A broadcast halftime guest to remember

Detroit, December 28-29, 1976, the Motor City Classic ...

Dick Vitale
(photo by Matt Cashore, USA Today sports)

     A few years before he became the World's
Ambassador of Basketball, he was the halftime guest interview on the Centenary College broadcast.

     We knew this could be interesting.

     We had seen his "act" the previous night when he coached the best basketball team the University of Detroit had ever had to a close victory against our team, the Centenary Gentlemen. He was, well, a wild man, frantically -- obsessively -- directing his Titans. 

     The next night, as our guys played a consolation -- third-place -- game, he came to our radio-broadcast position to talk at halftime. His team would play the championship game about an hour later.

     All Jim Hawthorne, Centenary's play-by-play broadcaster on KWKH-Shreveport (1130 AM on the radio) in the late 1970s, had to do was ask one question. Dick Vitale -- yes, the omnipresent basketball guru -- took it from there.

 You might have seen him, and especially heard him, a time or two over the past 40 years. 

     Of course, he talked and talked and talked. He was intense, excitable, enthusiastic, loud, funny, crazy. Pick an adjective.

     It was unforgettable. And to think that then, 1976, not many people outside of, say, New Jersey (where he grew up and first coached) and Detroit knew of this blind-in-one-eye, balding, babbling nut case.

     Dickie V., baby.

     A footnote to this lead-in: A couple of hours later, after his U. of Detroit team had struggled to edge a less-than-.500 Kent State team in overtime, Vitale -- did we say intense? -- and Kent State coach Rex Hughes engaged in a shoving match that had to be broken up. Hughes wasn't happy with the game's outcome; Vitale wasn't happy with his team's subpar effort.

     Saw it happen. Not a good scene. But here is a fact: Both Vitale and Hughes were basketball lifers, and both were head coaches for a short time in the NBA. One little skirmish didn't matter.

      We did appreciate Vitale coming on our halftime show. What Hawthorne -- who would go on to be LSU athletics' "Voice of the Tigers" for three decades -- remembers is telling.

      "He was sitting with me in a press booth at the top of the arena [Detroit's Calihan Hall]," Jim recalls, "and he told me, 'I just get so nervous.' "

       If Dick Vitale was nervous -- and maybe that's what took him out of coaching for good only a couple of years later -- think about how many TV viewers he made nervous over the next 40 years.

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     He was, and still can be, outrageously colorful -- dancing with cheerleaders, being the object of crowd-surfing, wearing goofy wigs, using his Vitale terminology ("diaper dandy," "PTPer," etc. ... here is the list -- https://dickvitaleonline.com/about/dick-vitales-dictionary)
     He also is outrageously positive and popular -- an emotional, wonderful friend of coaches, players, and the world. A charitable human being, always promoting good causes. The University of Detroit named its basketball court for him; he's been inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.     

     To listen to Vitale as the color announcer on TV basketball games, mostly college games but also a couple of years of NBA games, required patience and a good set of ears. Many people -- confession, I am one -- took it small doses, or not at all. Here is where the "mute" button came in.

     (My Dad loved basketball, but not Vit-al-ee, as he pronounced it in his broken Dutch/English. He always turned off the sound on Dickie V.'s games.)          

     Now, though, "mute" is not a happy word when we consider Mr. Vitale. This has been a tough time for the 82-year-old longtime Florida resident -- first melanoma, then lymphoma, chemo for months, and now vocal cords damaged to where surgery is required. He can't talk, and this week ESPN announced that he won't be back on the air for the rest of this basketball season.  

     It is no time for jokes about his voice.

     You know the sports world is rooting for him, and his full recovery.

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    We saw him, and he did that radio interview, in his greatest season as a coach. It was his fourth year as the University of Detroit coach, and his 1976-77 Titans went 25-4 (and one loss, to Minnesota, was reversed by forfeit).

      They won 21 games in a row -- Centenary was No. 6 in that streak -- and the last of those was a 64-63 upset (on a last-second shot) of No. 7-ranked Marquette in Milwaukee. Oh, Marquette went on to win the NCAA championship.

     Here is a funny Vitale moment: His dance at midcourt after that victory at Marquette: https://twitter.com/dickiev/status/804121343553925120

     Detroit made the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 15 years, and won one game, then lost in the Sweet Sixteen to state rival Michigan.

     That team included three future NBA players -- guards John Long and Terry Duerod, and forward/center Terry Tyler. 

      Earl Cureton, a 12-year NBA player, came to Detroit as a transfer while Vitale was the coach (and then athletic director for a year). When the 1977 team had a 40-year reunion, and Vitale attended, Cureton said this:  

    "Bringing back Dick Vitale is huge. Usually, when you talk Titans basketball, you talk Dick Vitale. His name always comes up. I had a great deal of respect for what Dick did during his career, not only in basketball, but what did for us out of basketball.

      "He taught us about the game of life. He prepared us for life after basketball and how important it was for us to get an education and go from boys to men. He kept us on the straight and narrow and was definitely a role model. Just to show there was a lot of respect for Dick, all of them coming back 40 years later to see him. There's going to be a lot of excitement for him coming back in the building.

      "For a mid-major ... to create that type of excitement and to create the group of young men he created, I think, was amazing. What he did at U-D was just phenomenal."

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     Charlie Vincent was a transplanted Texan who wrote sports for the Detroit Free Press for three decades and was the beat writer for U. of Detroit basketball in 1976-77 (later covered the Detroit Pistons and then became a popular, crafty columnist for years). He could be tough, though. Here is what he wrote after Vitale's team barely beat Kent State:

     By the end of that season, Vincent was a bit more complimentary of Vitale's work.

     Joe Falls was a Detroit sportswriting legend, covering 50 years, the Free Press' lead sports columnist during Vitale's U. of Detroit time (and one of my favorite writers on baseball). Here is what he wrote about Vitale's influence:

      That crusader, that non-stop talker, that entertainer came into our personal vision in 1976, and had us shaking our heads (and covering our ears). So much fun, so endearing. 

       We wish him well, and when he gets back to television, we might even turn up the sound. Because he is Dickie V., baby.