People either love him or they hate him. In that way, he's very much like Howard Cosell. Vitale will receive the prestigious Naismith Good Sportsmanship Award next week in Minneapolis. Previous winners have included Michael Jordan, John Wooden, Jerry West, Pat Summitt, Oscar Robertson, Lynette Woodard and Roy Williams. Vitale has done college basketball analysis for ESPN since 1979 and for ABC since 1988, but he has never broadcast a Final Four game.
Many people are happy about that, next week's award notwithstanding.
Inside noisy arenas, Vitale seems to feel he has to talk above the din. I've learned that there's a lot of things you can't have in life. I wish I was good looking like Tom Cruise, I wish I had the hair of John Travolta, the body of Arnold Schwarzenegger. But I'm lucky that ESPN and ABC have given me a chance. I've had so much fun working with so many beautiful people.