Lame Sports

Get Well Soon Dickie V

By Rob Dauster

It’s a cold night late in February. The college basketball regular season is winding down. With each and every game played, conference championships, NCAA tournament bids, and #1 seeds are all on the line. The fiercest rivalries are on display on national television on a nightly basis. Twelve young men, themselves still college kids, are playing not only for themselves – their pride, their wins, their championships – but for the most prestigious and well-known universities in out country, and the coaches, students, and thousands of fans nationwide that live and die with every shot. With March Madness on the horizon, no other time of year is better than this in the sports world. And is there any game in which all of this more evident than the annual Duke – North Carolina game that ends the ACC regular season?

Now imagine you are watching this game on TV – what sticks out in your mind?

-The Tar Heels faithful or the Cameron Crazies, decked out in their particular shade of blue, getting more and more berserk with every play.

-Coach K, forever calm, cool and collected, patiently roaming the sideline.

-The fiery Roy Williams, endlessly pushing his team on and arguing every call, red-face and flying-spittle be damned.

-The most white guys you will ever see on a basketball court at one time.

-And most of all, hearing Dick Vitale screaming inane, nonsensical catchphrases: “It’s awesome baby, with a capital A!”; “Super, scintillating, sensational!”; “Dipsy-doo dunkaroo!”.

A lot of people don’t like Dickie V, but I love him. “But why?” you ask, “he’s a mad man”. Yes, a lot of what he says is babbling lunacy, but has an announcer ever gotten you more excited during a great game? I’ll give you Gus Johnson (even then it’s a maybe), but his knowledge of the game is far inferior to Dickie V’s. Some detractors say he is biased towards Duke (aka Dookie V) and the ACC in general. Legendary Temple coach John Chaney was even quoted one time as saying “You can’t get Dick Vitale to say 15 words without Duke coming out of his mouth”. Now I hate Duke as much as the next guy, but I really don’t see it as bias specifically towards Duke. Dickie V loves great teams, and he loves watching great basketball being played. It kills me to say it, but Duke has probably been the best college basketball program in the country the last 15 years, putting a team with top 10 potential on the floor every year.

If you ask me, his biggest knock is his passion for the sport, which is the main reason I love listening to him announce games. You can feel how much he loves everything about the sport when he announces – from the fans right down to the players. Some people don’t like when announcer takes over the experience of watching a game, especially one as exciting as a great college basketball game, and I can understand that, but since I am just as passionate about the sport as he is, I enjoy it (usually because I am yelling just as much).

Sadly, it was announced today that Dickie V has lesions on his left vocal chord (bonus points if you actually know what that means) that require surgery. He is going to be on the shelf until at least February, meaning we may not get him back until conference tournament season. Until then, I am going to be stuck watching games announced by Len Elmore, Billy Packer, Jay Bias (aka Jay Bilas), and Doris Burke.

I wish you a speedy recovery, Mr. Vitale. My only hope is that, sans microphone, you don’t spontaneously combust with all that pent up energy and enthusiasm.

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