Back to the Syracuse Orange Newsfeed

ESPN's Dick Vitale, who will call Syracuse-Duke, nearly quit long ago due to his eye

(Reinhold Matay | The Associated Press)

For years, Dick Vitale made a joke out of his bad left eye, the one he couldn't see out of because of an accident when he was a small child.

He lost the vision in the eye after it was poked by a pencil.

So when the ESPN basketball analyst wanted to make a point about something that had happened in a game, he would say something along the lines of 'Hey, I've only got one good eye and I can see that!''

But for many years, Vitale's eye was not a joke.