Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 1, 1992 TAG: 9202010025
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: LEXINGTON LENGTH: Medium
VITALE'S ROLLING TALK SHOW MAKES A PIT STOP AT W&L
The question was short and direct: "You have a new book out. What is it about?"The answer lasted 13 minutes.
Before the next question, the moderator interrupted, saying the interviewee had to get to dinner.
"That's OK," Dick Vitale said. "These guys had some more questions. Dinner can wait."
It should come to no one's surprise that this bald broadcaster of fast-break bombast would rather talk than eat. Vitale spent seven hours on the Washington and Lee campus Wednesday. For most of that time, his mouth was open.
For 13 years, Vitale has built a life by combining matter-of-factness with outrageousness on ESPN's college basketball telecasts. In seven years, Vitale went from teaching sixth grade and coaching high school hoops in New Jersey to head coach of the Detroit Pistons.
Vitale, 51, thought coaching was a great life. Then ESPN called when it went on satellite in 1979. Now, his life is like his on-air style - a whirlwind.
"I'm having one helluva laugh," Vitale said.
Yeah, he's laughing all the way to the bank.
In four sessions at W&L, Vitale's only-in-America story was certified repeatedly. At the W&L Bookstore, he autographed his second book, "Time Out, Baby!" The 100 books in stock sold out in one hour. In a short news conference, he was direct and charming. The fraternity presidents who dined with Vitale saw a lower-key, but still entertaining, man of opinions.
At dinner, he told the frat men about his two tennis-playing daughters and their occasional embarrassment because of their father's on-air schtick.
" `Dad,' my daughters say, `when are you going to start acting 50 instead of 12?' " Vitale said. "Hey, what has happened to me is a great thing. . . . The game has kept me young."
At halftime of W&L's loss to Hampden-Sydney, Vitale shot free throws, then threw copies of his book into the stands. The partisan crowd howled with delight when Vitale walked toward the few Tigers' students in attendance, looked toward them to throw a book, and with a look-away pass right, flipped it right to the home-team crowd.
Then, following W&L's loss to Hampden-Sydney, he stepped behind a podium at one end of the gym and delivered 50 minutes of pure Vitale. The session, sponsored by the W&L Contact program, which brings diverse speakers to campus, and the school's Interfraternity Council, was worth every penny of the $5,000 paid to Vitale.
He stunned the gathering by telling them that he once attended a rival school - Roanoke College - for his first week as a freshman. "It was the only school that would take me," he said. "But I was homesick and in love, and I left, and was fortunate they let me go to Seton Hall."
Vitale told the crowd that he's often asked if he'd like to coach again.
"I tell them, `Hey, baby, who else can coach Indiana on a Tuesday, North Carolina on a Thursday and Kentucky on a Saturday?' I get to coach and I haven't lost a game in 13 years."
Vitale's appeal is widespread because he understands his audience. At W&L, because of the diversity in the crowd and at his various stops, he slightly varied his messages. They all came from the same roots - work hard, dream big and have fun.
His color and excitement appeal to kids. Parents love his hard-nose attacks on drugs and lack of values. The blue-collar man nods in agreement when Vitale zings pro athletes "who complain about having a tough life. What? And you get $5 [million] or $6 million to swing a bat or shoot a jump shot. That's so tough?"
Vitale's detractors overwhelmingly point to his on-air style, and his penchant for going overboard in his delivery. His loudness can overwhelm and undermine his knowledge of the game and preparation, which are among his strengths as an analyst. Sometimes, you just wish Vitale would take a T.O., baby.
To that notion, Vitale says he is only being himself on TV.
Next week, he'll be playing someone else. On Thursday's "Cosby Show" on NBC, Vitale and fellow hoops analyst Jim Valvano play the "V & V Movers," helping Cliff and Clair Huxtable's daughter, son-and-law and twins move out. Vitale recently did a TV pilot with Leslie Nielsen, based on the "Naked Gun" films.
"Only in America can a guy who can't read, who can't write and who can't talk right reach where I have," Vitale told his audience. "It's been an absolute, absolute fantasy. It's exceeded my dreams.
"A lot of great things have happened to me because I love people. . . . The important thing is to learn how to communicate and deal with people as a human being. That's what life is all about."
At W&L, they enjoyed being re-Vitale-ized.