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Dickie V is back on the air … and it’s awesome, baby, for college basketball
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There’s just something soothing about the sound of a familiar voice.
Even when it’s shouting at the top of its lungs.
That’s the reason Dick Vitale’s return to the airwaves after a 2-year battle with vocal cord cancer is such a big deal for college basketball.
You might even say it’s Awesome, Baybeeeeeee!
Because even as things change and evolve, not always for the better, hearing the iconic ESPN analyst describe the action with his familiar over-the-top style reminds us that the game is still all about the PTPers and Diaper Dandies of the world.
And that it’s still fun.
No matter how many times they transfer, how much NIL money they’re raking in or how geographically ridiculous it is that the Atlantic Coast Conference now has 2 members in the Pacific Time Zone.
Barring another mishap like the one that postponed his planned comeback date 2 weeks ago, Dickie V will make his first broadcast appearance since 2023 on Saturday. He’ll join play-by-play man Dave O’Brien and fellow analyst Cory Alexander on the call of the Clemson-Duke game at Littlejohn Coliseum.
It’s only appropriate that the Blue Devils will be there to help welcome Vitale back.
The 85-year-old Hall of Famer is sometimes referred to as “Dukie V” by his detractors because of his propensity for gushing over Mike Krzyzewski and the team everyone other than Duke fans love to hate.
But here’s a little secret. He doesn’t just do it for the Blue Devils. As a perennial championship contender, Duke simply appears on ESPN’s national broadcasts more than almost everyone else.
He gushes that way over everybody.
Nobody loves college basketball or cares more about its players, its coaches, its traditions and those of us who cover it than Dick Vitale.
My first encounter with him came before a game at North Carolina’s Smith Center in the mid-1990s. I was doing a weekly ACC freelance column for Basketball Times in addition to my regular duties as a beat writer for the Fayetteville (NC) Observer back then. Vitale also had a regular feature that ran in BT.
I’d never formally met him. But he must have recognized me from the photo that ran with my column because he came up to me, introduced himself and told me that he liked my work.
It was the moment I felt I had “made it” as a sports journalist.
No doubt he’s left a similar impression on others. And not just those associated with basketball, broadcasting or even sports.
Vitale has been a tireless crusader in the battle to raise awareness and money for cancer research since his good friend Jim Valvano succumbed to the disease in 1993. He’s helped raise upwards of $100 million for the Dick Vitale Pediatric Cancer Research Fund, with much of it coming by way of the star-studded gala he’s hosted every spring for the past 20 years.
Even as he’s fought his own painful battle over the past 2 years, he’s remained as focused on others as he has been himself.
He’s a genuinely good guy.
More important, he’s genuine.
Those nicknames, the hyper-drive delivery, the upbeat personality can easily be confused for shtick. And it often is. But that’s just who he is.
Almost every conversation I’ve had with him over the years has followed a similar pattern. They start calmly, in a normal tone of voice. But as his passion for the subject starts to kick in, the volume rises, the hands start gesturing and he’s off to the races.
One of the few exceptions is a text exchange I had with him shortly before he was supposed to return for the Duke-Wake Forest game on Jan. 25.
He apologized for not speaking with me directly. He’s under doctor’s orders to limit the strain on his battered vocal cords by doing as few interviews as possible. But you could tell something was different by the tone of his responses.
“Nervous and emotional,” he wrote when asked about coming back after such a long time away, adding “I keep wondering what is going to happen.”
I get the emotional part. We’ve seen it on the air as he’s thanked his fans and support staff throughout his battle with cancer. He’s likely to shed a joyful tear or two upon his return Saturday.
As for the nervousness, that’s understandable, too.
But he need not worry about what will happen once the red light comes on, the mic goes live and the game begins. As long as his voice holds out, the passion will kick and Dickie V will take over.
And it will be awesome, baybeeeeee!
Award-winning columnist Brett Friedlander has covered the ACC and college basketball since the 1980s.
