Vitale back on shelf after pulling vocal chord

BRISTOL, CT– Legendary, overly excitable ESPN broadcaster Dick Vitale won’t be doing any yelling anytime soon.

On the night Vitale made his triumphant return to the airwaves after undergoing successful surgery to remove an ulcer on this left vocal chord on Dec. 18, the self-proclaimed screamer seemed to have reaggravated his ailment late in the second half of Duke’s 89-78 win over North Carolina last Wednesday in Chapel Hill.

Vitale’s broadcast partner, Mike Patrick, tells SSNN that he immediately knew something was wrong. “Everything was fine up until that point,” Patrick said. “Dick was being his usual annoying, rambling self with his ‘Diaper Dandy’ crap and all that. Then, out of nowhere, he just shut the hell up, right in mid-sentence. I had a feeling something was gravely wrong because you don’t just go from being a loudmouth son-of-a-bitch to a mute in a matter of seconds.”

After Vitale felt a searing sensation shoot up and down his throat with less than 3 minutes to go in the game, he reportedly threw his headset off and ran off the court. Physically unable to speak, Vitale told reporters through pen and paper afterwards that he left the floor because he was “confident the Dukies had things under control, and there was no way Coach K was going to blow a big lead to a chump like Roy Williams.”

While it has been reported Vitale will be out indefinitely, SSNN was able to confirm suspicions late Friday night that the future Hall-of-Famer will be back in action just in time to call Duke’s run at another ACC Tournament crown in early March.

It’s going to be tough for this sport to sweep any nations, but it’s still pretty frickin’ cool!