One of college basketball's most iconic voices could be on the sidelines to start the season.
Dick Vitale, the longtime ESPN personality whose hoarse tones have soundtracked the college game for 45 years, announced on Friday that a biopsy revealed a lymph node on his neck is cancerous. He will undergo surgery on Tuesday to get it removed, he wrote on X, the website formerly known as Twitter.
My report on the Biopsy of the Lymph Node in my neck has arrived & it is cancerous . With all the 🙏🙏🙏 I have received & the loving support of my family,friends & @espn colleagues I will win this battle .🙏🙏🙏 surgery on Tues. will be a success . Thanks for All the prayers.
— Dick Vitale (@DickieV) June 28, 2024
The 85-year-old is among the most venerated figures in the college game, having enjoyed a fulfilling life in the basketball sector. A former high school, college, and NBA head coach, Vitale is best known for his glimmering broadcast career, becoming something of an ESPN lifer after joining the company in 1985.
This isn't Vitale's first experience with disease. He was diagnosed with melanoma, lymphoma, dysplasia, and ulcerated lesions of the vocal cords between Aug. 2021 and Jan. 2022. He conquered all of them, announcing he was cancer-free in Aug. 2022. Vitale returned to the broadcast booth in Nov. 2022.
Vitale's cancer returned in July 2023, this time impacting his vocal cords. He overcame the malady once more, though, receiving a cancer-free diagnosis later that October.
Dick Vitale cancer update
Vitale underwent two surgeries last summer in an attempt to treat his cancer diagnosis. He missed out on the 2023-24 college basketball season but planned on returning to the desk for the 2024-25 campaign.
Vitale captured the 2022 Jimmy V Award, named after his longtime friend Jimmy Valvano, for his exploits returning from his cancer diagnosis and dyslexia — described by the National Cancer Institute as "the presence of abnormal cells within a tissue or organ."
"We are not going to stop, stop chasing the dream of raising dollars and your dream, Jimmy's dream was to beat cancer," Vitale said in his acceptance speech for the award. "And we must do it. Because it doesn't discriminate. It comes after all."
How old is Dick Vitale?
Vitale is 85, having been born on June 9, 1939, in Passaic, New Jersey. Vitale has enjoyed quite a full basketball life thus far, spending some 50 years in the national spotlight for his hoops acumen.