Fred Hickman, Longtime CNN Sporting activities Anchor, Is Died at 66

Mike Hill, who worked at ESPN and Fox Athletics, wrote on Twitter that Mr. Hickman was a Black job model. “Long ahead of I was inspired by any sports anchor on ‘SportsCenter,’” he wrote, “Fred was the anchor I appeared up to. He was solid, terrific & appeared like ME. A rarity back then.”

Mr. Fred Hickman left CNN in 1984 to anchor sports activities at WDIV-Tv in Detroit. Although there, he made a cocaine routine.

“I was a young kid and I was in a city that I didn’t significantly like,” he informed The Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester, N.Y., in 1993. After rehabilitation, he still left the station in 1986 and rejoined CNN and Mr. Charles later on that 12 months. He remained on “Sports Tonight” right until 2001. (Mr. Charles died in 2011.)

While at Turner Broadcasting, the guardian firm of CNN, Mr. Fred Hickman also hosted an N.B.A. pregame and postgame show on TBS and an N.F.L. pregame and postgame show on TNT. He and Mr. Charles also hosted TNT’s 1992 and 1994 Winter season Olympics coverage.

How did Fred Hickman die? Former ESPN and CNN Anchor Dies

In 2000, Mr. Fred Hickman produced news when it was uncovered that he experienced solid the only vote against Shaquille O’Neal for the National Basketball Association’s Most Worthwhile Participant Award. He desired Allen Iverson. That choice led to anonymous threats of personalized hurt on his business office voice mail and to antipathy from Mr. O’Neal for staying denied a unanimous vote.

Just after Mr. Hickman’s extensive run at CNN, his job turned peripatetic: somewhat small stints at Of course, ESPN and Fox Sporting activities South, where he hosted Atlanta Braves programming, as properly as Tv set stations in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, La., and Hagerstown, Md. In Baton Rouge and Hagerstown he was a information anchor, which helped fulfill his love of political protection.