of experience writing blogs, articles, and for social media. Kassidy is also pursuing a Master’s degree in IT with a concentration in Web Development. Based out of Philadelphia, Kassidy loves to write about a number of topics and looks forward to sharing her passion with those at FunTimes Magazine.
