We have earned the right, period.
Dick Vitale: Hall of Famer
Get me a T.O., baby!
It's awesome, baby, with a capital A!
One of us just became one of Them.
Richard J. "Dick" Vitale is now a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame.
And I say "Good for you, Mr. Vitale."
Let's face it: the guy was no great shakes as a coach. He was good in college, with a Detroit Mercy team that beat eventual champion Marquette in '77, and he was abysmal as the head coach of the Pistons (not many guys get fired 12 games into a season, but he managed).
So what happened?
He's between coaching gigs when the phone rings. It's some small-time cable racket out of Bristol, Connecticut, wondering if he'd be interested in doing some color commentary for college basketball.
Now, nearly 30 years and nearly 1000 games broadcast almost exclusively for the Worldwide Fearless Leader, it is nearly impossible to separate ESPN, NCAA basketball, and Dick Vitale.
Who else at ESPN still matters after all these years? Who else was there in the beginning and still going strong at present? Chris Berman has become a fat caricature of himself, with his signature catchphrases becoming more and more obscure as his generation fades. (Note to Berman: It's 2008. Update your CD collection. Get Limewire. Something. ANYthing. Because if I have to hear One. More. Mamas and Papas reference, I might have to stab you in your back-back-back-back-back 'til you're GONE.)
Bob Ley took the high road, electing to do real sports journalism with the award-winning "Outside The Lines," but he's just not as much of a presence anymore.
The Big Show stopped being either Big or Showy when Keith Olbermann started having Edward R. Murrow fantasies and left the incomparable Dan Patrick (now gone as well) to slog it out with the Ted McGinleys of the broadcasting world, the rest of whom are less than the fading echoes of the tag-team partners at best, irritants most of the time, and affirmative defenses for homicide in some cases ("Your Honor, I'd just heard "boo-yah" one too many times! Any man could snap!" "The court agrees; case dismissed.")
Dickie V?
He still crows about his "All Airport" team and we still chuckle along.
He laments the rapid and inevitable exodus of his beloved "Diaper Dandies" to the NBA, and we agree.
And nothing makes him happier than a good old-fashioned breakaway "dipsy doo dunkeroo slam bam jam!"
Remember back when Timmy Duncan was a member of Vitale's All-Windex frontline? ("Because he really cleans the glass, baby!"
There was a time, before the growth and expansion of 24-hour cable news networks and the internet, when you could tell what season it was by whose voice you heard.
Jack Buck? Harry Carey? Vin Scully? Springtime and baseball.
Pat Summerall and John Madden? NFL.
Keith Jackson? College football.
Marv Albert? NBA.
Dick Vitale? College basketball.
(There's a part of me that wonders what Billy Packer thinks of Vitale's induction into basketball's Valhalla, but I digress.)
Wanna have some fun? Clink this link and see how many you remember without needing the definition.
It sez so right here that most of us pass that test almost blindfolded.
It's awesome, baby, with a capital A!
One of us just became one of Them.
Richard J. "Dick" Vitale is now a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame.
And I say "Good for you, Mr. Vitale."
Let's face it: the guy was no great shakes as a coach. He was good in college, with a Detroit Mercy team that beat eventual champion Marquette in '77, and he was abysmal as the head coach of the Pistons (not many guys get fired 12 games into a season, but he managed).
So what happened?
He's between coaching gigs when the phone rings. It's some small-time cable racket out of Bristol, Connecticut, wondering if he'd be interested in doing some color commentary for college basketball.
Now, nearly 30 years and nearly 1000 games broadcast almost exclusively for the Worldwide Fearless Leader, it is nearly impossible to separate ESPN, NCAA basketball, and Dick Vitale.
Who else at ESPN still matters after all these years? Who else was there in the beginning and still going strong at present? Chris Berman has become a fat caricature of himself, with his signature catchphrases becoming more and more obscure as his generation fades. (Note to Berman: It's 2008. Update your CD collection. Get Limewire. Something. ANYthing. Because if I have to hear One. More. Mamas and Papas reference, I might have to stab you in your back-back-back-back-back 'til you're GONE.)
Bob Ley took the high road, electing to do real sports journalism with the award-winning "Outside The Lines," but he's just not as much of a presence anymore.
The Big Show stopped being either Big or Showy when Keith Olbermann started having Edward R. Murrow fantasies and left the incomparable Dan Patrick (now gone as well) to slog it out with the Ted McGinleys of the broadcasting world, the rest of whom are less than the fading echoes of the tag-team partners at best, irritants most of the time, and affirmative defenses for homicide in some cases ("Your Honor, I'd just heard "boo-yah" one too many times! Any man could snap!" "The court agrees; case dismissed.")
Dickie V?
He still crows about his "All Airport" team and we still chuckle along.
He laments the rapid and inevitable exodus of his beloved "Diaper Dandies" to the NBA, and we agree.
And nothing makes him happier than a good old-fashioned breakaway "dipsy doo dunkeroo slam bam jam!"
Remember back when Timmy Duncan was a member of Vitale's All-Windex frontline? ("Because he really cleans the glass, baby!"
There was a time, before the growth and expansion of 24-hour cable news networks and the internet, when you could tell what season it was by whose voice you heard.
Jack Buck? Harry Carey? Vin Scully? Springtime and baseball.
Pat Summerall and John Madden? NFL.
Keith Jackson? College football.
Marv Albert? NBA.
Dick Vitale? College basketball.
(There's a part of me that wonders what Billy Packer thinks of Vitale's induction into basketball's Valhalla, but I digress.)
Wanna have some fun? Clink this link and see how many you remember without needing the definition.
It sez so right here that most of us pass that test almost blindfolded.
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