Longtime ESPN college basketball analyst Dick Vitale said Wednesday that he has vocal cord cancer and will need six weeks of radiation to treat it.
“I plan to fight like hell to be ready to call games when the college hoops season tips off in the Fall,” Vitale wrote in a statement posted on Twitter.
This is an update on my meeting today with Dr ZEITELS. Though I was disappointed with the pathology report, I plan on winning this battle like I did vs Melanoma & Lymphoma ! pic.twitter.com/pu61XJSm43
— Dick Vitale (@DickieV) July 12, 2023
The 84-year-old Hall of Famer said last month his “past issues on my vocal cords have returned” and that he would be on “on total voice rest for 6-8 weeks” while recovering from a July 11 procedure.
Vitale has been with ESPN since 1979, the year the network launched. He called ESPN’s first college basketball broadcast.
In 2021, Vitale was diagnosed with lymphoma, months after he had multiple surgeries to remove melanoma. He chronicled his treatments and recovery on social media, posting photos of doctor visits and hospital stays while issuing motivational tips recorded before he was put on voice rest. Last year, he announced that he was cancer-free.