ESPN's Dick Vitale diagnosed with lymphoma: 'I will fight with all my heart'

Dick Vitale revealed Monday that he was recently diagnosed with lymphoma, two months after sharing he had undergone surgery to remove melanoma.

The legendary 82-year-old basketball broadcaster affectionately known as Dickie V wrote for ESPN Front Row that his two cancer diagnoses aren't believed by doctors to be related. He emphasized the importance of early detection and promised to "fight with all my heart."

Read an excerpt from Vitale's open letter below:

I consider myself very lucky. I’ve seen firsthand the devastation that cancer can have on families, on children, and on all of our loved ones. It can bring you to your knees. It’s physically and emotionally exhausting. It robs you of so many things, including life itself for some of the most unfortunate patients. I never lose sight of that, and that’s why I feel so lucky.

The plan is to treat my lymphoma with steroids and six months of chemotherapy. The medical experts tell me it has a 90-percent cure rate. They say I can continue to work so I will have to manage my work schedule around my chemo schedule as they will monitor my test results along the way.

I will fight with all my heart in dealing with the chemo and want to get back stronger than ever so I can live out my promise to one of my “All Courageous” kids, Tony Colton, who passed in July 2017.

[...]

I am lucky and blessed to have a great team of medical experts along with wonderful family support. I am also blessed to work with so many in my second family, ESPN. They have been so encouraging over the past three weeks as I’ve undergone one test after another in trying to analyze what was causing my symptoms. If you see me, please just give me a fist bump and say a prayer that I can return from being 82 years old to acting like I’m 12. Thanks so much for your love.

Vitale was a successful high school basketball coach and advanced eventually to head coach at the University of Detroit before a brief stint coaching the Detroit Pistons in the NBA. He was first hired by ESPN shortly after the behemoth network launched in September 1979, and he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2008.