ESPN Reporter Ed Aschoff, Set To Wed Next Year, Dies At Age 34 On Xmas Eve Birthday

Edward Aschoff, an ESPN on-air college football reporter, died on Tuesday, Dec. 24, on his 34th birthday, the network sadly announced.

He reportedly passed away on Christmas Eve after a battle with pneumonia.

"We are very sorry to have to share the devastating news of the tragic passing of friend and ESPN colleague Edward Aschoff," said ESPN in a statement on Tuesday. "Our thoughts are with his loved ones, including his fiancée, Katy."

ESPN said he died "after a brief illness," but did not offer more details.

However, earlier this month, Aschoff had revealed on social media that he had pneumonia, a potentially deadly lung ailment.

ESPN reported that Aschoff was planning to marry his fiancée, Katy Berteau, in April 2020 after she had proposed to him last December.

Aschoff wrote in his final Instagram post from Dec. 4 that having pneumonia was the "absolute worst."

He thanked his fiancée for helping him during the illness.

Chris Low, a senior writer for ESPN, said that he shed"lots of tears" while writing Aschoff's obituary for the website.

"There are those people in our lives who touch our hearts, but Aschoff left an indelible mark on our hearts that we will cherish," Low wrote via Twitter.

ESPN reporter Andrea Adelson, who co-wrote the touching obit, shared in a tweet, "At first I had no idea how to even put into words what I wanted to say. How do you tell the world what Ed meant to you, why everyone loved him so much?"

"But then I looked at his smile, and I got to work. I had to. For Edward," Adelson noted.

Aschoff had been with the company since 2011 as part of the SEC blog network.

In 2017, he moved to Los Angeles for a more expanded national role that included television coverage.

Aschoff had grown up in Oxford, Mississippi, with a father who was an Ole Miss professor and a mother who was a special education teacher for the local school district. He attended the University of Florida.

ESPN's Kyle Bonagura tweeted, "Not only was @AschoffESPN an extra in Godzilla, he was in the @MLS anti-discrimination campaign earlier this year. He was told they needed an @ATLUTD fan in LA for the shoot - so he showed up and somehow, to his surprise, ended up with a speaking role."

Adam Rittenberg of ESPN wrote on social media about Aschoff's "happy" spirit, "We should all strive to enjoy life as much as he did."