Immediately after the ’77-’78 season ended, Dick Vitale started beating the drum – hell-bent on getting the vacant Pistons job. Vitale had resigned as coach at the University of Detroit in November 1977 because of stomach problems. At a tearful press conference, he turned the U of D program over to his assistant coach, Dave “Smokey” Gaines, while keeping his job as the school’s athletic director. But Vitale never kept secret his desire to coach in the NBA. Away from the sidelines for a season, he had been feeling much better.

Vitale had been successful at the high school and college levels because he could infuse his endless passion for basketball and hard work to student athletes. Vitale, with the bald dome and the black, horn-rim glasses, could rant and rave – the veins in his neck expanding and his voice rising like a faith-healer invoking the sacred word. His New Jersey accent cut through the Midwest air with the rising crescendo of his catch phrases and clichés. Vitale got so carried away when he talked – or more often, screamed – that you could all but feel his stomach grinding from the intensity.

Vitale’s East Coast bravado captivated Detroiters. He had the ability to make people feel that he was speaking directly from his heart. His emotionalism was unabashed and genuine, and he had been shameless in his incessant promotion of his school his players, and himself. By making something out of nothing at U of D, Vitale had made a profound impression on the Detroit sports community.

Midwesterners have a stereotype of fast-talking guys from the East Coast as being disingenuous hucksters. But Vitale was the opposite. Although he was a self-promoter, he never did it at anyone else’s expense. He was sincere, dedicated, and loyal as the day was long -- and with his energy level, the day almost never ended.

When Vitale ranted in his evangelical style, he would often hearken back to the story of his humble roots – the Jersey kid with a basketball Jones who had had an eye poked out and could no longer find the shooting grange. He loved explaining his unlikely success as a vision formed when young as “a boy, a ball, and a dream.”

As his Titans stood tall against established powers like Michigan and Michigan State, Vitale was able to foster the notion that he could both win and promote his product at the higher levels of the game. At the very least, he’d be capable of bringing attention to a Pistons team that had had so little to offer. After all, even their lone star, Bob Lanier, now 30 and with bad knees, was starting to hobble on a regular basis.

He was only 38 years old and lacked major college coaching experience. But you can’t blame Vitale for trying. It was up to the buyer to beware, and Pistons management was putty in Vitale’s hands. Management had a choice – should they get a proven pro coach and risk a slow start in Pontiac, or should they roll the dice with a brilliant promoter who might (or might not) be able to coach? The public, along wit the Vitale-friendly press, challenged the Pistons to take a flyer with yet another coach with no NBA credentials – and management took the hook…

Vitale was too young, too new to the pros and far too impatient to take it slowly. He had never coached in a top college program, nor had he trained as an NBA assistant. He was a bull in a china shop, and it was inevitable that he was going to knock stuff over.

Vitale has promised at his opening press conference that he would find “11 players who’ll give their guts to wear a Pistons uniform” and promised to “run outta town any player who doesn’t give 120 percent.”

Unfortunately for Dick, once the season started, it was his “guts” that gave out after only three games – all loses – and he was hospitalized for stress-related stomach problems.