If sports casting was an actual sport, Stuart Scott would have been the Babe Ruth of broadcasting. The fly and always dapper SportsCenter star was the undefeated, undisputed king of the catchphrase. In the mid-90s, when network sportscasters were very vanilla (both literally and figuratively), Scott stood out with his unashamed blackness infused with a coolness that would make Snoop Dogg and Billy Dee Williams blush. Scott mixed professionalism, confidence, swagger, wit, authenticity and a hip-hop delivery with every highlight.
To paraphrase Jay Z: I made it so, you could say ‘Boo Ya’ and it was all good / I ain’t cross over, I brought the suburbs to the hood.
During Scott’s early days on ESPN, I can recall watching SportsCenter as a teenage athlete and aspiring sportscaster, and being completely astonished that he was on the holy grail of sports, speaking like me. Guys like Keith Olbermann, Dan Patrick and Chris Berman were extremely talented and fun to watch, but there wasn’t the same personal connection I felt whenever Scott effortlessly delivered his linguistic gems.
I remember playing cork ball with my friends in Hanley Hills and yelling out “Boo Yah” whenever a ball skied over the fence into a neighbor’s backyard. I remember hurrying home to catch the highlights or waking up early before school just to see how Stu and the crew would complement the sickest plays in sports with the slickest sports narration on the planet. Scott’s highlights made me feel like I was watching the game at my buddy Greg’s house and shooting the breeze. He made me feel like I was in the barber’s chair talking sports with folks around the ‘hood. His calls made me believe that I too could one day work for the “Worldwide Leader in Sports,” without abandoning that Berkeley kid inside.
Scott’s style and skill paved the way for nearly every African American in sports broadcasting today. No, he wasn’t the first black sportscaster. He was, however, the first African American on the national sports scene to embrace our culture. There would be no Steven A. Smith, Charles Barkley, Jason Whitlock, Shaquille O’Neal or Kenny Smith without Scott. They would still exist, but undoubtedly as much more homogenized versions of themselves.
My favorite quotables from Scott include: “You ain’t gotta to go home, but you gotta get the heck up outta here,” “Vlade Dodi, he like to party,” and “as cool as the other side of the pillow” (which describes Scott down to a tee).
According to Olbermann, Scott’s flair was not always embraced by ESPN executives. When certain viewers called or wrote to complain about his non-traditional style, executives pulled him aside and told him to tone it down. They wanted him to be less black. He refused. Today, we see black faces, hear ‘black vernacular’ and see a marriage between sports and hip-hop culture that would’ve been unfathomable 25 years ago. Scott is like the godfather who ushered it all in. Even more impressive is the fact that blackness in sports media is now so prevalent and ever-present that it is no longer even thought of as ‘black vernacular.’ It’s just sports talk. How else can you explain Olbermann’s constant (and hilarious) use of “Bye Felicia” in broadcasts?
It’s been a tough few months in sports. First we lost Bryan Burwell, whose skillfully crafted prose painted pristine pictures on sports pages for years. Now Scott has joined Burwell inside the big flatscreen in the sky. They both stayed true to their roots and refused to cave to the pressures to change. They did not conform their personalities for stuffy executives who didn’t understand the conversations they had with fans through their work. Even today, as I host sports Hangouts or conduct video interviews of athletes, I can honestly say I feel comfortable being myself on camera thanks to Scott holding it down on the ESPN airwaves for so many years. Though I’ll probably never been as cool or as smooth as Stu, I won’t forget the way he made me feel about sports. I’ll never stop trying to emulate that feeling in my own work. Rest in peace Stuart Scott.
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