*ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith gave an touching tribute to colleague Stuart Scott Monday on his show, “First Take.”
Scott, died Sunday at 49 after a long bout with cancer.
“You knew that he was a fighter, you knew that he was somebody who was going to fight until the bitter end, and you knew he had the ultimate source of inspiration in his two beautiful daughters,” said Smith of the longtime “SportsCenter” anchor.
Smith shared one of the highlights of his career — working with Scott at the NBA Finals.
“Here we are at the Finals, I’m on ‘SportsCenter,’ and I’m with Stuart Scott; I’m with the man,” Smith said. “I felt just incredibly, incredibly confident, not because of skills, but because I was sitting beside the man that was such a pioneer for so many of us; his delivery, his presentation, his vernacular, everything that came with it.”
Smith spoke about other great parts of Scott outside of his “swag,” including his tenacious determination to memorize “SportsCenter” scripts to compensate for vision problems.
“People don’t realize Stuart Scott had significant vision issues,” Smith said, noting an incident where Scott’s vision got poor after an accident at the New York Jets practice facility.
“He was also a brother who never hesitated to impart his wisdom upon people like myself, like my man J.A. Adande, and so many others in this business,” Smith continued. “He was a wonderful father, he was a wonderful person, he was a wonderful human being.”
Watch below:
We Publish News 24/7. Don’t Miss A Story. Click HERE to SUBSCRIBE to Our Newsletter Now!
