I suppose it’s true that most of us will go out not with a bang but a whimper. Longtime ESPN anchor Stuart Scott was right when he remarked the following to the watching world last July: “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 you live.”
Stuart Scott passed away Sunday morning after a seven year, ongoing battle with cancer. He was 49.
I’ve thought about how to best honor Scott here. I did not know him. Granted, I have heard his trademark “BOO-YAH” for years — and chuckled almost always right on cue. Scott joined ESPN in 1993 when they established ESPN2. His colloquial style and honest approach caught the eye even of the less traditional sports fan. He had an authentic warmth that seemed to exude through any screen.
My heart is perhaps most touched thinking of an exchange Scott offered some five years ago. At the time, Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow was attempting to transition from the college to professional grid iron. Tebow, ever a gentle gentleman, often found himself the center of controversy by his choice of eye black — the small black patches many football players don beneath their eyes in order to reduce the glare. Like many, Tebow was intentional in placing a message on his eye black. His contemporaries — players such as Rey Maualuga, DeSean Jackson, C.J. Spiller, and multiple others — also customized the patches — highlighting everything from their parents, high school nicknames, and even Spiller’s hometown church.
But Tebow consistently wrote scripture references on the glare-reducing tool. In fact, in the 2009 BCS Championship game, Tebow wrote “John 3:16” on his eye black. In the succeeding 24 hours, the scripture reference was the most searched phrase on Google, generating over 90 million searches. That much attention generates even more controversy.
A man named “Dave” from Maryland questioned the practice in an online ESPN chat room. He wrote: “What’s with the Bible citations on Tim Tebow’s eyeblack, Stu? If I were a player and had ‘There is’ written on one side of my face and ‘no God’ on the other, would that be okay?”
Stuart Scott minced no time nor words in his gracious response…
“Dave, if that what you want to do, I don’t care. But Tim and I and billions of other believers in the world know you’d be wrong. I’ve seen the workings of God many times in my life, like when my two daughters were born. If you don’t believe in God, watch a child be born. Then if you still say you don’t believe in God, that’s okay. The thing is, I think He’ll watch over you anyway!”
Boo-yah, Stuart Scott… boo-yah.
T.S. Eliot may have been right when he ended his infamous “The Hollow Men” poem years ago:
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Stuart Scott was also right; the bang or the whimper doesn’t matter. What matters is how we live.
Respectfully…
AR