LAKEWOOD RANCH, Fla. — At the entryway to Dick Vitale’s home nests a framed passage of “The Man in the Arena” by Theodore Roosevelt. Part of the segment reads, “the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena. … who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause.”
By the looks of Vitale’s staircase, his cause – as a 43-year college basketball broadcaster – has afforded him with Hall of Fame enshrinements, awards, memorabilia and photos of him with every celebrity from Jennifer Lopez to Pope Benedict XVI.
But it’s in Vitale’s garage, next to his beloved black Mercedes, that he’s most excited to show off a drawer with hand-written letters from children who’ve battled pediatric cancer. They acted as an emotional resuscitator when he’d been feeling down in his seven-month battle with the disease.
Source: ‘No one on this earth like Dick Vitale’: Broadcaster’s fight against childhood cancer continues