ESPN ‘deeply hurt’ Dick Vitale with UNC-Duke decision

Dick Vitale didn’t let it on publicly, but the legendary analyst was reportedly “deeply” hurt when ESPN removed him from calling Duke-UNC games in 2015. 

Vitale had spent 35 years color commentating the storied rivalry, but the network opted to replace him with Jay Bilas, a decision made by then-ESPN president John Skipper.

“That really, deeply hurt him,” said an anonymous colleague, according to Tom Friend’s profile of Vitale in Sports Business Journal.

Friend also reported that on the night Dickie V was inducted into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2018, he approached longtime ESPN executive George Bodenheimer and asked to be reinstated on the UNC-Duke game, only to learn Bodenheimer no longer worked at ESPN.

Vitale, 86, has remained at ESPN in the following years, as a core part of the network’s college basketball coverage. 

Known for his highly entertaining, energetic and unmistakable broadcast style, and for signature phrases like “Awesome, baby!” and “Dipsy-doo dunk-a-roo,” Vitale has become one of the most beloved figures in college hoops over the years. 

A former coach who worked in the high school and college ranks before a brief stint as head coach of the Pistons (1978-79), Vitale first joined ESPN in 1979, when he called his first Duke-UNC game. 

In recent years, the Passaic, N.J., native has battled through multiple cancer diagnoses, which first flared up in 2021 and returned in 2023. 

He announced that he was officially cancer-free in December 2024, and he made his return to the broadcast booth for the first time in two years for the Duke-Clemson game on Feb. 8. 

“Santa Claus came early,” Vitale wrote on X at the time. “Yes I’m cutting down the nets baby it’s my National Championship!”

Vitale is under contract with ESPN through the 2027-28 season, and he’s expected to be part of the broadcast for the newly introduced Dick Vitale Invitational, which will feature Duke and Texas in Charlotte, N.C. on Nov. 4.