One of the best-loved members of the sports media family has died.
Craig Sager, the long-time Turner Sports reporter who battled cancer for much of the past three years, died Thursday at age 65. Sager was initially diagnosed with leukemia in April 2014 and went into remission twice before it came back a third time earlier this year. He underwent three bone marrow transplants during the course of his treatment, most recently this summer, one of just 1% of patients at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center to undergo the procedure for a third time.
Sager had been with Turner Sports for more than three decades, primarily covering the NBA — first as a studio host and later as a sideline reporter. He also covered Olympic basketball and Major League Baseball for NBC over the course of a career that dates back to 1974.
Though one of the toughest and most substantive questioners working the sidelines, Sager was perhaps best known as an offbeat, colorful presence in the sports media and the NBA. His attire got the most attention, attracting good-natured criticism from players and coaches in the league, but his career highlights merit mention as well. As oultined in a 2013 USA Today profile:
[H]aving slept in a stall alongside Seattle Slew the night before the horse won racing’s Triple Crown in 1977. Sitting on the team bench of a 1979 NCAA Final Four game — until NCAA staffers kicked him off. Bailing out Morganna, known in her heyday as “the Kissing Bandit,” after she was arrested for running on the field at the 1979 MLB All-Star Game. … In 1974, he interviewed Hank Aaron just after Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s career record by slugging home run No. 715. Sager, then a $95 per week news director at a radio station in Sarasota, Fla., literally interviewed Aaron as each jogged from third base to home. (USA Today 3/26/13)
Sager received numerous tributes during his battle with cancer, particularly in recent months. He was on the cover of Sports Illustrated in April and was awarded the Jimmy V Perseverance Award at the ESPYs in July. In between, he worked Game 6 of the NBA Finals as a guest of ESPN/ABC, his final NBA assignment. He was scheduled to work Olympic men’s basketball for NBC in August but was unable to attend due to illness.
The death of Craig Sager continues a brutal stretch for fans of the NBA and sports in general. The past five years have seen the passing of Sager, his TNT colleague Jim Huber, ESPN NBA hosts Stuart Scott and John Saunders and ESPN’s NBA radio team of Jim Durham and Dr. Jack Ramsay.
ESPN aired tributes to Sager throughout Thursday afternoon, including on studio shows The Jump, SportsNation and a SportsCenter special about his passing. Turner Sports, which has its customary Thursday night doubleheader, is certain to air numerous tributes as well.
