Over the course of his long ESPN career, Dick Vitale has been best known as an enthusiastic advocate for college basketball.
He’s always loved coming to Cameron, where he always just seemed like an overgrown Crazie. Enthusiasm, meet Enthusiasm. Which is which?
Take your pick.
He has also been a huge backer of, and fundraiser for, the Jimmy V Foundation, which was founded by Jim Valvano near the end of his life. A victim of cancer, Valvano wanted his foundation to fight, and ultimately end, that disease.
Dickie V has been Valvano’s greatest champion.
So it’s ironic and entirely unfair that Vitale has had to fight cancer so hard in the autumn of his life.
He was 82 when he was diagnosed with melanoma in 2021, lymphoma later that year, vocal cord cancer in 2023, and lymph node cancer in 2024, when he was 85.
Now, at the age of 86, he’s been diagnosed with melanoma again, this time, in his lung and liver cavity.
When he announced his latest diagnosis, Vitale said this: “I’ve beaten melanoma. I’ve beaten lymphoma. I’ve beaten vocal cord cancer. I’ve beaten lymph node cancer. I’m four-for-four and I’m fully confident I’m going to make it five-for-five.”
How many people beat cancer in their 80s? Not many. Four times? Vanishingly small.
Five won’t be any easier, but after what we’ve seen over the last few years, what’s clear is that Vitale is a man of immense strength. It won’t surprise us in the least if he beats cancer again.
ESPN made Vitale into a star, the very face of college basketball, and he’ll always be remembered for that. But he’ll also be remembered for his courage, tenacity, and resilience. Whatever happens, the man has emerged as an absolute inspiration.
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