We lost many of our beloved sports figures in 2016, from the legends like Arnold Palmer and Muhammed Ali, to coaches like Pat Summit and Dennis Green, to the tragic like Jose Fernandez, Will Smith and Joe McKnight — but the one that hit me the hardest was the passing of longtime TNT sideline reporter Craig Sager.
I could lead this article off with a poignant memory of Craig Sager from my childhood growing up as a huge NBA fan in the suburbs of Virginia, or I could recount his final days in a narrative on how he fought to the very end while giving hope to millions around the world, or I could even relate his loss to someone I lost in my lifetime and relive the sadness of that time. I could do any and all of the above and make this a compelling article that I could be proud of — but I won’t.
Instead of mourning his death and leaving you, the reader, heavyhearted at the end of this piece, I would rather celebrate his life and maybe inspire the next Craig Sager.
He was, for lack of a better description, the Michael Jordan of sideline reporting. I say “for lack of a better description” because I don’t feel that comparison does him justice. Jordan, for as great as he was, arguments can be — and have been — made that he isn’t the greatest of all time. Sager, on the other hand, was the greatest at what he did and was — no — is head and shoulders better than the next person.
He brought an attention and an awareness to the sideline that no one had ever done before. He was more than just a flashy outlandish suit, he asked the questions that needed to be asked, all the questions we had while sitting at home watching the game on TV — he asked. Sideline reporting had always seemed an afterthought before Sager. They reported a player going to the locker room because of an injury. They reported what the team doctors were saying about that injury and if he would return to the game. And they reported what the coach said while going to the locker room for halftime — all of which Sager did, but he did it with a style and a personality that leapt off the television screen brighter than any of the suits he wore.
He was as much a part of the NBA as any player that had ever donned a uniform or any coach that had carried a clipboard. He bridged the gap between player and fan and turned static athletes into real live people for those of us watching from home. He brought larger than life, seemingly untouchable players like Michael Jordan and Kevin Garnett into our living room and personified them into people we could relate to. Before social media gave us the unfiltered access to our favorite players, before Twitter degraded our immortalization of our favorite athletes, and before instant “on-demand” media was in the palm of our hand, we had Craig Sager.
I misspoke earlier when I said Craig Sager was the Micheal Jordan of sideline reporting. No. Craig Sager was the Craig Sager of sideline reporting. There was no one like him and to compare him to anyone is doing him a disservice. I’d like to end here and leave you with some images of Sager doing what he did better than anyone else as well as a Tweet from his daughter that sums up everything Craig Sager was. Thank you for reading. #Sagerstrong
If my dad was right and time really is how you live your life, then that son of a bitch outlived us all. #SagerStrong forever pic.twitter.com/Fkb0RcbfJq
— Kacy Sager (@THESagerbomb) December 15, 2016
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