The most iconic voice in college basketball broadcasting will once again be heard by millions of fans nationwide this weekend.
For the first time in nearly two full years, Dick Vitale will call a game for ESPN when he serves as the analyst for No. 2 Duke’s matchup at No. 21 Clemson on Saturday night.
The 85-year-old Vitale has fought four different forms of cancer over the past 3.5 years and as recently as last summer, he underwent surgery after a biopsy of a lymph node in his neck showed cancer.
On Jan. 8, he announced on social media that his vocal cords had been examined and determined to be cancer-free, meaning he could “return to my love of being at courtside for ESPN.”
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Vitale’s most recent game was ESPN’s international broadcast of UConn’s 76-59 victory against San Diego State in the 2023 national championship game. After revealing he was cancer-free last month, Vitale was initially set to come back on the air for another Duke game — the Blue Devils’ Jan. 25 win at Wake Forest — but he was hospitalized after a fall at his Florida home.
Since first being diagnosed with lymphoma in 2021, Vitale has been engaged in a persistent and public battle with cancer that has occasionally sidelined him from the big-game broadcasts that made him more famous than many of the coaches and players whose games he has covered over the years.
Vitale had previously announced he was cancer-free in 2022, but a year later, he was diagnosed with vocal cord cancer and had to undergo radiation treatments. In November 2023, he was again deemed to be cancer-free before undergoing the procedure last summer following the biopsy.
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Vitale has been the colorful, perpetually energized and jubilant face of ESPN’s college basketball coverage for nearly 50 years.
He joined the network for the 1979-80 season, shortly after it launched. In the decades since, he has become famous for his catchphrases that have become part of the sport’s lexicon — “diaper dandy” (an outstanding freshman player) and “PTPer” (prime-time player), among others — as well as his signature saying, “This is awesome, baby!”, which he deploys during a particularly exciting moment in a game.
Prior to his broadcasting career, Vitale was a coach from 1963-79. He coached for four seasons at the University of Detroit (now the University of Detroit Mercy) and guided the Titans to the Sweet 16 of the 1977 NCAA Tournament in what would be his final season with the program. His work there earned him a call up to the NBA, where he coached the Detroit Pistons from 1978-79 before being fired 12 games into his second season. One month later, he called his first game for ESPN.
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