Baltimore mourns former WJZ anchor Stan Saunders, dead at 72

Stan Saunders, the former WJZ weekend sports anchor who became a steady presence in Baltimore classrooms and neighborhood sports circles, died Friday, June 26, at 72. His family said long COVID developed into sarcoidosis. For generations of Baltimore viewers, students and young broadcasters, Saunders was one of the few local media figures who moved from the television booth into schools, universities and community programs without leaving the city’s sports conversation behind.

Saunders retired from WJZ in 2013 after years covering Maryland sports. The station said, "He was truly beloved in our newsroom," and added, "Stan had a way with words. More than that, he had a presence you could feel." That presence mattered in Baltimore, where sports talk often stretches from the pro teams to neighborhood leagues, high school sidelines and college programs, and where Saunders became a familiar name to people who grew up seeing him on weekend broadcasts.

He later extended that reach through the Baltimore Academy of Sports and Entertainment, the nonprofit he founded. B.A.S.E. was implemented into the Baltimore City Public School System in 2020, carrying his sports-and-media approach into classrooms across the city. Baltimore Youth Film Arts said Saunders mentored youth in Baltimore City Public Schools through B.A.S.E. and created community-impact documentaries, drawing on more than 30 years of telling Baltimore stories.

Saunders also taught at Towson State University as an adjunct professor and later served as a Professor of Media Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Those roles put him in front of students who were learning the craft of reporting, editing and public storytelling in the same city where he had spent decades building a local sports voice. He later worked as a substitute teacher at Edmonson Westside High and Loch Raven Tech, bringing that experience into Baltimore City Public Schools in a more immediate way.

For Baltimore, Saunders left behind more than a broadcast resume. He represented a kind of civic sports memory that tied WJZ to school hallways, youth media programs and community stories told by someone who knew the city well enough to recognize how sports, education and mentorship overlap.