Dick Vitale

It is hard to silence Dick Vitale, and he returns to the air tonight to broadcast the Duke-North Carolina game on ESPN after an absence of more than two months because of surgery to remove ulcers from his vocal cords. For 3 1/2 weeks, Vitale couldn't speak, instead scribbling madly on a grease board for his wife, Lorraine. "I went through so many pens, so many pads!" he said.

College basketball's "real" season is upon us -- conference tournaments followed by the NCAA tournament -- and, lo and behold, Dick Vitale has opened his mouth. Vitale was enjoying a meal at a restaurant when a Tennessee radio station reached him for a quick interview. Vitale ended up munching on some filet of sole, as in the high-priced sneaker variety.

Vermont Coach Tom Brennan was understandably proud but perhaps too caught up in the moment when he said, after his team's brief but remarkable NCAA tournament run came to an end Sunday: "It is hard for me to imagine anything in Vermont that has meant more for people." Wrote Patrick Garrity of the Burlington (Vt.) Free Press: "Well, statehood was pretty good. I'm guessing people were pretty excited about the arrival of electricity. The idea of chairlifts has been pretty good to us, all in all....

Oh, bay-bee, it's awesome, bay-bee! Dickie V. is on the phone and he's helping a reporter fill out his NCAA tournament bracket as fast as he can, as if he had a speed other than full ahead. "The Atlanta regional is really the toughest by far," ESPN analyst Dick Vitale said Tuesday. "You've got a situation where you've got North Carolina as the No. 6 seed and you've got Louisville [at No. 10] and they were 16-1 at one time, but then you've got to look at [No.

The moment arrived sometime before 2 a.m., aboard a private jet carrying an ESPN crew from Durham, N.C., to Bloomington, Ind. For the first time since before 9 a.m., Dick Vitale fell silent. He had fallen asleep. College basketball season arrives quietly, with this tournament and that. But Vitale is its town crier, jolting you from the couch with his trademark bursts. "Wow! I'm all excited! Coach K and Tommy Izzo! Unbelievable! Two of the great programs in college hoops!

A memory, only somewhat distorted, of the loud, irritating, self-absorbed blowhard Dick Vitale joining Brent Musburger in covering Sunday's UCLA-Duke basketball game for ABC Sports. Dick: UCLA against Duke. I been waitin' for dis all week, babeeeeee! What a classic matchup! What great schools, what great tradition! And speakin' a Duke's tradition, d'duke wit d'most tradition in my book was d'Duke of Windsor. He's one a my RDs, royal dandies.

If college basketball were an exact science, then Arizona, North Carolina, Duke and Kansas could make their reservations for San Antonio right now. They almost certainly will be the top four seeds when the NCAA basketball committee finishes testing its capacity for pizzas, pretzels and potato chips, and announces the tournament field on Sunday night. Don't bank on those No. 1 slots guaranteeing anything, though.

Notre Dame quarterback Tom Krug received some advice from the father of his girlfriend before the Orange Bowl game. "Relax," said Dick Vitale, the TV announcer and father of a Notre Dame tennis player. Dick Vitale? Relax?