We all want to leave this earth with the legacy Kendall Lewis has built.
Indeed, in death as in life, no one has anything but good things to say about the big man they called “The Big Sports Kahuna,” aka “The BSK.”
The longtime Cleveland area sports talker, broadcaster and reporter, who passed away Tuesday night, was a kind man who lived his life with great passion and a smile. And as such, every time your path crossed his, you had a smile, too. You just felt better. Your day was made.
But the thing about BSK that no one has mentioned is just how much he knew about sports, especially football and, in that regard, specifically the Browns and Ohio State Buckeyes. Those were his true passions in sports. Get him going on one — or, if you were lucky, both – and you would be entertained, enlightened and educated for as long as you had time.
Yes, Kendall was as up-to-date as they come. He was well-versed in what was going on today.
But if the truth be told, he liked even more to go old-school. Name a player, coach, year or game – just about any player, coach, year or game from back in the day, and that’s a whole heckuva lot of them – and he knew something, usually some really cool fact, about them.
And more than that, though, he had the great ability to put it all into perspective, to know what it meant, then, now and going forward. Not many people can do that. In doing so, he made those faces and numbers come alive. He made them fun, exciting and still relevant.
Speaking of fun, nobody was a better storyteller than Kendall. And nobody liked telling stories as much as he did. He could make you laugh, think or cry – and in a lot of cases, all of them in one fell swoop.
When he walked into the Dino Lucarelli Media Center at Browns Headquarters in Berea, there was always someone who would shout with a laugh, “It’s The BSK.” He would laugh and try to be cool, but deep down inside, he loved it. He loved being around his fellow media members, and we loved being around him.
Heck, we just loved the guy.
That he is gone just like that – suddenly, unexpectedly – has taken the wind out of everybody’s sails.
