AP Sports Writer Kristie Rieken spent hours with NBA TV broadcaster Craig Sager before his third bone marrow transplant. She shares her memories of Sager from her visit in this first-person essay.
I spent a couple of hours with Craig Sager the day before he underwent a rare third bone marrow transplant, and it was clear that he was spent.
The process was tiring and my relentless questioning didn't help, though he and his family were gracious enough to share what they were going through at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in those still-hopeful days back in August. After I'd listened to his transplantation physician, Dr. Muzaffar Qazilbash, explain that almost no one gets three stem cell transplants and as I was gathering my belongings to leave, I was summoned back to Sager's room.
I slowly entered, unsure of why he asked me to come back when he obviously needed to rest. When I pulled back the curtain that separated his hospital bed from the door, I heard his booming voice.
"Pick up that ball and sign it for me!" he bellowed.
Nearby was a marker and a basketball covered in signatures of all shapes and sizes.
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"You don't want me to sign this," I replied. "I'm not famous."
He didn't miss a beat despite the toll the years of cancer treatments had taken on his body.
"Everyone who visits me is special. Sign the ball!" he said.
I scribbled my name and thanked him again for his time. I had never met Sager before that day, but I quickly realized why he was so beloved across the NBA and beyond — and why the sadness ran so deep Thursday after he died at the age of 65 .
I spent nearly two days with him as he shared an intimate look at his last-ditch bid for life. His son was the donor for the first two transplants; this time , it was someone anonymous.
It was clear by looking at him that he was very ill, but if I were to close my eyes and listen to what he said and how he said it, I doubt I would have known he was sick. Anyone who knows him knows that he's a character (see: flamboyant wardrobe). What was surprising was that even when he was staring down his own death, he maintained his TV-perfect smile and positive attitude.
The relationship Sager had with his wife, Stacy, was clearly extraordinary. He gazed at her with a look of pure love, adoration and esteem. Stacy, who had two young children with Sager, fought back tears when we spoke about his fight.
I asked her if he was as upbeat privately as he had been with me and while roaming the sidelines reporting. And I asked her if ever talked about fearing death.
"We don't really have those deep, dark conversations," she said. "We don't have any negative conversations. Everything is one day at a time and let's be grateful and blessed that we have this day and enjoy it. Who knows how many days anybody has? So we just take it one day at a time and be happy."
During an interview the day before his transplant, the one that sadly couldn't save Sager's life, Charles Barkley sat and listened as we talked. Sir Charles was quiet as a mouse as Sager spoke of all the treatments he'd gone through and how much the support of his NBA family had meant to him.
As we spoke, I noticed a black-and-white photo of a child with some baseball players hanging on the stark hospital wall above Barkley's head. I motioned toward the picture and asked who was in it.
"That's not a picture, that's actually Charles Barkley," Sager deadpanned, cracking up the room.
After we composed ourselves, Sager described the picture, which was of him as an 11-year-old with Chicago Cubs great Ernie Banks and some of his teammates. Sager then explained that he'd been a Cubs fan since that moment and bragged that he got to throw out the first pitch at one of their games earlier this year. A big deal for a native of Batavia, Illinois.
The interview soon devolved into a conversation about how he bet on the Cubs to win it all every year and they never came through. When they captured their first World Series title since 1908 a couple of months ago, Sager was the first person I thought of, knowing what it meant to him.
And when the Cubs posted a video of his day at Wrigley Field on their account Thursday, I knew that Sager was somewhere smiling to know that the world champions were now honouring him.
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Sager never once thought about giving up as he battled cancer for more than two years.
"Man, life is too beautiful, too wonderful, there's just too many things," he said in late August. "It's not just you. It's your family and kids and all. Fight. Fight until the end. Fight as hard as you can."
The end for the beloved TNT broadcaster came Thursday when the man known as much for his outrageous wardrobe as his relationships with the NBA's elite succumbed to the disease he fought so hard to overcome. Turner Sports announced his death without disclosing details. He was 65 and had worked basketball games for TNT for nearly a quarter-century.
"There will never be another Craig Sager," Turner President David Levy said. "His incredible talent, tireless work ethic and commitment to his craft took him all over the world covering sports."
His son, Craig Jr., posted a loving video tribute to his father, tweeting: "We packed a lifetime and then some into these 28 years together."
Sager's passing brought out condolences from every corner of the NBA and Hall of Famer Larry Bird expressed what many were feeling.
"He was as identifiable with the NBA as any player or coach," Bird said. "The league will not be the same without him."
Magic Johnson echoed those sentiments on Twitter.
"The NBA family lost a legend who changed the way sideline reporters did their job. RIP Craig Sager," Johnson said.
It wasn't just the NBA community that mourned his passing , with Vice President Joe Biden and Drake expressing sadness at the loss.
Sager had two bone marrow transplants with his son as the donor before undergoing a third one from an anonymous donor at the end of August in Houston to fight an aggressive form of leukemia. To no one's surprise, he was characteristically cheerful .
"It really isn't all that painful, not physically," he said then. "I think the hardest toll is mentally and emotionally. I have this thing of positive thinking. I think if you think something is going to be right and you think positive then you feel that way and if you feel that way you'll act that way. I try not to get down."
Sager announced in April 2014 that he had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, and he missed the playoffs and much of the following season as he underwent the first two transplants. Sager revealed in March 2016 that his leukemia was no longer in remission. He said doctors told him the typical prognosis was three to six months to live.
He was overwhelmed by how news of his fight spread and people across the world started talking about theSager Strong campaign.
"At first was our family's fight," Sager said. "Then because of TV and TNT and people seeing me in the stands and I talk to people and then it got bigger and then that inner circle became an endless world to tell you the truth."
Sager then started gaining inspiration from everyone who shared their story or reached out to show support.
"They saw that I refused to give up and I refused to give in and that I'm still fighting it and they saw a lot of inspiration in what I was doing," he said. "Now I feel I'm not only fighting for what I want and what my family wants, but for everybody out there who has cancer or will."
His battle brought out the soft side of Gregg Popovich, the prickly San Antonio Spurs coach with whom he had many memorable exchanges during in-game interviews.
Sager never faulted Popovich for his gruff attitude during those interviews, saying "he's trying to win a game. He doesn't want to talk to some reporter."
"Later, he said, 'You're still going to be media on the court, but off the court can I call you and see how you're doing?' I said: 'Heck yes,'" Sager recalled in August. "Just keep treating me the way on the court you always do. He said: 'I wouldn't want it any other way.'"
After learning Sager had died, Popovich spoke somberly for close to two minutes before a game in Phoenix.
"A day like this, basketball has to take a back seat, as we all think about somebody who was very unique, very special," Popovich said. "Whether you really knew Craig or not, you got the feeling that he was a very special person in a lot of different ways, and right now I just feel for his family."
"He was a way better person than he was a worker, even though he was amazing in that regard. He loved all the people around him and everybody felt that," he said. "The most amazing part of him is his courage ... if any of us can display half the courage he has to stay on this planet, to live every life as if it's his last, we'd be well off."
Sager sported suits in every color of the rainbow and plenty of shades not found in nature, from teal to fuchsia to magenta. He would match plaid blazers with paisley ties or striped shirts — all in bold hues.
Kevin Garnett once told him to burn an entire outfit. In a 2016 interview with HBO's "Real Sports," Sagerrecalled how Popovich reproached him for trying to stand out. Sager explained to him: "Coach, you don't understand. If I'm not wearing bright colors and if I don't feel lively, it's not me."
Sometimes lost in the glare of his wardrobe was Sager's relentless nature as a reporter. Every time Popovich would give a terse non-answer, an unfazed Sager would pepper him with another question.
Sager's persistence was on display at the start of his career, when the 22-year-old found himself in the middle of one of the most famous moments in sports history. Making $95 a week in 1974 as the news director at WSPB — a Braves-affiliated AM radio station in Sarasota, Florida — Sager risked getting fired by deciding to hop a flight to Atlanta for a game with Hank Aaron a home run away from breaking Babe Ruth's career record.
With a last-minute credential, Sager was stuck in the third-base photographers' well. As the historic homer sailed out of the park, Sager, without thinking, sprinted onto the field and wound up chasing Aaron down the third-base line. When Aaron's teammates mobbed him at home plate, Sager can be seen in his trench coat in the middle of the scrum.
The next day, Sager caught a 5 a.m. flight to Sarasota to be back for his morning drive responsibilities, and his tapes from the game wound up in Cooperstown.
Sager worked as a reporter on the Olympics, Major League Baseball playoffs, the NFL and the NCAA Tournament, among other sports. But he was indelibly connected to the NBA and Commissioner Adam Silver said the "true original" was respected for his reporting — and his inspiring fight. Bulls star Dwyane Wade sold paisley ties during the 2016 playoffs to raise money to combat blood cancers.
"Craig was as vital to the NBA as the players and coaches," Silver said. "Craig earned widespread respect for his insightful reporting and inspired so many most recently with his courage."
Sager got to cover his first NBA Finals in 2016 through an unusual arrangement between TNT and ESPN, which invited him to join its coverage. He marked the occasion by wearing a blazer with a royal blue floral print. In an interview with LeBron James after Game 6, the Cavaliers star turned the tables to giddily ask Sager a question: "How in the hell do you go 30-plus years without getting a Finals game?"
He was self-deprecating when asked what the outpouring of support from across the NBA meant to him.
"It means that I'm not just the nuisance that they see on the court when I'm trying to talk to them when they want to be somewhere else," he said in August.
And Sager loved everything about his job.
"I try to get there three hours before the game, talk with the ushers and the security guards, the coaches and the fans," Sager said in 2015.
A native of Batavia, Illinois, Sager attended Northwestern, where he walked onto the football and basketball teams, and served as the school's "Willie the Wildcat" mascot for three years.
He worked at several TV and radio stations in Florida after college before spending two years in Kansas City.Sager joined CNN in 1981 after handling the network's first live remote report during the 1980 baseball playoffs.
Sager was in Dallas for a game in April 2014 when he felt ill and sought treatment from Mavericks team physician Dr. Tarek Souryal, who had previously performed Sager's knee surgery. With a dangerously low hemoglobin count, Sager had six blood transfusions over a 24-hour period before returning to Atlanta. After that came the treatments and his public battle with leukemia.
Earlier this year, Sager was involved in the television coverage of the NCAA Final Four and had a memorable postgame interview with Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim.
"I'm proud of you," Boeheim told Sager on air after the Orange lost in the national semifinals. "I'm really proud of you and what you're doing. You're a fighter and that's something we all should really aspire to be. You're setting an example that we all should be really happy to try to follow."
Sager replied, "Well, thank you very much."
And then the professional broadcaster did what professional broadcasters do - he went to his next question, one about Syracuse's famed 2-3 zone, without missing a beat.
