Florida Golf Monthly - Dick Vitale

Dick Vitale, Sarasota's Own Prime Time Player
by Jack O'Leary

Ah, the quiet serenity of a golf course! It's the place where the hush of the game can sometimes be deafening. It's a sanctuary for the mind, where peace and tranquility reign supreme. It's where one can find and enjoy the inner self. Often these pastoral settings are framed by magnificent homes. Some are stately - even regal. As a rule, the people inside reflect their surroundings, stately, dignified and sedate.

One of these castles exists along the 12th hole of the TPC of Prestancia, the beautiful Ron Garl-designed course and home of the Senior Tour's American Express Invitational in Sarasota. The home is huge and well appointed. The lord of the manse is, well.... you wouldn't call him sedate. You wouldn't think him as stately. There is dignity, but that may be the only quiet thing about him. Ladies and gentlemen, the baron of basketball - Dick Vitale.

"I love it out here," booms Vitale, the lead college basketball analyst for ESPN the past 19 years, who just signed up for another seven on the all sports network. "I've become a golf fanatic. I play everyday that I'm home. I'm a typical hacker and I understand that. I'm starting to take lessons. I get a quick nine holes in every day and I usually shoot around 43-44 and then I do my work preparing for my games."

Vitale loves the game for the reason many do. Sitting in his office, he's faced with a stack of mail and a string of phone messages. Just because he's not on the air this particular day - it doesn't mean he's not working.

"I've learned to love it. It's a way of getting away from all of this - stacks of mail - phone calls. It's a great way to relax. It's a total opposite to the pace I'm going at. I like to relax."

Relaxation and Dick Vitale usually aren't mentioned in the same sentence. Mention his name and visions of a bald nut screaming "Awesome Baby!" and "he's a PTP'er!" (Prime Time Player) along with "Watch him dish the Rock!" (pass the basketball) are captured by the mind's eye and ear. The fact that he's a golfer is only a hint of the differences between the public and private Dick Vitale.

"A lot of people are unaware of all of things I like to do," he says. "People think of me as being one-dimensional - that I only have a passion for basketball, basketball, basketball. But, people who really know me know there's a lot of things I love. I love going to concerts. I go to concerts wherever they may be. I go to Tampa to see Tina Turner. I go to country western concerts. I've seen Garth Brooks. I love to watch performers and entertainers. I go to Broadway shows. My wife and I go to New York for a week every year. I've seen every Broadway show imaginable.

"I love baseball," he says excitedly. "I just bought four season tickets to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays - box seats behind the dugout. I'm a baseball nut. I got a call from Alex Rodriguez this afternoon. He wants me to take him to a basketball game - a Duke game. I've met a lot of these guys on the field. Like a little kid, I'm out there taking pictures and getting autographs. They walk by and I'm in awe."

Its all part of what makes Vitale go. He doesn't just like something. He's enthusiastic about everything or he doesn't like it at all.

"I love performers and athletes, people who excel at what they do. I admire and respect their ability and talents. I understand that's what they're gifted in and it doesn't make them better than you, me or the next person. Just because a person is a great athlete, when he takes his uniform off, he can have faults in life. Many of these people aren't as good as you are."

The man is a marvel. When the conversation started, his eyes had a tired look. As he warmed to the conversation they sparkled, which is a good trick for a guy with one real eye. As he talked, one thing became clear. To the world, he may be Dick Vitale, broadcaster extraordinaire. To the man himself, he's still Richie Vitale from New York City.

"This is like a fantasy life," he says waving his arms around his office on the first floor of his 9,200 square foot home. "I have to pinch myself. I have only one regret in life - I wish everyone could live this kind of life. The reason I feel excited about this is because I never lived this kind of life. It's something that I never had. My father pressed coats in a factory. In 43-years I never saw him take a day off. I learned so much about life from him, but he was never able to live a life like this."

It was from his father, that Vitale first heard about golf.

"He used to tell me he was a good golfer," says Vitale. "He told me he learned it as a caddie as a young kid. I never saw him hit a ball. My cousin Johnny, whose a phenomenal golfer calls me and tells me my father was bragging about his golfing. So my cousin says to my father, 'I'm playing at my club today and I want you to come along and just hit some balls on the range.' My father says, 'I haven't swung a club in 35 years!' My cousin says to me, I can tell if a guy has played before after five minutes of watching him. He called me back and says, 'Richie, you wouldn't believe it. He was rusty at first, pulling it left and shanking it right for about the first 15 strokes. All of a sudden, he was using a five-iron and says, 'give me a seven-iron.' He's hitting the ball 135, 140, 145 yards as straight as can be! I thought he was kidding about it!"

This where the real Vitale comes alive. His father had passed away two weeks prior to this conversation. He often referred to his eulogy as he spoke.

"I learned so much from my parents," he says wistfully. "When I eulogized him, I said how I learned so much from he and my mother. I remember on Sunday morning when my mother would make breakfast for all my uncles. They were all sports nuts. All they wanted to talk about was the Dodgers, the Giants and the Yankees and the Knicks. They'd sit there for hours and go back and forth. My father and my uncles would take me to games when I was four years old. All the time I was observing. I was learning about family. I learned about adversity. When I lost my eye as a youngster, my father and mother were always at my side. Don't ask me how they did it working in the factory. I learned about love. I learned about family and I learned about work ethic."

It was a learning lab that paid dividends for Vitale. Fortunately for many people, he's more than happy to share what he has and what he knows. If you get the feeling when you watch him on ESPN or ABC that you're sitting in a classroom, there's a good reason. First and foremost, Vitale is an educator.

"I guess I'll always be a teacher," he says with a smile. "I get letters from people who want me to call their friends and tell them that I really had them in class when they were young. I remember how the other teachers used to laugh at me in the teachers room, when I'd write letters to John Wooden, Bear Bryant, Ara Parseghian and all the other college coaches. They said, What are you? Nuts? You'll never coach in college. You'll be here for the rest of your life like the rest of us. They didn't mean anything by it, but I'd learned there's no such thing as the word 'can't' from my parents."

Vitale went on to coach in college and even did a year with the Detroit Pistons before becoming a TV star. By the way, there's not a lot of "star" in this guy. Stardom is for the other people - people he's always amazed to meet.

"I went to my first title fight this year," he says, "and we went to a party before the fight. Roseanne Barr was there. There were a lot of people there and I love people. My wife said to me, did you see who shook your hand and asked about UCLA? It was Michael Keaton! C'mon! I was talking to Madonna. Dickie V. rappin' with Madonna. I called my daughters and told them! Wow!"

Then there was the speaking date in Detroit. It was obviously a special day in Vitale's life.

"I spoke in front of 18,000 people at the Palace," he explains with his voice rising an octave. It was the most spellbinding thing for me. Let me tell you who I shared the microphone with - Barbara Bush, Bob Dole, Muhammad Ali and Christopher Reeve. It's something sitting around the green room before this and they walk by and say, 'Hi Dick, how are you doing?' I'm sitting there thinking, My God, they know who I am."

"Dickie V." The name brings to mind another former college basketball coach who turned to broadcasting. He was Vitale's goombah with whom he was joined at the consonant - Jimmy V. - the late Jim Valvano. Valvano was the coach of the 1983 NCAA Champion NC State Wolfpack. Somehow, it wasn't surprising that his name would come up during the conversation. The two were close and they'll always be kindred spirits. When Valvano passed he left Vitale a lot of things. One of them was golf.

"Jimmy was a golf lover. Every time we were in a hotel or in the studio, Jimmy would be doing this," says Vitale as he stood and took a practice swing. "I used to curse him, what the #@$% are you doing with that swing thing? After he'd gotten cancer I told him he had to come down and stay here and play this wonderful golf course. I don't play golf, but I can get you on the course. C'mon down and play and stay here with your wife."

Vitale sent Valvano and a friend onto the course while he and wife Lorraine lounged by the pool.

"As they came by here, they stopped for a drink," recalls Vitale, "and he starts cursing me. 'How can you live here and not play golf!?! When I get done, I'm going to set you up with a lesson. You're never too old to start.' So, I did. I started taking lessons and I finally started to make progress the last three months."

He sounds like any golfer. Okay, maybe he's a bit louder and maybe a bit more enthusiastic. Okay, he's a lot louder and a lot more enthusiastic. But, he's a lot more than just a hoops junkie. He may be part gym rat, but there's a lot more to him and part of that is golfer.

"A typical week for me during the season is being on the road four or five times," he says. "I'll do a game on Wednesday. Fly home Thursday morning. Get home at noon and play nine holes in the afternoon and the next day. I probably wouldn't play every day if I were a normal person. But, part of the excitement is, if I'm on the road in Michigan, Minnesota, Connecticut or New York, it's cold, it's icy, what an excitement or a rush it is mentally to tell my guys, 'you know where I'm going back to for two days!' It's a relief.

"The one thing I've found about living here," expounds Vitale, "is it's like being on vacation all the time. It's a great place to live."

Imagine. Dick Vitale - a golfer - a PTP'er! Remember, the next time you're out there beating around the little white rock, you might meet up with the most contagious bundle of energy in the world. If and when you do, listen to what he says as well as how he says it. To you, he may be a celebrity. To him, he's just Richie Vitale from The City and he always will be.

That attitude? You guessed it.

It's Awesome Baby!