Nicholas Charles Nickeas (June 30, 1946 – June 25, 2011), known as Nick Charles, was an American sportscaster and journalist. He was one of CNN's first on-air personalities and won three CableACE Awards for best sports program during his 17-year tenure as co-host of the network's Sports Tonight. He was a graduate of Columbia College Chicago. Career in broadcasting Charles started his career as a sportscaster at local television stations. He worked the nightly sports desk at WICS, in Springfield, Illinois, where Fred Hickman his future co-anchor at CNN began his career. He worked at WTOP Radio and WRC-TV in Washington, D.C. as sports director. At WJZ-TV in Baltimore, Maryland, he won an Associated Press award for investigative journalism. Charles was the first sports anchor for CNN in 1980. He co-hosted CNN Sports Tonight with Fred Hickman, and later hosted his own program, Page One with Nick Charles until leaving the network in 2001. He hosted the Goodwill Games for Turner Broadcasting in 1986 in Moscow, 1990 in Seattle, Washington, 1994 in St. Petersburg, Russia and covered boxing for the Goodwill Games in New York City in 1998. Beginning in 2001, Charles hosted of Showtime's ShoBox: The New Generation. As a boxing commentator, he interviewed major boxing figures including Muhammad Ali and Evander Holyfield. He also hosted boxing on Versus, a sports network. Nick won the Boxing Writer's Association 2007 Broadcaster award. In 2008, he won the Sam Taub Award for excellence in boxing broadcasting journalism. Charles was also the winner of several cableACE awards. He was named "sexiest sportscaster" in America several years in a row by U.S. Television Fan Association. Nick Charles and former heavyweight contender George Chuvalo shared the Bill Crawford Award for perseverance in overcoming adversity in 2010 from the Boxing Writer's Association. It was reported in USA Today that Nick Charles was taking a leave of absence from Showtime in 2009 to battle stage 4 bladder cancer. Boxing and sports websites, including ESPN.com reported on January 16 that Charles was returning to Showtime on January 29, 2010 and had 80% remission. As of March 2010, the cancer became more aggressive and he returned to M.D. Anderson in Houston for a chemotherapy clinical trial. Despite spending most of his career broadcasting fights for Showtime, in March 2011, Charles returned to the airwaves for a final time as a host of HBO's Boxing After Dark program after