After a two-year break, Seton Hall alum and Hall of Fame broadcaster Dick Vitale will put his headset back on for ESPN.
Vitale will return alongside Dave O’Brien and Cody Alexander for No. 2 Duke’s clash at Clemson on Feb. 8 on ESPN2. It will be just over two years since the play-by-play phenom last stepped away from calling games, after a cancer diagnosis over three-and-a-half years ago. Vitale shared he’s now cancer free on Jan. 8.
“That was a championship moment!” Vitale wrote in an ESPN article on Thursday morning. “And then Dr. Steven Zeitels — after five major vocal cord surgeries — told me, “You’re ready to do what you love.” And what I love is talking basketball!”
Vitale’s return to the World Wide Center for Sports was originally scheduled for Duke’s game against Wake Forest, but just days before the game, Vitale fell in his home. He was cleared by his doctors shortly after, and the return to basketball was rescheduled for Feb. 8.
Vitale dealt with four different cancers since calling the 2023 NCAA Championship game between UConn and San Diego State. He went through over 60 radiation therapy sessions, multiple rounds of chemotherapy and a number of surgeries to fight all four cancer types in those three years.
His first diagnosis came in 2021, when he learned he had lymphoma. Shortly after, Vitale went through surgery to remove melanoma. He then said he was cancer free in 2022 before receiving a vocal cord cancer diagnosis the next year, which he has been treating since. Vitale had neck surgery in summer 2024 to remove a biopsy that had a lymph node with cancer.
“There were moments I wasn’t sure I’d ever sit courtside again,” Vitale said in his story. “I went through multiple surgeries, 65 radiation treatments, grueling chemotherapy and long stretches where I had no voice at all. It was a rollercoaster — highs, lows, moments of doubt. But through it all, I kept FIGHTING. BELIEVING. PRAYING.”
Vitale shared his cancer treatment journey on social media regularly since stepping away from broadcasts. He shared many of the struggles he faced during treatment, as well as how many others in the broadcasting industry would visit and check in on him.
Vitale is one of ESPN’s original college basketball broadcasters, signing on with the network during the 1979-80 season. He was a part of the first NCAA basketball game played on the network on Dec. 5, 1979. Vitale was inducted into the Broadcast and Cable Hall of Fame in 2024.