Lakewood Ranch resident and longtime ESPN college basketball analyst Dick Vitale said on social media he has been diagnosed with cancer for a fourth time.
Vitale announced Friday that a biopsy of a lymph node in his neck showed cancer. He is scheduled to have surgery Tuesday.
“With all the (prayers) I have received & the loving support of my family, friends and ESPN colleagues, I will win this battle,” Vitale said on on X, formerly Twitter.
In August 2021, Vitale announced he beat melanoma after several surgeries. About two months later, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and underwent several weeks of chemotherapy at Sarasota Memorial Hospital. In April 2022, he announced he was cancer-free.
In June 2023, Vitale required six weeks of radiation treatmentsafter tests revealed he had vocal cord cancer. Vitale again announced he was cancer-free in December 2023, but the radiation created complications that required further surgery.
Until his latest diagnosis, Vitale had been resting his vocal cords in anticipation of returning to broadcasting during the 2024-25 basketball season.
My report on the Biopsy of the Lymph Node in my neck has arrived & it is cancerous . With all the 🙏🙏🙏 I have received & the loving support of my family,friends & @espn colleagues I will win this battle .🙏🙏🙏 surgery on Tues. will be a success . Thanks for All the prayers.
— Dick Vitale (@DickieV) June 28, 2024
Vitale has been with ESPN since 1979, the year the network launched and called network's first college basketball broadcast.
He was a 2008 inductee in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. A basketball coach before his TV career began in 1979, he hosts an annual pediatric cancer fundraiser in Sarasota for the V Foundation for Cancer Research, a nonprofit founded by college basketball coach Jim Valvano.
Vitale helped Valvano to the stage at the 1993 ESPYs, where Valvano delivered his famous “Don’t give up” speech. Valvano died of adenocarcinoma less than two months later.
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