Iconic octogenarian broadcasters Vitale and Holliday have no plans to sit this one out
Legendary sports announces Dick Vitale and Johnny Holliday know there will be a new normal next season, but the pandemic doesn't appear to be slowing either down
There’s been some debate during the novel coronavirus pandemic about when it will be safe enough to ensure the health of athletes, coaches and fans in professional and college sports arenas and stadiums throughout the country.
A recent ESPN article spoke about NBA general managers being concerned for some of the league’s older coaches and staff members, a group that includes 71-year-old Gregg Popovich, the coach and general manager of the San Antonio Spurs.
But what about the league’s equally venerable broadcasters such Marv Albert, who is 78, and color analyst Hubie Brown, 86?
With reports that the NBA could resume its season shortly in Orlando, it will be interesting to see who and how many might be sidelined among those not on the court.
With the scheduled start of the 2020-21 college basketball season still months away, the ACC could be impacted if there is a second wave, as has been predicted. Coaches such as Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim (75), Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski (73), Florida State’s Leonard Hamilton (71) and North Carolina’s Roy Williams (69) might have to coach their teams while they practice social distancing.
“Guys like Coach K and Roy Williams, I don’t know why people would think (they’d stop coaching) they’re so much younger for their age,” legendary college basketball analyst Dick Vitale told me last week. “They’ve got great recruiting classes coming in. I don’t see them going anywhere unless something happens (to them) physically. They’re not going to step aside, I can tell you that.”
Neither apparently will the 80-year-old Vitale or another octogenarian and fellow legendary sports announcer with whom Maryland fans are quite familiar.
“I hadn’t given it any thought until you brought it up,” Johnny Holliday said in our recent phone conversation.
Vitale, who will turn 81 next month, has been one of the sport’s most iconic figures since he joined a fledgling company called ESPN in 1979. Holliday, who’ll turn 83 in October, has been calling Maryland basketball and football for the past 40 years after leaving behind a long career as a nationally-recognized disc jockey.
As Vitale and Holliday shelter-in-place at their respective homes in Florida and Maryland, both are hopeful that progress will be made in the coming months in finding a safe and effective remedy to lessen the effects of the virus, if not a vaccine to help make a large segment of the world’s population immune.
Asked if he has given any thought to what his future might hold if the numbers of those impacted by the virus haven’t abated significantly, Vitale said, “There’s no doubt about it, you’re lying if you’re not. I’ll be 81 in June, I can’t hide the number. I feel great. I work out regularly. I do all the things you’re supposed to. Nobody will believe this: what if I told you I haven’t had a drink in my body in over 60 years?”
Vitale took one big worry out of the picture - getting on an airline - more than a decade ago.
When he was 65, Vitale started paying out of his own pocket to charter private jets to take him on assignment. It came after a laborious trip to Lubbock, Tex. to cover the game where Bob Knight, then at Texas Tech, passed North Carolina’s Dean Smith as the college basketball’s winningest Division I coach.
The trip from Vitale’s home in Sarasota, Fla. took more hours than he chooses to remember, with stops in Atlanta and Dallas along the way.
At dinner the night before the game, Knight had a question for Vitale.
“He asked, ‘Why don’t you fly private planes occasionally?’” Vitale recalled. “I never thought about private planes. It’s very expensive. I came home and I told my wife, ‘I’m going to treat myself. I’ve been taking care of the kids. I’ve put money away. From now on, if I’m going to work anymore, I am going to use the private plane.”
Vitale said he pays for the plane using the money he has made through speaking engagements, television commercials and books (he is currently writing one about the shutdown of the 2019-20 season). It has also cut down dramatically on the number of days he is on the road.
“The great thing is that I’ve haven’t had to touch my ESPN dollars to pay for the private plane,” he said. “Every trip saves me two nights being on the road. To me at 80 right now, more important than money, is the fact of health and safety and feeling good and excited. I’ve been very lucky ESPN pays me well, but it’s been a savior for me.”
The seemingly ageless Holliday had already started cutting down his schedule when he opted not to return for the pre-game and post-game television shows for the Washington Nationals last season. Holliday said in an interview last week that he hasn’t given much thought to what he will do with the Maryland football and basketball games, whenever they begin.
“It’s so far down the road,” he said. “This is May. When I was talking to (football coach MIke) Locksley last week for a thing I was doing for Channel 4, I asked him, ‘What if there is no football in September? You have plans?’ He said, ‘Oh no, I don’t operate that way. You have to look at it in a positive manner. I’ve always felt we were going to play in September.’”
Holliday believes it could look different with no fans or a limited percentage of the normal sellout that fills stadiums and arenas such as the Xfinity Center.
“I think they need sports, I think the fans need it and I know the schools need it,” Holliday said. “And the athletic programs certainly need to have football and basketball, that goes without saying. But I’ve never thought about, ‘What am I going to do?’
Holliday is getting his directions during the pandemic from one of his daughters, who is a physician, and two other family members who are nurses.
“They pretty much have directed me to get out and walk and get in the car and go places,” he said. “I don’t go around crowds. If I go to the store, you go in, you wear the mask and you get out. You don’t hold court at the center of the produce department. Do things with your family. I think that it keeps you a little more focused that things will be okay eventually. I’m forever thankful every single day that I don’t have any problems.”
Neither Vitale nor Holliday appear to have any plans on retiring - pandemic, be damned. Both men have had life-changing scares during their remarkable careers, with Vitale undergoing surgery to see if lesions on his vocal cords were cancerous more than a decade ago and Holliday surviving a private plane crash in 1975.
“All I can say is that the Lord decided it wasn’t my time yet,” Holliday said a few years later.
Nor does it appear that its Vitale’s time to retire either. Though his days of being crowd-surfed through the stands at Cameron Indoor Stadium are in the past, a man whose passion and energy made Dickie V a household name doesn’t seem to be giving in to the fears from the pandemic.
“I have no thoughts of stepping down, I can tell you that,” Vitale said. “It would have to be a situation where if I can’t do it physically and emotionally like I’d like to do, I’ve told this to my bosses, they won’t have to tell me that it’s over. I’ll pick up the phone and say, ‘It’s been a great run, 40-something years. Hall of Fame. It’s over. I’ve met so many great people, called so many great games.”
Vitale realizes that when the college football and basketball seasons begin, the atmosphere at games could be a lot different. As a fan and the proud father of two Notre Dame graduates and grandfather to an incoming freshman, Vitale still goes to South Bend “at least” three each fall before his day job ramps up in late fall.
“The emotion in college sports is so much…the electricity, the crowd, the pep rallies, going through the campus, it makes you feel like you’re a little kid,” Vitale said. “(Not having fans, or having a much smaller number) is not the same, but it beats not having football.
“But let’s be sure there’s a sophisticated program to take care of the priority, which is No. 1 the healthy and safety of all coaches, athletes, media and everyone involved. Let’s not rush to something because we have to have it to get the revenue from TV. Let’s make certain there is a plan to keep everyone safe.”