Photo: Tamara Lackey with Stuart Scott on AdoramaTV

“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” – Stuart Scott

“How did I get here?” I thought as the doors on the taxi slammed shut.

The New York night was getting colder but I was all warmed up from feeling giddy. Yep, giddy! It’s not every day that you find yourself on your way to karaoke with a living legend in sports history at your side. But, there I was, sitting next to ESPN’s Stuart Scott on our way to sing badly in an uptown dive bar.

A little context: By now, everyone has heard that Stuart Scott died this week after a 7 year battle with cancer. Like many around the globe, I hate cancer. I hate that he died. I hate that his daughters now live in light of that reality.

The predictable narrative I would want to talk about is Stuart’s relationship with his daughters, especially since I am a son who lost his dad at a way too early age too. Given how much Stuart famously loved and bragged on his girls, especially when the TV cameras were turned off, it would be natural for me to want to celebrate who he was from that angle. It’s certainly the narrative that gets me crying every time I flip back to the ESPN tributes to Stuart. He loved those girls as much as my dad loved me.

That perspective has already been well documented by folks far more qualified than me. That’s not my story to tell. What I want to share is far more pedestrian. It is about the cab ride.

But, let me back up just a bit…

What you might not know is Stuart and I have a common friend in Tamara Lackey, easily one of my favorite humans and a creative and entrepreneurial tour de force in her own right.

When Tamara first mentioned to me that she and Stuart were friends, I remember her asking if I knew who he was. Laughing, I said, “Everybody knows who Stuart Scott is!” The man redefined sports broadcasting, adding swagger and accessibility to an industry that was becoming too corporate and poorly represented. His flash was fun. More than entertainment though, Stuart brought intelligence and flair (first to ESPN 2 and then) as an anchor on ESPN’s Sport Center. His signature “Booyah!” is now part of our common lexicon. And I’m certainly I’m not the only guy who turns over his pillow over on warm summer nights and thinks of Stu.

He was an original. He was a pro. And he brought his razor sharp wit and shrewder-than-most-everyone-in-the-room insight everywhere he went. He even brought it to late night cab rides.

So, there he was, headed to karaoke, stuck in a cab with a guy he didn’t know (me) behind the better option in front of us (a.k.a., the cab in which all the ladies were traveling). But he wasn’t complaining. He was too busy being grateful… blessing others just because he could.

[Sidenote: I’m pretty confident Tamara – also pretty sharp and shrewd – set the whole “me and Stu in the cab” thing up. Why? Just to make my day. She and Stuart were a lot alike that way.]

No surprise, Stuart was all class. As we were waiting for our cab, he engaged me like I mattered. He asked about my wife. We talked about our kids. We also talked endearingly about our common friend. It was a sweet moment.

When we got in the car, I was understandably (and selfishly) wanting to bask in the glory of a private and extended conversation with an icon. But, he was too generous to let something so little as that happen. Once the doors shut, it was the driver who got all the attention… and it was beautiful.

“Hey… aren’t you…?!” went the driver’s broken english, while barely being able to keep the car on the road. Saying that the blue collar cabby was excited was an understatement. He was Stu’s people. And Stu was ready to play.

“Yah. I am… but what’s your name?” was Stuart’s response. The rest of the ride was Stuart choosing to make some guys night. Two guys nights, actually. First mine by even getting in the cab. And second, the cabby’s by making the ride all about him. And, that in a nut shell, is who I’ll remember Stuart to be. The man was all about the other.

Stuart Scott knew his audience. He knew his job. And, he brought it every day. When he was entertaining the world of sports, he brought it. When he was in chemo, he brought it. When he was doing P90X while doing chemo, he brought it. When he was heckling haters, he brought it. When he was in a cab with this guy, he brought it. That’s just who he was.

The guy is a hero.

Some more cynical types than me might think calling the guy a hero in sports is an overstatement. When it comes to performance on the field, Stuart Scott was no Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods or Payton Manning. In my books though, and given the global response to his passing (by folks like Jordan, Woods and Manning), this guy was bigger than sport. As a man, he lived his life heroically. And his was a glimpse of awesome I won’t soon forget.

The truth is though, we are all dying. And, we all will be missed for something. Seth Godin suggests that we don’t need to wait for a funeral to find out what that can look like. And, he’s right, of course. We could all catch another metaphorical cab on our way to “someplace” or… we could take a page from Stuart Scott’s playbook and be a metaphorical cab ride away from making someone else’s day.