Stuart Scott was an icon. Scott’s catchphrases and energetic style were contagious. My generation came of age watching Scott host ESPN’s SportsCenter. He redefined how a sportscaster looked and sounded. Since his death yesterday from cancer, many tributes have poured in from colleagues, athletes, and even President Obama. I could never attempt to top any of those, but I want to suggest Stuart Scott has another legacy: demonstrating the power of a bachelor’s degree.
Stuart Scott changed sports media and he did it with a bachelor’s degree in speech communication from the University of North Carolina. The latter a fact that made all of us Tar Heels proud when he’d do the highlights of a Carolina-Duke game or call out a star player’s UNC affiliation while doing a highlight.
Stuart Scott was an overnight success, six years in the making. His first job after college: local news reporter and weekend sports anchor.
“Cooler than the other side of the pillow.” Classic Scott. He came up with it working as a weekend sports anchor in little Florence, South Carolina. Population: 37,792. More than 2 million would watch his moving speech at the ESPY Awards (If you haven’t seen it, stop now and watch it.)
Stuart Scott worked hard, developed his craft, and found enormous success on the fledgling espn2 and later as SportsCenter anchor. As nearly every tribute has mentioned, Stuart Scott brought his own style and background to the job. I loved Rich Eisen’s story about Scott. It was the 90’s so Eisen was using a number of Seinfeld jokes when doing his highlights. In a break, Scott asked him about a joke. Eisen said it was from Seinfeld to which Scott deadpanned, “Brothers don’t watch Seinfeld.”
He looked and sounded different because he was and he connected with all of us differently as a result.
A living embodiment of diversity, Scott described the role of diversity in the college experience during his 2001 Commencement Address at his alma mater:
“It’s one of the most important lessons you learn here. Different is cool—always has been here—it’s the beauty of diversity. And you’ve probably had more diversity here than you will as you move on. I know all of you want to do more than “get a job.” I know you want to “make a difference.” Keep this in mind as you do that. Remember the different walks of life you’ve seen here on campus, all colors, all races, all religions, all sexual make-ups, athletes, scholars, hippies, frat boys, sorority girls. I hope you’ve accepted whatever is different from you as simply what it is—just different.”
That’s why we need diversity on campus. That quote should be in the next Supreme Court affirmative action brief.
Stuart Scott was a boy from Chicago who grew up in western North Carolina, attended his state flagship university, and rose to the top of his field. He didn’t have a graduate degree. He was on the student radio station. He was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha. He played club football. He was a relatively typical college student.
And he rose to the top of his field. He changed his field. Isn’t that what every college commencement speaker says, “Make a difference in the world.”
I graduated in the UNC Class of 2001. Stuart Scott was my graduation speaker. Not some deputy undersecretary of something. Not some rich person who had given the school a bunch of money. A black kid from western North Carolina that rose to the top of his field, in part, based on what he learned in college. No doctorate. No Nobel Prize. Just an entertainer with a bunch of hip hop phrases. Oh, the indignity!
There were opponents of Scott as speaker, particularly from the UNC faculty. I thought they were wrong as a college student and I still think they are wrong as a tenured faculty member. He was a wonderful choice because he shows the power of a college degree.
Scott address the controversy during his address and struck exactly the right chord:
“When I first heard about the opposition to my speaking here, I was in my office with about four people. Talk about lonely. It was weird because I wasn’t angry or even hurt. I felt alone because I felt like, ‘Here we go again—I gotta prove something, prove that I’m a journalist and not just an entertainer.’ Then I realized something that didn’t hit me fourteen years ago, when a TV news director saw my resume tape and told me, ‘You suck. You’ll never make it in this business’ —and, yes, those were the words he used—back then I felt I had to prove something to him. Which is in part what fueled my drive, what continued to fuel it every time some magazine or newspaper critic slammed me. Because he or she didn’t understand me, didn’t know what I was talking about when I said, ‘Playa hatin’.’ What continued to fuel it when one of my colleagues gave me a hard time about making an Alpha Phi Alpha-Omega Psi Phi reference, saying I should have used an Animal House reference if I was going to talk about fraternities. I felt like, I gotta stand up on top of a mountain and shout, ‘Hey, your view of reality, your world, is not ‘the’ world. Diversity means understanding. How you were raised, where you were raised, what shapes you is only a small slice of the pie. You don’t have to understand or like every slice. You just have to accept that there are more slices that you’ve known.”
And then he ended with a classic Stuism.
“For the record, I also agree with one Raleigh radio DJ. He said, ‘I’d rather go hear Stuart than some politician. Now if it’s J-Lo, I’d rather go see J-Lo.’ Dog, I’m witcha.”
The Broadway musical Avenue Q starts with a song entitled, “What Can You Do With a B.A. In English?” It is funny because everyone knows there’s no job you can get with an English degree or even just a bachelor’s degree. You need to go to graduate school. You can’t succeed today with “just” a college degree. Everyone knows that. Except, someone forgot to tell Stuart Scott.
He was busy taking the lessons from his college experience and working hard. He was changing his field with just a B.A. degree (and as he’d want me to point out I’m sure) from the University of North Carolina. He didn’t have time to listen to such cynical advice or consider the long-term future of the 4 year degree.
Why not? Because…
“He must be butta , cause he’s on a roll.”
