D.V. and TV: a Match That Creates Fire

Dick Vitale, a man who probably talks in the shower, was a basketball coach before he became a basketball announcer, but the one thing he has been for as long as anyone has known him is a person who has a habit of talking and talking and talking and talking and talking on any subject at any time and rambling on and on and on and on and on without ever taking a deep breath.

Because of his new television partnership with old hoss Keith Jackson, Vitale is being heard more and more these days by more people than ever before, and will continue to be heard now that the NCAA basketball tournament pairings are being announced, setting the stage for a Final Four at New Orleans, where there is a dome large enough to accommodate both Vitale and his lungs.

Rest assured, whether on network television or cable, Dick Vitale will be there, spouting opinions the way a lawn sprinkler spouts water, in every possible direction, while being seen and photographed more often than just about anybody this side of Fawn Hall, and keeping up a colorful running commentary that is part Al McGuire, part Billy Packer, part Norm Crosby, and part petty thief, since he more or less stole the part from McGuire.

Like him or hate him, at least you have to admit that Vitale is not shy, and that when a comment needs making, or even when a comment does not need making, he is sure to be there to put his two cents in, and undoubtedly will put at least four more cents in and will keep talking and talking and talking throughout the day and night until eventually a janitor taps him on the shoulder and says: “Excuse me for interrupting, Mr. Vitale, but the game ended six hours ago and we have to lock up now.”

By now, there are basketball fans from coast to coast who are wondering just who this Vitale is, and why the television executives hired him to be a commentator in the first place, and where he came from, and why he doesn’t go back, and how come honored graduates of college TV-radio courses can apply for jobs with their handsome faces and dulcet voices and be rejected, losing out to an untrained broadcaster who looks like Mel Cooley, the producer on the old “Dick Van Dyke Show,” and sounds like somebody who occupies the stool next to you at a saloon and refuses to shut up until you finally have to grab your drink and move to a booth.

To sketch a little background, Dick Vitale was a coach at the University of Detroit, where he talked a pretty game and occasionally played one, until one day the local National Basketball Assn. franchise, the Pistons, got desperate enough to turn their team over to the man with the golden gums and give him a chance to do what no one else had been able to do--namely, win an NBA championship in Detroit, where for many years the only things worth talking about had been the big feats of Bob Lanier.

Vitale took a few chances and made a few enemies when he worked for the Pistons, as when his first two selections in the NBA college draft one year were two of his former University of Detroit players, who seemed like nice enough kids but hardly seemed worthy of the favoritism Vitale was bestowing upon them, or at least seemed that way until people started noticing that John Long and Terry Tyler not only were good enough to play in the NBA, but play in the NBA for a long, long time.

The clunker that ruined all of the Motor City motormouth’s good deeds, though, was his surrendering of M.L. Carr and two first-round draft picks to the Boston Celtics for the estimable but undependable Bob McAdoo, who, during his tenure with the Pistons, never once missed a ballgame with a hangnail or a blister when he could just as easily miss it with a broken shoe lace.

Vitale’s influence over Piston personnel also was questioned after the 1979 draft, when his team had three of the top 15 picks and came away with Greg Kelser, Phil Hubbard and Roy Hamilton, none of whom ever amounted to anything much in the NBA after reasonably glorious college careers, leaving Vitale’s reputation as a talent scout more than a little tattered.

But, he was always a real character to be around, the kind of guy who could remember your name even if he hadn’t seen you for years, and the kind of guy who sent out promotional packages to out-of-town media that included a phonograph record of Vitale offering motivational tips and an official Piston shirt with your name embroidered underneath the team logo.

Quoting Dick Vitale was, then, and is, now, the hardest job a newspaper person has, because not even Sony has made a tape recorder that can keep up with him. Vitale can do 20 minutes on “How are you?” He talks so loud and so fast that at some point in the conversation, a little voice inside the tape recorder finally shouts out: “Wait a minute, wait a minute, will ya? What was that last thing again?”

Television does not usually go in for such rapid-fire deliveries when an analyst’s job is open, but for some reason ESPN did--possibly because the all-sports network had so much time to fill, or possibly because it was necessary to find someone who could keep talking and talking and talking and still sound interested, even if the game he was covering was one of those ESPN weeknight specialties like Eastern West Virginia vs. Philadelphia Textile.

Vitale fit the bill, and became ESPN’s “expert” commentator, and began to get the attention of the networks, and eventually was paired with Keith Jackson on ABC, which is very possibly the strangest mix of personalities since DiMaggio married Monroe.

With the NCAA tournament now about to bloom, Vitale’s voice will be blaring from television sets all across America, drowning out the noise at crowded bars, and being heard from court side in the top row of a gymnasium. Even a construction worker with a jackhammer would want Dick Vitale to shut up, but be advised that when you turn on your TV in the weeks to come, he is very likely to be there, talking and talking and talking and talking and talking, as is his way, and using sentences that are absolutely full of commas, but never seem to get to a period.