When you are a kid you have big dreams.
Astronaut, doctor, athlete, FBI and basically whatever your imagination can think of, life is all about dreaming and dreaming big. When I was kid, I had an unusual dream.
I wanted to host Sportscenter with Stuart Scott. When you are young, you tend to gravitate to people on TV that reminds you of yourself or the adults around you. I wanted to be a sports broadcaster from my earliest memories and the person on TV I could relate to was Stuart Scott. He was funny, cool and used phrases that I was use to hearing in my neighborhood.
In a strange twist in my teenage and college years, I rebelled against Stuart Scott. I thought he was played out and part of the corporate monster that I was also rebelling against ESPN. My childhood dream turned into an adult vision. Wanting to work for ESPN, became wanting to be the anti-ESPN. I felt like that for a long time, until I got older and I started to see things from a broader perspective. A perspective that minorities in media are few and far between and many weren’t interested in helping improving that situation. Stuart Scott was the exact opposite of that, for years he championed minorities in sports media and because of him others have gotten opportunities and this was before he diagnosed with cancer.
My dream didn’t exactly come true, but it is because of people like Stuart Scott that I am in the position I am in today and for that I am forever grateful. I don’t think I could fight like Stuart Scott, I honestly don’t, but I will tell you watching him and what he has gone through, makes me want to fight harder than I would have otherwise to life challenges. I have a daughter, she is the most important thing to me in the world, I just want to be around long enough to watch her become an adult, so I am praying the same for Stuart and his family.
He is true inspiration to me, so I was happy that he received the Jimmy V award at the ESPYS and like one of his trademark phrases, his speech was as cool as the other side of the pillow.