Late ESPN Host Stuart Scott’s Daughters Surprised With Generous Gift
By Movieguide® Contributor
ESPN host Scott Van Pelt is honoring his late friend and fellow ESPN analyst Stuart Scott, who died in 2015 after battling cancer.
“When you die that 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,” Scott said in his Jimmy V Award acceptance speech in 2014.
He left behind his two daughters, Sydni and Taelor, and Van Pelt has stayed in touch with them as they dedicate their lives to the Stuart Scott Memorial Cancer Research fund.
On Wednesday, Van Pelt delivered a heartfelt surprise to the sisters.
“Well my chest is pounding because I get to tell you guys something that you don’t know is coming,” he began to say on live television. “$18 million is good. That’s great. But let’s do better. Between now and July 11 when the Espy’s are held, every single dollar that is donated to the V Foundation, every single dollar, will go directly to your father’s fund. And there is a very generous and anonymous donor.”
“Now don’t go make me cry on television. I’ve been praying all day, ‘Lord don’t let me cry,” Van Pelt added, before explaining, “Every single dollar up to $75,000 this generous, anonymous donor will match.”
“So let’s say between now and July 11, we can get $75,000 out there among us, then that will be matched. Now we’re talking $150,000 and then we could just keep going from there,” he added.
Sydni and Taelor were absolutely overcome with gratitude.
The Stuart Scott Memorial Cancer Research is run through the Jimmy Valvano Foundation, which funds “game-changing research and all-star scientists to accelerate Victory Over Cancer® and save lives.”
“Your dad loved North Carolina. Everybody knew that,” Van Pelt said, fighting through tears. “But there’s nothing in the world that he loved more than his little girls. And I’m sitting here looking at the grown women you’ve become, and he’d be so proud, and he is so proud, and so are all of us at ESPN who love you from afar. This was really, really cool that I got to do this.”
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