It was just another book signing for Dick Vitale. There was plenty of banter that day in Florida last year for the man who has become the face of college basketball while he posed for pictures, signed autographs and enjoyed some laughs.
Then the mood changed quickly.
“An older man, probably around my age, hey, I turned 70, do you believe that?” Vitale said Thursday as he started another of his stories that eventually get to a point. “He was with a couple of kids, I guess they were his grandkids, and he walked up to me and said, ‘You’re wasting your time.’ I thought he meant something about college basketball, one of the teams I was talking about, or about me writing a book. I wasn’t sure.”
Vitale’s voice dropped. It wasn’t the one heard from packed arenas. There wasn’t any “Get a T.O., baby,” or “He’s a diaper dandy.”
then at the beautiful children who were with him. I said, ‘I hope and pray that in your life, and in theirs, that you won’t need the help these dollars are producing because you are wrong.”’
There were tremors in his voice as he told the story. This wasn’t the Dickie V who made his way into homes as an ESPN analyst the last three decades and into the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame as a contributor to the game.
“I was so upset,” he said. “I kept on with the signing but all I could think about were the children I had met over the years, the children who did nothing to get this disease yet now are in the fight of their lives. I thought of my friends who I had lost and all the loved ones others had taken away from them. I was really upset.
“About 10 minutes later he came back and gave me a couple of bucks as a donation and said he was really sorry for what he said. Now I have to make sure I meet all those people who feel that way and get them on the right track.”
His next fundraising venture is the one he is most proud of: The fifth annual Dick Vitale Gala will be held May 21 in Sarasota, Fla., at the Ritz-Carlton Resort.
as well as those from other sports, the broadcasting industry and the public.
“What makes this so unique and special is that, in this day and age, all these guys come to us free of charge. They pay for their own flight, hotel and expenses. We don’t even provide gifts to anybody,” Vitale said, starting to sound more like himself.
“We will be the basketball capital of the world for one night. Are you kidding me? Gary Williams, Jay Wright, Bob Huggins, Mike Krzyzewski, Tom Crean, Steve Alford, Mike Brey, Tubby Smith, John Calipari, Roy Williams, Tom Izzo and, hey, we got John Saunders as MC and Erin Andrews will be here and even college football guys.”
Among those Vitale has invited are two of the current 12 million cancer survivors in the country – Boston College linebacker Mark Herzlich, who missed last season as he battled a rare form of cancer called Ewing’s Sarcoma, and Jake Olson, the 12-year-old who lost his sight to cancer but became such a big part of the Southern California football team in the process.
Sitting in a breakfast restaurant doing a phone interview, Vitale again became so passionate about the disease he first started to fight when close friend Jim Valvano was diagnosed with it. ESPN and Valvano started The V Foundation for Cancer Research the night the coach gave his remarkable speech when he insisted, “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.”
Vitale says the task sometimes seems overwhelming.
ano said it best, that it’s like a cross-country train ride and we started in California and we’re maybe to Nebraska,” he said, referring to Jim Valvano’s widow. “With each dollar, with each day, we are getting closer.”
Then came the voice so unlike the one heard on television.
“I can’t stop raising money. I can’t. I see those kids suffering. I see the families suffering. It rips my heart out. It makes me feel so guilty,” he said, stopping to compose himself, dry his eyes and think how wrong that man at the book signing was. “We will raise over a million dollars at the Gala. We need more. We’ll get it. We’re not wasting our time. We’re not.”
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On the Net:
http://www.dickvitaleonline.com
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