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broadcast of a college basketball
game, ESPN sent Joe Boyle to handle play-by-play duties. A veteran
of calling the Twins and the Northstars in Minnesota, Boyle was
teamed with Vitale, an out-of-work
coach fresh off an NBA firing.
“It should be a classic matchup,” Vitale said to begin his
ESPN career. “College basketball
excitement, enthusiasm.”
In a matchup that proved less
than classic, Depaul dispatched
Wisconsin, 90-77. Vitale and ESPN
proved a pairing worth remembering, however. Over the year’s
Vitale’s excitement and enthusiasm would come to represent college basketball for fans around
the country. The players came and
went, but Vitale and his irrepressible style endured.
Sacked by the underachieving
Detroit Pistons just 12 games into
the 1979-1980 season, Vitale was
39 years old when Scotty Connal
offered him a gig calling games for
ESPN. A New Jersey native who had
cut his teeth coaching high school
hoops in East Rutherford, Vitale’s
rise through the coaching ranks —
from an assistant at Rutgers to the
NBA by way of the University of Detroit — had been as fast as his final
season with the Pistons was brief.
SPORTS
HUFFINGTON
04.07.13
“I’m very proud of the fact that
I did the first game ever on ESPN,
the 1979 game between DePaul
and Wisconsin. And here it is 34
years later. I never thought that,”
Vitale told The Huffington Post. “I
thought I was gonna do this temporarily until I got back coaching
where I belonged — in college.”
Vitale was still seated at the
broadcast table rather than patrolling the sideline by the time the
Let’s face it, some
people don’t like people that
are up tempo ... If someone
who has worked with me
[doubted] my knowledge, my
preparation, then it would
really tear up my insides.”
1983 NCAA Tournament arrived.
The ’83 edition of the Big Dance
proved significant for Vitale not
just because his close friend, N.C.
State coach Jim Valvano, would cut
down the nets after an upset win
over Phi Slama Jama, but because
it brought the moment when he
realized that his future was calling
games rather than coaching them.
“Scotty Connal ... used to always say to me ... and I didn’t