DETROIT (12/11/2018) -- Dick Vitale started his professional basketball career as a coach, helping build the Titans into a national power, before embarking into a broadcasting career that has now earned him an induction into The Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame. 
 
The 2018 Hall Of Class will be inducted tonight, Dec. 11 at the New York Hilton Hotel in midtown Manhattan. All ticket sales will be donated to the Sports Broadcasting Fund, a fund that helps those in the sports broadcasting industry who find themselves in a difficult financial situation due to illness, injury, or disaster.
 
Vitale, college basketball's top analyst and ambassador, joined ESPN during the 1979-80 season -- just after the network's September 1979 launch -- following a successful college and pro coaching career.  In 2008, Vitale received the sport's ultimate honor when he was selected as an inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (after being named a finalist in 2004, 2006 and 2007) as a contributor.
 
His thorough knowledge of the game is brought forth in an enthusiastic, passionate, sometimes controversial — but never boring — style. In February 2004 and 2006, Vitale was named a finalist for induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor.
 
Vitale called ESPN's first-ever NCAA basketball game – Wisconsin at DePaul on Dec. 5, 1979 (a 90-77 DePaul win).  Since then, he's called close to a thousand games, including NBA contests for ESPN during the 1983 and '84 seasons.
 
He was the head coach at the University from 1973-77 tallying a 78-30 record with a trip to the NCAA Tournament in 1977.
 
He recruited the likes of John Long, Terry Tyler, Terry Duerod and Wilbert McCormick and turned Calihan Hall into one of the most visited venues in college basketball in the late 70's.
 
He went 17-9 in each of his first two seasons and posted a 19-8 mark in 1975-76. In his final year as a head coach, the Titans torched the competition going 25-4, including a 21-game winning streak, and earning a bid to the NCAA Tournament. They would defeat Middle Tennessee State, 93-76, for the school's first-ever victory in the NCAA Tournament and then took on a powerful Michigan squad, dropping an 8681 decision. 

In 2012, Detroit Mercy named the basketball court after Vitale to honor his legacy. 
 
Vitale has now been selected for 10 halls of fame, including the National Italian Sports Hall of Fame, the University of Detroit Hall of Fame, the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame (2008) and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (2008).