“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.”

When Stuart Scott died January 4, 2015 he did not lose to cancer. Scott starting out being just a normal kid from Chicago and managed to become one of the most famous anchors on ESPN. Scott has done so many things to leave an impact on everyone’s lives over the short time we had to know him.

Scott spent most of his years growing up in North Carolina where his father was a postal inspector. After graduating in 1987 with a degree in speech communication, Stuart was hired by WPDE-TV in Florence, South Carolina. He says that’s where he first came up with the pillow metaphor. “People say I stole it from a movie,” he told an interviewer in 1998, “but I first thought of that and said it on my first job … I just liked it.”

From those of you that don’t know Stuart Scott he was well known for being a very outgoing person. He had many famous sayings such as, “Boo-Yah!” to “As cool as the other side of the pillow” to “He must be the bus driver ‘cuz he was takin’ him to school.”

His career path took him from Florence to Raleigh, North Carolina, to Orlando, Florida, and in his pre-ESPN clips, you can feel his energy, hear his music and sense his on-camera charisma. He first met ESPN anchor Chris Berman in Tampa, Florida.

Scott finally joined ESPN in 1993 for the launch of ESPN 2. His first real ESPN assignments were for “SportsSmash,” a short sportscast twice an hour on ESPN2’s “SportsNight” program. When Keith Olbermann graduated from “SportsNight” to ESPN’s “SportsCenter,” Stuart took his place in the anchor chair.

When Scott managed to land an anchor spot on SportsCenter, that’s when his career really seemed to take off. When you watched Scott there was something different about him that I loved; he seemed honestly excited about everything and loved to be doing what he was doing.

Even before 2000 there was no stopping Stuart Scott. Scott was covering the MLB playoffs, the Final Four and the NBA Finals. He wrote for ESPN the Magazine and went one-on-one in interviews with Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan.

On Nov. 26, 2007, while covering a “Monday Night Football” game between the Steelers and Dolphins, Stuart had to have an emergency appendectomy that revealed a malignancy requiring additional surgery. Stuart was also dealing with the end of his marriage to the mother of his two daughters. Through all of this Scott was still upbeat and ready to do his job.

By 2008 Scott seemed to be doing everything. He anchored late-night SportsCenter shows, hosted Monday Night Countdown on location during the NFL season, served as the lead host for NBA on ESPN and ABC and interviewed Barack Obama during the 2008 Presidential campaign.

Scott’s last year on the air showed many signs of still being at his best. At the ESPYS on July 16, 2014 shortly before his 49th birthday and following another round of cancer surgery, Stuart accepted the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance With Strength. Scott’s speech accepting this award touched anybody’s heart who watched it. Scott’s famous quote from the speech was quoted in the beginning of this article; “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.”

When Scott died January 4, 2014 at the age of 49, people’s reactions showed that he had “beaten” cancer. Scott touched so many lives in his time here and it was shown by how much he was loved throughout all the people that said nice things about him.

President Obama commented on his death saying, “I will miss Stuart Scott. Twenty years ago, Stu helped usher in a new way to talk about our favorite teams and the day’s best plays. For much of those twenty years, public service and campaigns have kept me from my family, but wherever I went, I could flip on the TV and Stu and his colleagues on SportsCenter were there. Over the years, he entertained us, and in the end, he inspired us — with courage and love. Michelle and I offer our thoughts and prayers to his family, friends, and colleagues.”

LeBron James put a post on Instagram remembering Scott saying, “Can’t believe you’re gone from us! I am deeply saddened because not only will you not be replaced as an anchor or reporter but more than that as a genuine cool person. What u did for our culture, bringing that Swag to reporting can only be copied (which I hear it today on TV watching sports). I would say not because they’re stealing your swag, it’s all out of RESPECT! It was always a breath of fresh fun air when u would show up and we’d chat up. Thank you so much for being u and giving us inner city kids someone we could relate to that wasn’t a player but was close enough to them. #RIPStuartScott #F**Cancer #GoneButSurelyNotForgotten”

ESPN President John Skipper was able to say some word on Scott’s death. “ESPN and everyone in the sports world have lost a true friend and a uniquely inspirational figure in Stuart Scott, Who engages in mixed martial arts training in the midst of chemotherapy treatments? Who leaves a hospital procedure to return to the set? His energetic and unwavering devotion to his family and to his work while fighting the battle of his life left us in awe, and he leaves a void that can never be replaced.”

Stuart Scott will never be forgotten. If you ask anybody if Stuart Scott beat cancer the answer to that should be yes every time.