Reporter Jeff Dick­er­son, a beloved and respect­ed fig­ure on the Chica­go sports scene, died Tues­day after a bout with cancer.

He was 44.

The long­time ESPN reporter, who made his name cov­er­ing the Chica­go Bears, had been under­go­ing treat­ment at a hos­pice cen­ter in Bar­ring­ton after being diag­nosed with colon can­cer ear­li­er this year.

WMVP-AM 1000 per­son­al­i­ty Marc Sil­ver­man, who announced the news Tues­day on “The Wad­dle & Sil­vy Show,” called Dick­er­son “the most opti­mistic man I’ve ever met in my life.”

Almost three years ago, on Feb. 26, 2019, Dickerson’s wife, Caitlin, died of melanoma at age 36 after bat­tling can­cer for eight years. Dick­er­son took time off from his ESPN duties to care for Caitlin and raise their young son, Park­er, dur­ing her illness.

After Caitlin’s death he host­ed a radio telethon to help raise mon­ey for can­cer research.

“It’s hard to put into words what los­ing one of my clos­est friends at this stage of life feels like,” WSCR-AM 670 reporter Zach Zaid­man said. “Seems like some­thing that should be a few decades away. I loved him like a broth­er. He was so deter­mined. I can’t stop think­ing of him and his par­ents and Parker.”

Though Dickerson’s ill­ness was known by his col­leagues at the radio sta­tion and many in the Bears press box, he did not make it pub­lic and still was tweet­ing infor­ma­tion about the Bears as recent­ly as Dec. 3.

“Those who have lis­tened to the radio sta­tion are in shock today,” Sil­ver­man, a can­cer sur­vivor, said on ESPN 1000. “And the rea­son is Jeff Dick­er­son is the strongest per­son I know. Peo­ple say that and they throw that around about peo­ple all the time. I know firsthand.”

The Bears released a state­ment that called Dick­er­son “the con­sum­mate professional.”

“JD took a great deal of pride in his cov­er­age of the Bears for 20 years,” the state­ment said. “He was a true pro­fes­sion­al and even bet­ter per­son. JD always was one of the first media mem­bers to arrive in the press box on game day, with a hel­lo and a smile that could bright­en anyone’s day. He was one of a kind and will tru­ly be missed.”

San Fran­cis­co 49ers kick­er Rob­bie Gould, a friend of Dickerson’s since Gould’s days with the Bears, spoke with him by phone at the hos­pice Friday.

“Today is a very sad day to lose a close friend, to lose a per­son I’ve looked up to as a men­tor in the media world, espe­cial­ly in the Chica­go mar­ket,” Gould said. “And espe­cial­ly with what he went through the last 10 years with his wife and his own fight (with can­cer) and tak­ing on the sin­gle par­ent­ing life with his son, my heart aches for him.

“You look for a moment of ask­ing your­self ‘Why?’ or ‘How could this hap­pen to such a great per­son, hus­band, friend, father, and men­tor to many peo­ple?’ He’s one of the strongest peo­ple I know.”

Gould said Dick­er­son “touched many lives” and “peo­ple will be able to see the influ­ence and impact he had not only in Chica­go, but nationwide.”

“You’re going to see a lot of peo­ple come togeth­er and they’re going to laugh and shine some of that pos­i­tive light on each oth­er dur­ing a very dif­fi­cult time,” Gould said. “He was loved and he will be missed.”

Bears play­ers con­fid­ed in Dick­er­son, Gould said, because they knew “he wasn’t going to rail­road the mes­sage for his own per­son­al gain.”

“Every sto­ry you saw was one hap­pen­ing in true time and what the true sto­ry was,” he said. “That’s what play­ers could always appre­ci­ate with Jeff. It was great walk­ing into the lock­er room and hav­ing con­ver­sa­tions about foot­ball … but also try­ing to find the pos­i­tive sto­ry to give fans hope and give the play­ers their due jus­tice when things might not have been as great as they could’ve been.

“He was a very well-respect­ed per­son by all the players.”

Dick­er­son began his jour­nal­ism career at ESPNChicago.com in 2001 and quick­ly gained a rep­u­ta­tion for his report­ing skills on the Bears beat. He also served as an ana­lyst on Loy­ola bas­ket­ball games, co-host­ed a nation­al radio show with local per­son­al­i­ty Jonathan Hood and con­tributed reports to ABC‑7.

In a sports-crazed city where fight­ing for scoops can often cre­ate ten­sion on a beat, Dick­er­son was a friend to every reporter he knew.

“It’s heart­warm­ing to see him bring so many dif­fer­ent peo­ple togeth­er,” Zaid­man said. “That’s his gift. I used to joke with him and call him ‘The Ambas­sador.’ Few peo­ple we know get along with every­one, but that was Jeff. How lucky were we to have a friend like him?

“He faced such mis­er­able cir­cum­stances over the last 10 years of his life, but he nev­er com­plained. It takes a spe­cial human being to be as pos­i­tive, grace­ful and dig­ni­fied as Jeff was through­out all of this.

“I keep search­ing for mean­ing in all of this. Bad things like this shouldn’t hap­pen to good peo­ple like Jeff. If some of his good­ness is infused in all of us going for­ward, then I know we are in a bet­ter place.”