ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt had a sweet salute to his late father on ‘SportsCenter’
It was 31 years ago Tuesday that Sam Van Pelt passed away.
That’s not a name most people are familiar with, but many know his son, ESPN anchor Scott Van Pelt. On Tuesday night’s edition of “SportsCenter,” Van Pelt gave a lovely tribute to his father.
Here is a bit of what he said:
“What I’d give to have just five minutes today to tell him how the story has gone since 1988. To introduce him to the grandkids, one of whom is named Sam, after him. I’ve always avoided focusing on the day of his passing and I’ve chosen to talk about birthdays instead. To celebrate them, not obsess about the death day, but this year I’m surrounded by it.
“My good friend Jill buried her dad today. She said she wanted to speak at his funeral but wasn’t sure she could do it. I told her to think about love, I told her should and she’d be glad she did. Well, she did and I’m told she was great.
“Tomorrow I head to Maryland to be there for one my boys who just lost his dad. That funeral is Thursday morning, and I realized that I’ve been pretty good at giving advice to those who deal with this specific pain. I tell them when the grief comes not to run from it, not to bury it because it grows and it gets a whole lot heavier to carry around, because it does.
“I encourage my friends to share it, to articulate it, to say it out loud. It’s time to take my own advice. Today isn’t worse than another day, it’s just another day. But to try to swallow it and ignore it today would be a mistake.
“So maybe this is selfish to do it here, but it’s intentional, because we all have our pain to deal with. And maybe it helps somebody else or encourages someone to tell a loved one who’s still here how you feel. Maybe it doesn’t. Either way, I miss you dad today and every day, and I hope you’d be proud of how it all turned out.”
This is the clip:
This story was originally published January 16, 2019 at 9:11 AM.
