RALEIGH – After a life spent very publicly on television screen reporting on sporting events, it was time for private reflection with family, friends on colleagues of ESPN sportscaster Stuart Scott at a private funeral in Raleigh Saturday.

Media were asked to keep a distance from the service at the large Providence Baptist Church on Glenwood Avenue and a burial was held shortly thereafter at the Raleigh Memorial Park, only a few miles away.

Smith, who graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill and had interned and worked in the Raleigh-Durham area before moving on to be a familiar fixture to viewers of “the Worldwide Sports Leaders” cornerstone sports news broadcast, succumbed to a 7 year battle with cancer.

A Chicago native, Scott attended high school in the Triad and returned to the Triangle often including delivering the 2001 commencement speech at his alma mater. He was hired by ESPN2 and moved up the later, and coined phases which are now used often by those who watch and enjoy sports.

Scott was a strong supporter of the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research and his family asked that in lieu of flowers that donations be given to the organization created by former N.C. State basketball coach Jim Valvano, who lost his own fight to cancer.  In 2011 the foundation honored him with "The Spirit of Jimmy V Award."

Stewart Scott was 49