Been mighty quiet out there. Too quiet.
But that’s about to change, at least marginally. Dick Vitale, ESPN’s lead college basketball analyst, is scheduled to return a week from tonight to work the Duke-North Carolina game.
Vitale, 68, has been out since just before Christmas, having undergone surgery to remove non-malignant ulcers from his throat – ulcers caused by years of emoting into courtside microphones, often throughout four and five games per week.
Vitale, his voice instantly associated with ESPN’s biggest games since 1979, has been instructed to no longer work on consecutive days. His convalescence, extended by bladder infections, included a monk-like 25 straight days of total silence.
“But he writes as fast as he talks,” reports ESPN communications VP Mike Soltys, who visited Vitale in Boston’s Mass. General hospital, where the surgery was performed. “I could even make out every other word.”
Vitale’s surgeon was Dr. Steven Zeitels, who has treated Julie Andrews and Bill Clinton and operated on the throat of Aerosmith vocalist Steven Tyler, nicknamed “The Demon of Screamin’.”