Patrick Wright had never met Dick Vitale, never spoken to the man, never bumped into him in their Bradenton, Fla., neighborhood.
So you can imagine his shock when he played his answering machine more than a year ago and there was a two-minute message from a stranger who had read about Wright’s daughter, Payton, and said he wanted to help.
“If you know Dick, you know it’s hard to get a word in edge-wise,” Wright told The Post in a cracking voice over the telephone last night.
“When we first spoke, he went on for about 10 minutes telling me about setting up a research grant for pediatric cancer and raising a million dollars and finding a cure and finally, we he paused to take a breath, I asked him, ‘Why?’ Why was he reaching out to us?”
Vitale had an answer.
“Jimmy [Valvano] and I talked a lot in his last couple of months and we talked about family, we talked about our children,” Vitale said.
“I think about how lucky I am that none of my girls have had to go through this. No parent should have to go through this. I remember how lucky I am and like Jimmy, I want to give back.”
So at halftime of the second game of last night’s Jimmy V Classic in the Garden, Vitale didn’t speak about his late friend, who died of cancer in 1993. He spoke about Payton Wright, who was 5 when she died of cancer May 29.
Vitale is spearheading a $1 million drive for the Payton Wright Research Grant for Pediatric Cancer, but Payton might have been able to raise the money herself. She had these perfect bubble cheeks. And you’d have a hard time finding a picture of Payton not smiling.
“My wife, Holly, and I talk all the time about what was it about Payton that she could touch so many people in so many ways,” said Patrick Wright. “She’s our angel. She’s our hope that no family will to go through what we went through.”
You can contact the fund through the Web site http://www.jimmyv.org