Craig Sager passes away at 65 (Video)

In a week where we lost John Glenn and Alan Thicke, another legend has passed away. As December 15th was winding down, the sports world was mourning the loss of legendary broadcaster Craig Sager, who passed away at the age of 65 after having a lengthy battle with Acute myeloid leukemia.

He was involved with sports broadcasting in one form or another since 1972 when he started as a reporter for WXLT in Sarasota, Florida. He would end up having a moment early in his broadcasting career as he was one of the reporters on the field when Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run, thus becoming the new all-time home run leader until Barry Bonds took that spot a few years ago. He would end up being one of the first people to join the newly formed CNN in 1981 and would handle the network’s first live broadcast from the 1980 baseball playoffs. In addition, Craig Sager would also be the co-anchor to CNN’s sports show called Sports Tonight. He also would serve as the main anchor of College Football Scoreboard from 1982-1985. After he left CNN, he would end up joining Turner Sports and would establish himself as the sideline reporter for TNT when they did NBA games.

Throughout his career, he would end up covering such sports as Basketball (Professional and College), Olympics, College Football, and others. He also did some work with the NBA 2k series over the years. Leukemia ended up costing Sager his life was something that he fought as early as 2014. Unfortunately, he would end up missing the entire 2014 NBA Playoffs as he was dealing with this cancer. He also was awarded the Jimmy V Perseverance Award at the 2016 ESPY Awards as he was battling cancer.

He was also just recently inducted into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame just a few days ago. Here is the video of his acceptance speech from the ESPY’s Awards:

“In 2016, heaven took Muhammad Ali, Gordie Howe, Arnold Palmer, Jose Fernandez, and almost an entire Brazilian soccer team.

I guess they needed somebody to interview them.

God speed, Craig Sager”

That was just one of many things said as the news broke on Thursday afternoon about Craig Sager, who passed away at the age of 65 after battling leukemia.