Detroit Mercy Names Court In Honor Of Vitale
Posted by jstevrtc on June 15th, 2011As of early December, the basketball court in Calihan Hall at Detroit Mercy will henceforth bear the name of Dick Vitale, it was announced today.
Vitale coached at the school from 1973-77 and amassed an unquestionably respectable 78-30 (.722) record before becoming athletic director for a year. After coaching the Pistons to a 30-52 mark in the 1978-79 season and leading them to a 4-8 start in 1979-80, he was let go as their coach and made his debut just a few months later as a college basketball announcer for a little startup called ESPN.
Coach Vitale Shows How He Can Go Left, And Now He Can Do It Whenever He Wants On a Court That Bears His Name
The official honor will take place on December 5 when UDM hosts St. John’s. That will be 32 years to the day that Vitale called his first college hoops game (DePaul 90, Wisconsin 77).
Normally, a 78-30 record over four years for a college coach gets you a tasty contract extension and means that you’ll be mentioned for every bigger coaching job that comes open until you take one of them. But a court named after you? Not exactly. Obviously, this tribute to Vitale is a response to the distinction he’s achieved as a broadcaster and his service to the game, and we fail to see how anyone could have a problem with that. You might tire of his catch-phrases and you may (as we have on occasion) call him out on his lack of objectivity as it pertains to certain ACC schools, but you’ll have to search pretty hard to find anyone who cares more about college basketball than Dick Vitale. In addition to the 30-40 games he calls during a season, there are the countless other media appearances, the fundraisers, the philanthropy, the lectures he gives to players, and so much more that we don’t see, things he does when there aren’t any cameras around. So once again, we say Bravo, Coach. We can’t wait until the unveiling of Dick Vitale Court, an honor richly deserved.
