Chris Fowler 'very flattered' by Dick Vitale Gala honor

It was 1987 — or 1986, as memories are often scuffed by time — and Chris Fowler was watching tennis future stars at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Bradenton, now known as IMG Academy.

Fowler hosted ESPN’s “Scholastic Sports America” at the time. This was before he became a household name of every college football fan in the country by hosting “College Gameday” every Saturday of each fall, and before he would host the network’s Grand Slam tennis coverage. He was taking in the next generation of tennis talent when he saw a familiar face. Familiar to him, anyway: Dick Vitale. Vitale’s daughters, Sherri and Terri, were playing at the academy.

“I had been watching him since 1979,” Fowler said. “I was excited to meet him. He challenged me to play tennis at his backyard court. I was not expecting that. I won’t say how that turned out, but… He was good, but had his limitations.

“Not too many years after that, I was working with him. He and I have had a good, long friendship," he said. "I have learned a lot from him. He has been an important personal and professional friend.”

Fowler, 56, is one of the honorees at Vitale’s annual Dick Vitale Gala, this year held May 10 at the Ritz-Carlton, Sarasota. The other honorees at the 14th-annual gala are Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney and longtime basketball player/coach Avery Johnson. Receiving the John Saunders Courage Award, named for Vitale’s friend and ESPN colleague who died in 2016 at age 61, will be sideline reporter Holly Rowe and “College Gameday” personality Lee Corso. As always, the gala will raise money for The V Foundation for Cancer Research, particularly for pediatric cancer. The event has raised more than $25.2 million since its inception.

Fowler said it “felt very humbling” to receive the honor.

“I do not know if it is justified,” Fowler said, “but I am very flattered.”

Fowler said his own reality has been touched by the disease. Fowler’s father, Knox, was diagnosed with lung cancer when Fowler was 14. He died three years later. Fowler said it shaped his childhood. That, plus working with Jim Valvano, the V Foundation’s namesake, at ESPN has pushed Fowler to do what he can to help fight the disease. Fowler has attended the gala before, introducing Vitale at the 2016 event and mingling with the families of the kids Vitale brings on stage with him. He is well aware of the power it has.

“Everyone leaves with their soul nourished,” Fowler said. “They leave stronger. The example those kids set, it inspires you and you charge out of there with the attitude of, ‘That is what is important in life.’ Those are the battles worth fighting. People have strength they did not know they had, and they are living examples of that. You become a better person for being there.”

Giving a speech has been the furthest thing from Fowler’s mind. He is not going to write anything in advance, but instead plans to speak from the heart, he said. He also said it won’t be a long speech and will focus mainly on the cause at hand. But Fowler might tell a few Vitale stories because, well, why not?

It is Vitale’s vigor that amazes Fowler. Watching him raise funds is like watching him coach a basketball game, Fowler said. He pours the same amount of passion into each.

“I almost worry about him,” Fowler said of Vitale, 80. “He is so competitive about the money raised. That is how it has gotten to the level it has. It is inspiring. This will be his legacy, even more than broadcasting or the (Naismith Memorial) Basketball Hall of Fame.”