How did Chris Mortensen die?

Chris Mortensen, who worked for ESPN talking about the NFL for more than 30 years, passed away on March 3, as his family told ESPN. He was 72 years old and had retired last year.

“Mort was really respected and everyone liked working with him,” said Jimmy Pitaro, who is the chairman of ESPN. “He was very good at covering the NFL and was one of the best for many years. We will miss him a lot, and we’re thinking of his family.”

Chris leaves behind his wife, Micki Mortensen, who is 65 years old, and their son Alex Mortensen, who is 38 years old. Alex is a football coach at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and used to be a quarterback.

Chris was from California and had served in the Army. He started working as a reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he wrote about the Atlanta Braves and the Atlanta Falcons. In 1987, he won an award for his reporting. He got 18 awards in total during his career and was nominated for two Pulitzer Prizes.

Chris started working at ESPN in 1991. He appeared on shows like NFL GameDay, Sunday NFL Countdown, and Monday Night Countdown. He also talked about football on SportsCenter and analyzed players during the NFL draft.

In January 2016, Chris told ESPN that he had Stage IV throat cancer. He said he would take a break from talking about football while he got treatment. In August of the same year, he said his cancer was almost gone because of the treatment. He went back to work at ESPN a few months later.