Vitale becomes 1 of Hall's diaper dandies

Pat Riley, Patrick Ewing and Hakeem Olajuwon are the biggest names being inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Friday. When the speeches are given, though, they may see their spotlight stolen by a man who was fired after less than two years as an NBA coach.

Dick Vitale is being inducted, not for what he did with a basketball, but what he does with a microphone.

"I would have been dead by 50 if I had stayed in coaching," Vitale said during a conference call this week. "I just could not handle losing."

Vitale hasn't had to worry about that since 1979, when the now 69-year-old accepted an offer from a fledgling cable sports station out of Bristol, Conn. called ESPN. He spent the next 30 years becoming the voice of college basketball - extolling the virtues of "PTPers (Prime Time Players), screaming "Awesome baby!" and being passed overhead through student sections across the country. He will be enshrined in Springfield, Mass. as a contributor to the game.

"He's truly an icon who creates excitement by his very presence, a unique broadcasting quality that few share," ESPN spokesman Josh Krulewitz said.

Vitale will be inducted along with Riley, Olajuwon, Ewing, Adrian Dantley, Immaculata University coach Cathy Rush, a pioneer who led her team to three championships; and Detroit Pistons and Shock owner Bill Davidson.

Vitale makes no apologies for his rah-rah style, and says his election to Hall of Fame has a lot to do with his ability to convey to viewers his passion for basketball - the same passion that gave him bleeding ulcers as a coach.

"Am I a cheerleader at times? Yes, and I don't regret that at all," Vitale said. "I feel like I'm a kid and it's a kid's sport and I attack it that way."

Vitale won a pair of state championships as a high school coach and led the University of Detroit in 1977 to the final 16 of the NCAA tournament. He was hired the next year, coincidentally by Davidson, as coach of the NBA's Pistons, but Davidson fired Vitale 12 games into the 1979 season, ending Vitale's career on the bench.

"If I have one regret on my resume, it's that I let him down," Vitale said, who was 78-30 as a college coach and 34-60 with the Pistons. "I never delivered for Mr. Davidson what he expected when he hired me."

The Davidson/Vitale connection isn't the only one in this year's Hall of Fame class.

Dantley, a six-time NBA All-Star, played for seven teams during his 15-year NBA career, including Davidson's Pistons.

Ewing and Olajuwon' careers have intersected since college, where Ewing's Georgetown Hoyas beat Olajuwon's Houston Cougars in the 1984 NCAA championship game. A decade later, Olajuwon's Houston Rockets defeated Ewing's New York Knicks for the NBA title.

"We both are warriors. We both want to excel. We both wanted to dominate, and when you play against the best you want to perform at your best," Ewing said in April after the Hall of Fame vote was announced. "So we both definitely looked at each other as the best."

That 1994 Knicks team was coached by Riley, who has said that failing to get an NBA ring for Ewing is among his greatest regrets.

Riley, who retired from coaching this year, has five rings, four with the "Showtime" Lakers led by Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He won his last championship with Miami in 2006.

Riley has joked that this will be the best-promoted Hall of Fame class ever, if Vitale has anything to say about it.

And you can bet he will.

---

On the Web: http://hoophall.com