I didn’t know Stuart Scott, although I do remember having a fairly intense debate with him in the Chicago Bulls press room one day, during the 1990s when the Bulls and Jordan were ruling the NBA. That debate somehow happened despite how much I enjoyed his work on ESPN. I’m pretty sure it was on or around the morning after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing because my friend Tex Winter would always wander down to the press room looking for the free newspapers that reporters would leave scattered about the room. I remember asking Tex what should be done with the bombers if and when they were caught. “String ’em up by the balls,” Winter, then in his mid 70s, replied defiantly.
April 1995 is a critical point, because Jordan had just returned a month earlier from his tenure playing baseball, and the Bulls were covered up with media. I can’t recall what ignited the debate with Stuart Scott (it did not involve Tex or his answer). I just recall Stuart being very upset with me and me trying to understand why. We were the only two people in the press room at that time, during practice, that day, and I came away sort of feeling that Stuart was upset about something else and he just sort of needed a debate partner.
I am thinking of this today because of the debut of ESPN’s 30 for 30 about his life and tragic death from cancer: “Boo-Yah: A Portrait of Stuart Scott,” Wednesday. As I recall I was probably in my third season of writing about the Bulls, was talking with someone else briefly (and likely said something that Stuart overheard and didn’t like). Like Jordan, Stuart was a UNC grad. And I was always what I’ve been, some guy from Wytheville, Virginia, accent and all (a sort of hillbilly heritage I have long treasured). By that time, I had spent a decade around the NBA, writing extensively about the Celtics, Pistons, Lakers, and the Bulls, so I was used to being around and interviewing high-profile players and coaches.
Still, it seemed absolutely surreal that I found myself engaged in a somewhat heated debate with an ESPN star, one who had a large cultural presence, somebody who was a major dude. Whatever the heated debate was about, it just sort of ended, probably because practice was over and neither of us wanted to lose any of the precious media interview time afterward. Stranger still, neither of us ever addressed the other again, at least not that I can recall.
I recall maybe encountering him in other media settings over the next couple of years and just nodding when we came face to face, no reason for hard feelings. It was just an unusual encounter. My only thought today is, RIP, Stuart. You will always be an all-time pioneer in sports media. I won’t apologize for allowing my ignorance to spark a debate with you. Rather, that surreal moment is something I’ll always treasure…
