For the third time in less than two years, Dick Vitale is facing a cancer diagnosis.
Vitale said Wednesday that he has been diagnosed with vocal cord cancer and will begin a six-week round of radiation, just the latest health crisis for the longtime ESPN analyst who was diagnosed with melanoma and lymphoma in 2021.
In announcing the diagnosis, Vitale said his doctors have told him that his cancer has an “extremely high cure rate” and should not require surgery. He intends to “fight like hell” to return to the broadcast booth for the start of the college basketball season this fall and his doctor believes such a move is “entirely possible.”
The loquacious Vitale has been dogged for years by issues with his vocal cords, on which he has had multiple surgeries. As far back as 2007, he missed weeks of assignments due to vocal cord ulcers. Even as he battled back from his two separate cancer diagnoses two years ago, it was precancerous dysplasia of the vocal cords that kept him off the air for most of the 2021-22 college basketball season.
Long before battling cancer himself, Vitale was a staunch advocate for those facing the disease through his work with the Jimmy V Foundation — named for his former broadcast partner, the late Jim Valvano. It is worth noting that Vitale’s announcement comes on the night of the ESPY Awards, an event that has become associated with the V Foundation and the site of Valvano’s famed “Never Give Up” speech.
An ESPN employee since the network’s first year in 1979, Vitale is entering what would be his 44th season calling college basketball games for the company. ESPN last year debuted a documentary on Vitale that in part chronicled his recent health struggles.
(News from Vitale/Twitter 7.12)
