Legendary ESPN announcer Dick Vitale recovering after latest cancer surgery

Longtime college basketball announcer Dick Vitale underwent successful surgery to remove cancerous lymph nodes on Tuesday, he announced on social media.

Vitale shared on Friday that a recent biopsy of his lymph node showed that it was cancerous, which is what led to Friday’s surgery. The 85-year-old, who is battling cancer for a fourth time, is now recovering in the hospital.

The battle is just the latest Vitale has had with cancer in recent years. He was first diagnosed with melanoma in 2021, and then with lymphoma a few months later. That took him out of the broadcast booth for several months, but he returned to call a game that fall in an incredibly emotional scene in Las Vegas.

Vitale stepped away later that season due to vocal cord inflammation. He revealed last July that he had been diagnosed with vocal cord cancer, which led him to start undergoing radiation treatments. He announced in November that his vocal cord cancer was gone.

But on Friday, Vitale revealed on social media that he been diagnosed with cancer for a fourth time in his lymph nodes.

Vitale has been a longtime staple at ESPN and in the college basketball world. He called the very first college basketball game that ESPN ever aired, and he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2008. Vitale said in March that he hoped to be able to call games again this fall, though he was still recovering after his vocal cord cancer treatments.