Dick Vitale stresses love and chasing your dreams in awarding scholarships to youth recipients

The kids sat in bleachers, wide-eyed and listening to Lakewood Ranch resident Dick Vitale’s booming speech.

Vitale spoke to the group at Sarasota’s Boys & Girls Club and awarded scholarships to five recipients — Andrea Aray, Fritz Azor, Maurice Cook, Al-Muta Hawks and Hassan Hogan — at the 20th annual Dick Vitale Scholarship Day on Monday.

“They need help here,” Vitale said. “They need help financially. These kids are all chasing dreams. Many of them come from some real tough situations, financially and at home. You can’t stop chasing your dreams and that’s what I try to instill in them and try to inspire them.”

Vitale’s speech detailed the power of love, compassion and never giving up.

It struck a chord with the many people attending Monday’s gathering inside the Boys & Girls Club’s Dick Vitale Health and Fitness Center gymnasium.

That included Azor, a North Port High graduate that attended the North Port Boys & Girls Club for the last six years and earned a $1,000 scholarship from Vitale to pursue a physical therapy degree at State College of Florida.

“Just keep on going,” Azor said about what he learned from Vitale’s speech. “Keep it up. Just keep chasing your dreams. Don’t let anybody put you down.”

Vitale, a longtime ESPN college basketball analyst, is passionate about helping children and has raised more than $21.3 million for pediatric cancer research through the Jimmy V Foundation from his annual gala.

Helping, caring and loving are attributes Vitale developed from his parents, who he’s often said had a fifth-grade education but a doctorate in love.

And it’s that latter part that Vitale said is missing from the United States lately. The Charlottesville tragedy and Confederate statue protests are recent examples.

“If there’s one thing that bothers me right now in our nation, our nation is not filled with the kind of love that we should have,” Vitale said. “Some of these problems that we read about and hear about could all be solved by simply caring for one another, extending a hand. There’s so much hate and violence. What does that achieve? It achieves nothing. Nothing. We need more warmth and love. And that’s what I try to promote.”

Each recipient was awarded a $1,000 scholarship, marking $5,000 in total and $100,000 to date from when it began 20 years ago.

Aray, a 19-year-old Suncoast Polytechnical graduate, is pursuing a nursing degree at the Suncoast Technical College and said her family doesn’t have the best financial means. So the scholarship money will help.

“It’s nice to know that there are people out there willing to help those that have trouble,” Aray said.

Hogan, a 19-year-old North Port High graduate, is aiming to get his associate’s degree in film development at State College of Florida.

“I’m grateful that I get it, because it just helps me further my career,” Hogan said. “And his words are what he means.”

The other two scholarship recipients, Cook and Hawks, are Sarasota Military Academy graduates. Cook is planning on studying criminal justice at Florida State, before serving in the military after graduating from college.

Hawks is beginning his freshman year at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pa., and also has the Robert and Patricia Gussin Endowed Scholarship.

Getting more community support is something Vitale said is a must, because the Boys & Girls Club kids are really in need of help.

This story was originally published August 28, 2017 at 6:24 PM with the headline "Dick Vitale stresses love and chasing your dreams in awarding scholarships to youth recipients."