John Saunders shockingly died on Wednesday, and it was the job of his ESPN colleague Hannah Storm to announce the news on live television. In the full clip above, you can see Storm visibly upset, but as you’d expect, she handles it like a complete professional.
Unfortunately, Storm has been in this situation before — she had to let the world know of Stuart Scott’s death in January 2015. She spoke to UPROXX about that in an interview earlier this year:
Interviewing people who have lost loved ones, to me, is the most gutting type of interview that you can do. You feel so much of what they feel, and you’re so respectful of the person who has passed away, and of their memory.
It was the same way I felt when Stuart Scott died. I interviewed all my colleagues, and did three hours on the air. I was spent. It was almost traumatic. You so want to do justice to the person who died, and you understand that grief is so private, but the person you’re talking to wants to talk for some reason. They want the person they lost to be remembered, and for people to care. I just feel so much responsibility with those interviews. Those are the most difficult and the most sensitive. They require a certain sensibility.
Saunders was just 61 years old.
