Dick Vitale keeps Negrin, Wright legacies going

LAKEWOOD RANCH — The call came during what Sergio Negrin called “the most miserable day of my life.”

It was from Dick Vitale. First, Vitale wanted to send his condolences and apologize for being unable to attend the funeral for Sergio’s 19-year-old son, Anthony, who passed away Oct. 6 from Fanconi anemia, a rare blood disorder.

Secondly, Vitale — Lakewood Ranch resident, famous college basketball analyst, member of the College Basketball and Naismith Basketball halls of fame — wanted to tell Sergio a $200,000 grant was given in Anthony’s name to Cincinnati’s Children’s Hospital, where Anthony had been treated.

“What he did with that call was give the day a little bit of light,” Sergio said. “There is nothing worse than losing your child — a child shouldn’t go before his parents. But what took some of the pain away that day was what Dicky V was doing to keep Anthony’s legacy going.”

Vitale will continue to do so during tonight’s Jimmy V Classic at Madison Square Garden, which will be broadcast live on ESPN, with Butler and Georgetown tipping off at 7 before Indiana and Pitt begins at 9. Vitale will broadcast the first game and will mention Anthony Negrin in a speech that will air during halftime of the second game.

The goal is to raise dollars, Vitale said, for pediatric cancer research. About a million of them, which will go to The V Foundation for Cancer Research.

Jimmy V is Jim Valvano, who, along with ESPN, created the foundation before succumbing to cancer in 1993 at the age of 47.

Vitale and Valvano became close after Valvano, who coached the North Carolina State men’s basketball team to the 1983 national championship, began working at ESPN.

“I got to know him really well during the last year and a half of his life, and to watch the way a young guy was battling that disease,” Vitale said Monday morning, “just captured me ... He always used to say to me, ‘Take your worst toothache, and run it through your body — that’s what I feel all day long.’”

Fighting cancer has become Vitale’s crusade. Copies of his latest book, “Dick Vitale’s Fabulous 50 Players & Moments in College Basketball,” are available for purchase at The Broken Egg restaurants in Lakewood Ranch and Siesta Key, with all the proceeds going toward cancer research. Vitale will even sign your copy while he works his way through an omelette, scribbling “Awesome, baby!” in black marker on the inside cover.

The annual Dick Vitale Gala raised $1.1 million last year, and this year’s edition, the fifth, has been scheduled for May 21 at the Ritz-Carlton in Sarasota, featuring Super Bowl-champion coach Tony Dungy and Michigan State men’s basketball coach Tom Izzo as the honored guests.

Now tonight, Vitale will share the story of Negrin, a Bradenton Christian graduate. He will also share the story of Payton Wright, a Lakewood Ranch resident who passed away from a rare form of brain cancer in 2007, weeks after her fifth birthday. Monday morning at The Broken Egg in Lakewood Ranch, Vitale pointed to the table where Payton, whose picture hangs on the restaurant’s wall, used to sit with her family.

“I got to know these kids,” he said.

Their families have grown to know him, as well.

“He is a true champion who uses his celebrity in a good way,” said Payton’s father, Patrick, who is helping fuel the cure for cancer through the Payton Wright Foundation and paytonwright.org. “It’ll be humbling to hear him mention Payton’s name.”

It’s a name Vitale wants millions to know — especially if those millions decide to open their wallets.

“Every minute,” Vitale said, “there’s another person dying of cancer ... But the good news is there’s 12 million people who are cancer survivors, and the reason they’re surviving is all the research dollars that are being raised. The one thing I’m so proud of with the V Foundation is every dollar we collect goes to research.

“Cancer comes after all — no matter who you are, rich or poor. And we have to unite.”