"This wasn’t a four-hour radio broadcast. It was an entire sports community, grieving together," Freep sportswriter Mike Seidel posts about the "Jamie and Stoney" show Monday morning on WXYT-FM (97.1).
"A rock, the guy who drove our show, one of the best friends I've ever had over the past 25 years since 1994 — ”
He [Mike Stone] cleared his throat.
"Passed away at the age of 48 frickin’ years old."
Stone hosted the sports talk program for four years with Jamie Samuelsen, who died at home Saturday after a 19-month fight against colon cancer. "It’s heartbreaking," Stone said.
Among dozens of callers reflecting Monday on Samuelsen's impact and personality was Detroit Lions head coach Matt Patricia, who had asked through the team Saturday night to participate. The station posts his words in text and audio (below):
I just want to call in and say how sad and sorry I am. I wasn't really aware of his condition until last week, and then this terrible news came so quickly right after. Just really hit me hard.
Jamie's just an amazing person. I had the fortunate blessing to have a couple in-person interactions with him and a couple in a private setting in training camp. Just a larger-than-life personality, just a genuine, wonderful, wonderful guy. Obviously your heart just aches for his wife and for his children and for their family, so just wanted to call in. ...
I know the media community is hurting. I know how hard it is for you [Stone] to get back on and go today and how brave that is of you to be able to do that, and I appreciate that, too. But for a guy from a California who had such an impact here in Detroit, just shows you what an unbelievable person that he was.
His message is something that we have to push on. The colonoscopy test is something that people don’t like to talk about. But just personally having a lot of people that have been impacted by that type of cancer, we just have to urge everybody to be safe and to go out and make sure that everyone’s OK.
But just wanted to call in. My heart really hurt when I heard the news. It was just so quick, but what an amazing guy.
Sports are great and that is our passion, and that's the wonderful bond that we all have together, but this is really about people. It's about families, it's about support and pulling together and just trying to make sure that everybody knows that we're there to lean on if they need us. And then also to make sure that we get a message out that if we can do something to help other people, we should do that.
So I just appreciate you letting me come on, I just felt compelled. Like I said, Jamie walked in the room and you knew it right away. An amazing guy, great family, I know an unbelievable work partner and just someone that would do anything for anybody. So my heart goes out to everybody that had a wonderful opportunity to meet him, but especially his family and certainly for you and everybody there.