SC Featured: Fight Like Hell
The 7th Annual Awards
- Best Life or Legacy Tribute
ABOUT THIS ENTRY
Ten years ago, Stuart Scott accepted the Jimmy V award for Perseverance at the ESPY awards, leaving us all with a memory and a message that still echoes today: “Fight like hell. And when you get too tired to fight...let somebody else fight for you.” His daughters reflect on Stuart’s legacy, authenticity, and the impact of that speech and what it helped to create.
The decision that had the greatest impact on this piece was to tell this story through the voices of his daughters. When their father passed away, they were both very young. Now, older, and more mature, it was fitting to reintroduce Sydni and Taelor to the world as adult women. Meeting with the Scoot family also helped this piece. I was able to gain their trust which ultimately led to the sisters being comfortable to watch the speech again.
How does this represent "Excellence in Engagement"?
This piece will inspire and move the industry because it reminds us to fight for those who can no longer fight for themselves. It teaches us how to deal with grief and turn adversity into inspiration
Objective
The challenge with a piece like this is how often it's already been told. So, our objective was to tell this story from a perspective that our audience hadn't seen before. Prior to filming I met with the Scott family to discuss production elements the daughters mentioned how they haven't watched the speech since Stuart originally delivered it. That's when I came up with the idea to tell this story through the voices of Stuart’s daughters and capture them watching the speech after all these years.
Strategy & Execution
With this story it was important to understand that there is now a generation of sports fans that don't know Stuart's story. So, we wanted to make sure we covered enough of his backstory to the modern sports fan. We wanted to the modern sports fan to understand his origins and what made him so special during his era. We could have easily found the best Stuart Scott phrases and simply just cut from one soundbite to the next. But we wanted to present it in a way that was unique. So, we recreated scenes from the late 90's and early 2000's that would bring our viewers back to that time frame.
Credits
Craig T. Lazarus
Executive Producer
ESPN
Jose Morales
Executive Producer
ESPN
Ben Webber
Executive Producer
ESPN
Sandarvis Duffie
Producer
ESPN
Celebrate in NYC
Join us for the 7th Annual Hashtag Sports Awards™ on the evening of June 24, 2025 as we celebrate finalists and reveal the winners of this year's awards live during the show.
