Dickie V – Dr. Phil or Dr. Jack Ramsey?

During last night’s Duke vs. Maryland basketball game on ESPN, Dick Vitale made a plea to Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan to clean up their ways. I will allow you to pause here … and read that again.

During last night’s Duke vs. Maryland basketball game on ESPN, Dick Vitale made a plea to Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan to clean up their ways.

Ok. Has this really sunk in yet? One more time …

During last night’s Duke vs. Maryland basketball game on ESPN, Dick Vitale made a plea to Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan to clean up their ways.

This is amazing for a number of reasons. First of all, those of you who happened to not see it, but are familiar with Dick Vitale, yes, it sounded exactly how you are imagining it in your head. He was able to put on the serious, “let’s have a real moment,” voice for a second (which consists of lowering the volume on his voice from jet engine level to the THX Dolby noise at movies) before making his plea.

Secondly, and to be fair, this was all brought on by the staggeringly coherent and insightful Mike Patrick, who in a rare moment of Annakin Skywalker-like weakness made a quip about Britney Spears having less hair that Dickie V. True as it was, Vitale could not resist talking about it. *Side note* Vitale cannot resist talking about anything. He is like a shark when its eyes roll back in its head and it is operating on some level of instinct and just keeps biting and biting. This is what happened last night, once that name came up, it was over. And you could tell when his moment of clarity happened – it was like he came to all of a sudden. His voice changed and he exploded with a patented “Ohhhhhhhhh, but why are we talking about Britney Spears when there is such a great game going on with the Dukieeeeeeeeeeeeeees?” His awakening cannot hide his addiction to talking. Listen sometime. Darfour, The Facts of Life, Steakums, it doesn’t matter. You bring it up, he’ll talk about it. Even if it makes you uncomfortable. This is why I have always said; do not bring up sex if Dick Vitale and your mother are in the same room. It’s a recipe for disaster.

Finally, it made me think of other possibilities for heartfelt calls to action from unlikely celebrity sources. For instance, imagine if during a State of the Union address a few years back, now former President Bill Clinton went from discussing the reasons for tactical strikes in Iraq to imploring Dennis Rodman to stay faithful to Carmen Elektra. This would be great because it is A) highly hypocritical and B) highly hypocritical. Other possibilities include former Mr. or Mrs. Melissa Etheridge Anne Heche (your guess is as good as mine) accepting an Oscar and in her ensuing speech thanking the X-Men character Mystique for teaching her to stay true to herself. How about Jordan Vasquez from “My So Called Life” telling John Amaechi to “man up” in an interview? Mr. Rogers telling Chancellor Palpatine to act with some honor. Martha Steward telling The Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase to be careful with his money. *Side Note Jr.* Ted DiBiase was released from the WWE late last year and has started his own ministry. Once again, we will pause here so you can go back and read that over. Ted Dibiase started his own ministry. Google him and check out his web-site. Arnold Palmer making a public plea for Cartman to watch his language. Flipper asking that Jessica Simpson think before she speaks about the plight of chicken in the ocean. Billy Joel writing a song to inspire better behavior from the Cincinnati Bengals.

So thank you, Dick Vitale, for reaching out to three people who are certain to heed your words of wisdom. Without your public plea for normalcy, I would have never thought that someday maybe Kris Kristofferson would write an open letter to Sacagawea asking her to come back to earth.