Today: Mar 29, 2024

Column: A tribute to an African-American sports journalist

Aaron JohnsonSports Editor 

Every kid has an image of their heroes when they are younger. Growing up, people chose their role models for several reasons, whether it is an athlete, politician, artist, or actor. It is almost always because of an admiration for what it is that that person does.

When it comes down to it, that person is an inspiration. The goal then becomes imitating that person on some level and learning as much as possible to be just like that hero who means so much.

Well when sports journalism became a viable backup plan as a career (of course if playing centerfield for the New York Yankees didn’t exactly pan out), Stuart Scott quickly became someone that became a hero to me.

Here was an African American sports journalist who was unafraid to talk like my friends and I would talk, and it was about sports? I was sold from the very first “boo-yah.”

It did not take long for Scott and his catchphrases on the SportsCenter screen to become a part of everyday speech for a group of young African American kids growing up on the south end of Stratford, Conn.

For every backyard home run, last second jump shot in the driveway, or neighborhood game of touch football, there was Scott’s commentary in the form of kids trying to sound like their favorite anchor.

Scott is gone, but his legacy will continue on. In the lives of his two daughters and in every young journalist, especially young African American journalist, that he inspired with his brand of calling sports, a fun and exciting way that had never been seen or heard before.

It always hurts to lose a hero, but the way to honor a hero is to take the lessons they have taught and use them to better the craft they left behind. Boo-yah.

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