ESPN’s Dick Vitale is again set for a return to the broadcast booth.
ESPN college basketball analyst Dick Vitale is scheduled to call Saturday’s Duke-Clemson men’s college basketball game, which would be his first assignment since April of 2023, it was announced Monday. Vitale was previously scheduled to make his return on a Duke-Wake Forest game last month, but had to pull out of that assignment after suffering a household accident.
He is set to work the game alongside play-by-play voice Dave O’Brien and analyst Cory Alexander in a three-man booth.
Vitale has called games only sparingly the past four years, a period in which he suffered through four different bouts of cancer and was forced to take repeated leave from his on-air role. He said late last year that he is now cancer free.
One of the best-known college basketball broadcasters on any network, Vitale has been the singular voice of ESPN’s college basketball coverage since joining the network in its first year of operation, 1979. From his catchphrases to his penchant for crowd surfing, Vitale in the prime of his career was at times bigger than the games he called, a sort of precursor to the late Bill Walton.
Vitale, 85, is one of the last remaining working broadcasters of his generation. His return to the booth is set one day before ESPN NBA analyst Hubie Brown, 91, is set for his final career broadcast.
