Stuart Scott, a longtime ESPN anchor and reporter who has been battling a rare form of cancer for the last seven years, was honored Wednesday with the Jimmy V Perseverance Award at the sports network's ESPY Awards.
Scott's emotional acceptance speech, highlighted by an intro from "24" star Kiefer Sutherland and a tearjerker video package, was one of the highlights of the televised ceremony. The Jimmy V honor is named after James Valvano, the late North Carolina State University basketball coach who succumbed to
bone cancer in 1993, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Stuart, who's been a popular "SportsCenter" personality since joining the network in 1993, said that his fight against cancer is not based on whether it goes away, but on how he's decided to live with it.
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In a video detailing his struggles with the disease before his speech Scott said, "I'm not losing. I'm still here fighting."
In his speech onstage, the 48-year-old said he wanted modify that statement.
"I've got to amend that," he explained. "When you die, it does not mean that you lose to cancer. You beat cancer by how you live, while you live, and the manner in which you live."
Scott credited his family, friends, and coworkers at ESPN for helping him maintain a positive attitude throughout his fight.
"I just got out of the hospital; I had four surgeries in the span of seven days," he told the audience. "I had tubes running through every part of my body. As of Sunday, I didn't even know if I could make it here. I couldn't fight. But the doctors and nurses could; the people that I loved and my friends and family, they could. This whole fight, this journey thing, is not a solo venture. This is something that requires support."
Scott, a graduate of the University of North Carolina, first became ill while covering an NFL game in 2007 when, during an emergency appendectomy, doctors discovered a malignant growth.
"The best thing I've ever done, the best thing I will ever do is be a dad to Taelor and Sydni," Scott said of his two daughters during his speech. "I can't ever give up because I can't leave my daughters."
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