ESPN sportscaster John Saunders in 2013.
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During that time he was also the TV play-by-play announcer for the Toronto Raptors, a role he’d hold until 2001.
Saunders had been a part of ESPN for almost 30 years and served in several roles ranging from hosting SportsCenter to commentating on college basketball and the WNBA. He was very giving, very caring, very intelligent..
He was one of the most significant and influential members of the ESPN family, as a colleague and mentor, and he will be sorely missed, Skipper said.
John Saunders passed away earlier today at the age of 61. He was also a host of ABC’s Saturday studio coverage of college football, editions of ESPN’s “College Football Live” and ESPN’s college basketball studio coverage.
Saunders would also provide play-by-play commentary for ESPN’s coverage of the NBA (from 2002 to 2004, and occasionally during 2007) and host NBA Shootaround from 2004 to 2006.
John Saunders was news director at CKNS Radio in Espanola, Ont, in 1978 and sports anchor at CKNY-TV in North Bay, Ont. from 1978 to ’79. He worked at ATV News in New Brunswick in 1979-80 before he became sports anchor for CITY-TV in Toronto from ’80 to ’82.
He was very proud to be Canadian, said Leo Rautins, the former National Basketball Association player who teamed with Saunders on Toronto Raptors telecasts. “He’d mention it every time he could”.
Quite a few people have shared their reactions and responses to John Saunders’ death on Twitter – including his fellow ESPN colleagues, fans, celebrities and even sports teams.
As a youth, his sport was hockey. He was an all-star defenseman as a youth in Montreal and attended Western Michigan on a hockey scholarship.
John’s cause of death has not yet been released.
Rautins said it was widely known that Saunders suffered from diabetes.
“I was more upset at his lack of sensitivity as to how it hurt or upset African Americans”, he said.
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“He disappeared just before we were going on air”, said Rautins. He recently completed a memoir, Playing Hurt: My Journey From Despair, with author John Bacon, to be published next year, about his lifelong struggle with depression.
