ARUN RATH, HOST: It's been an exciting weekend in the NFL Playoffs, but there was a sadness pervading ESPN's broadcast today. Treasured colleague Stuart Scott died this morning after a long battle with cancer.</s>ARUN RATH, HOST: Scott had been a host of ESPN SportsCenter and Monday Night Countdown but his influence extends far beyond the world of sports. Scott demonstrated that he could be a huge success broadcasting to a wide audience without trying to sound like a white man or like a white man's idea of a black man. A number of people chafed at what was called his hip-hop sensibility, but the vast majority of viewers loved it. And beyond the race factor, Stuart Scott showed everyone you don't have to water down your personality to be a serious broadcaster. After Scott hit the scene, it seemed like everybody had to have a catchphrase. But no one could deliver them like Stuart Scott.</s>STUART SCOTT: Call Conoco butter 'cause he is on a roll.</s>STUART SCOTT: This kid is as cool as the other side of the pillow.</s>STUART SCOTT: Derek Jeter in first. Boo yah. Alex Rodriguez, second.</s>ARUN RATH, HOST: In his final years and days, Stuart Scott inspired cancer survivors, getting through multiple rounds of chemotherapy while engaging in a punishing fitness routine based on mixed martial arts and working whenever he could. Few people could turn a phrase like Stuart Scott, so it seems appropriate to leave you with his own words from a speech he gave this summer that he seemed to know could serve as his own eulogy.</s>STUART SCOTT: When you die, it does not mean that you lose to cancer. You beat cancer by how you live, why you live and in the manner in which live.</s>STUART SCOTT: So live - live. Fight like hell. And when you get too tired to fight, then lay down and rest and let somebody else fight for you.</s>ARUN RATH, HOST: ESPN anchor Stuart Scott. He died this morning at the age of 49.
The longtime host of ESPN's SportsCenter, Stuart Scott, died today at age 49 after a prolonged battle with cancer. NPR's Arun Rath offers this remembrance.