Nick Charles, the original and long time sports announcer at CNN, finally lost his battle to bladder cancer. Nick, along with his broadcasting partner, Fred Hickman, were the faces of CNN sports for two decades. How popular were they? Well, they consistently beat whoever ESPN threw in front of the camera with their nightly highlights.
Nick Charles was also was designated as one of the most handsome men in America but will be forever remembered as one of the nicest people whoever graced this planet. He held a special affinity for boxers and was a good friend to Mike Tyson from the early days of Iron Mike's career and remained so right up to the very end.
However, you need not be a fan of sports to appreciate Nick Charles. All you need to do is view Dr. Sanjay Gupta's CNN special on Nick's battle with cancer, "No Regrets, Lessons From The Fight," to know Nick Charles was a special human being. Instead of despairing his death sentence, Nick embraces the challenges, fears, and uncertainty in a way that makes the viewer realize how much all of us have to be thankful for, no matter what is thrown at us. To know you will be leaving behind your wife and five year old daughter is enough to make anyone angry, bitter, and question their maker. Instead, Nick teaches us all how to be thankful for all we have.
At one point, he says, "I wake up every day expecting to have a good day. It may sound trite, Sanjay, but life as you get older is about 20 percent of what happens to you and about 80 percent how you react to it." Nick Charles reacted to life in a way that few of us do even when we have our health.
He goes on to say, "People won't remember who you are or what you said. It's really about are you going to be remembered as a good person. That's victory to me. That's success."
If more of us, myself included, could embrace life as Nick Charles did, this world would be so much better off. Thank you Nick Charles for the life you lived and most of all for the lessons you left all of us.
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