Craig Sager, the beloved and vibrantly clad sports announcer, has been battling cancer on and off, with bouts of remission, until he was told in March that he had 3-6 months to live. He accepted the Jimmy V Award at the ESPYs last night, noting that he’s going to be “sucking the marrow out of life as life sucks the marrow out of me.”
“You try to live a lifetime of moments in three weeks, but then you say, ‘The hell with three weeks!’ ” Sager said of his reaction to hearing his diagnosis, adding: “Time is something that cannot be bought, it cannot be wagered with God, and it is not in endless supply. Time is simply how you live your life.”
And here is the famous 1993 Jimmy V speech, after whom the award itself is now named; he died of cancer less than two months after this moment.
He encourages us to laugh, think, and cry every day: “That’s a heck of a day.” His speech may make you do all three.
