Vitale in the Hall of Fame? Are you kidding me?

by Mark Kriegel
http://msn.foxsports.com

Updated: April 11, 2008, 9:47 PM EST

The tournament is over, but the season for basketball gossip has really just begun. This year's a little different, though. In addition to the usual questions — who's hired? who's fired? who's going pro? — there's this:

How the hell did Dick Vitale get into the Hall of Fame?

Maybe I'm not the ideal guy to write this, as FOX and ESPN are competitors. What's more, like Vitale, I traffic in a milieu that observes little, if any, distinction between journalism and entertainment. Still, four days after one of the more thrilling games I've ever seen, his admission into the Hall is still pissing me off.

I have no real beef with Vitale; he is what he is. I've heard no stories of him as a mean guy, just another self-promoter. Rather, what offends here is the idea that merit can count for so little and politics so much.

This year's selections, announced hours before the NCAA men's championship game, included Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing and Pat Riley, all obvious and entirely deserving choices. But ESPN offered little on their rather substantial contributions to the game. Instead, you got wall-to-wall coverage on Vitale's Oprah moment. He thanked. He cried. He offered platitudes. Then he did it all over again.

Dick Vitale wasn't a player. His coaching career — culminating with a 34-60 record for the Detroit Pistons — was a failure. And while the Hall recognizes media members with its Curt Gowdy Award (a distinction Vitale has already won), one cannot be enshrined as a mere broadcaster. So, again, how the hell did he get in?

Is he insightful? Thoughtful? Provocative? Courageous?

No, no, no and no. He's loud. He's a salesman. In fact, the very same qualities that served him so well on television have made him the perfect shill for Hooters. Also, he's relentless. As people in the basketball business know too well, Vitale has been lobbying for entry into the Hall for years. The movement, such as it was, was spearheaded by influential letter writers campaigning on his behalf, most of them famous coaches whose butts he's kissed for years. Foremost among them was Bobby Knight, the media-basher now cashing ESPN's checks. Vitale has been on air since 1979; the next tough word he has for Bobby Knight will be his first.

Vitale — elected as a "Contributor," a distinction for which he had been a finalist in 2004 and again in 2006 — was once considered a long shot for enshrinement. As one Hall of Famer was heard to say some years ago: "Why don't we just let in the cheerleaders?" Well, as it turns out, they did. The third time was a charm for Vitale.

His nomination came out of the North American screening committee, a group of nine basketball luminaries. He received at least seven of the votes required in the committee, and at least 18 of the 24-member Honors Committee necessary for induction. In an effort to limit the potential for political machinations, the Hall does not disclose voters' identities. But that doesn't mean the self-appointed lobbyists don't know who they are. Nor does it mean the voters aren't susceptible to favorable coverage.

Vitale is his own best publicist, dispensing his favors over the air. Of course, the basketball establishment loved him; it was easier to tell kids to stay in school than it was to take on the coaches. But Vitale also had the network and its very capable P.R. staff working on his behalf.

Still, what was this Contributor's contribution? Coining the terms "PTPer" or "Diaper Dandy?"

True to form, Vitale spoke of his induction with effusive modesty. But the really humble sentiments came, curiously enough, from the guy with five championship rings. Pat Riley spoke of his outrageous good fortune in being handed a team with Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy. "I was pushed through a door and a silver spoon was shoved in my mouth," he told the Miami Herald. He never had to wrap an ankle or drive a bus or discover a kid who was shooting around in the park because he didn't want to go home.

"I never did any of that stuff," he said.

It was his way of acknowledging that a lot of other people did. The one who comes first to my mind is Bob Hurley Sr., busting his ass in Jersey City for 36 years while bringing three national championships to St. Anthony's high school. Hurley was a finalist a couple of years ago, an enormous accomplishment considering he doesn't have a TV gig, a P.R. staff or even a Sports Information Director.

The game has been blessed with any number of Bob Hurleys — people who serve, one way or another, in the tradition of Harlem's Holcombe Rucker — guys who did basketball's missionary work. Those are the real contributors.

Understand that Vitale was one of the 15 finalists who came before the Honors Committee. In other words, his nomination came at someone else's expense. So consider some of the mere players who haven't gotten in: Chris Mullin, Marques Johnson, Artis Gilmore, Dennis Johnson.

They were great ones, sure. But they never did a Hooters ad.