Chris Mortensen, who came up with many a scoop at ESPN as the network’s longtime NFL reporter and analyst, has died. He was 72.
Mortensen, a George Polk Award-winning newspaperman who joined ESPN in 1991, died Sunday, ESPN announced on social media.
“We’re very sorry to share the devastating news that Chris Mortensen, an award-winning NFL journalist at ESPN for more than three decades, died Sunday morning at the age of 72,” the network posted on Instagram. “Thanks for everything, Mort. We’ll miss you dearly.”
No details were given about his cause of death, but Mortensen left his ESPN job in January 2016 after revealing that he had throat cancer. He returned to work the 2017 NFL season, even as the cancer spread to his lungs.
“I have many inspirational examples of men, women and children who have faced this very fight. We all know somebody, right?” he said in a statement back then. “I also have the love and prayers of my wife Micki, my family, my friends, colleagues and, most of all, my faith that serve as sources of tremendous strength. I have a peace about this and look forward to the battle.”
Mortensen worked on such ESPN programs as Sunday NFL Countdown, Monday Night Countdown, SportsCenter, NFL Live and NFL Insiders before announcing his retirement in September. He covered every Super Bowl from 1979 through 2015.
In August 2016, he came to Canton, Ohio, to accept the Dick McCann Award, given annually by the Professional Football Writers of America for “long and distinguished reporting on professional football.”
Mortensen was in front of many trade stories, coaches’ firings and free-agent signings and broke the news of Peyton Manning’s retirement in 2016, but he received criticism for his reports on “Deflategate,” which alleged that the New England Patriots deflated footballs to gain a competitive advantage.
A native of Torrance, California, Mortensen attended El Camino College in the area and served for two years in the Vietnam War. He began his writing career with the South Bay Daily Breeze in 1969 and was a writer and columnist for Sport magazine and The Sporting News.
Mortensen spent most of the 1980s at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he received the prestigious Polk honor in 1987 for his 110-article report on the subversion of college amateurism by sports agents. He was the first sportswriter to be so honored since Red Smith of The New York Times in 1951.
Mortensen left the paper to join Frank Deford’s short-lived sports daily, The National, then served as a consultant with CBS Sports’ NFL Today in 1990. A year later, his book, Playing for Keeps: How One Man Stopped the Mob From Sinking Its Hooks Into Pro Football, was published.
In addition to his wife, survivors include his children Alex, who played quarterback at Arkansas and Samford University, and Shannan.
In October 2017, Peter King of Sports Illustrated asked Mortensen what lesson he had learned from his battle with cancer.
“Share the emotions that you feel for people when you have the opportunity,” he said. “If you love somebody, tell them. If somebody has done something for you, tell them you appreciate it. Don’t let the moment pass you by. Because you never know when you’ll have another chance.”
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