The real Dick Vitale

Dick Vitale showed us again why he's really a very easy guy to like.

As reported by Vin Mannix in today's Herald, Vitale spoke to students Tuesday at The Horizons Academy about getting their lives straightened out.

"Here you've got kids who have very little guidance and direction at an early age, and you're hoping and praying they don't allow that to bring them all the way down,'' Vitale told Mannix after the talk. "But they still have two things going for them — they're young and they're healthy, and if they really want to make it, they can.''

If you only hear the basketball commentator's bombastic courtside schtick, it might be easy to pass him off as just another talking head. But Vitale, a Lakewood Ranch resident whom we've spotlighted on occasion for his charity work, is trying to make a difference in our community.

Way to go, Dickie V.

-- Jim