Bob Valvano

Bob Valvano, longtime analyst for Louisville basketball and former Bellarmine head coach, has been a constant voice in this city’s college basketball culture. Tuesday’s exhibition supports cancer research that helped put his Stage 4 leukemia into remission, and the local charity he leads, the Kentuckiana Friends of V.

 Eric Crawford photo

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Bob Valvano, a mainstay on radio broadcasts of Louisville men's basketball games, has been diagnosed with leukemia and an aorta aneurysm, he announced Monday on social media. 

"I don't know when or if I need treatment for leukemia," the Cards' color analyst wrote in a tweet. "But prognosis good says Doc!"

Valvano, 64, on April 6 announced on social media that he would be taking some time away from his daily afternoon sports talk show on ESPN 680 to deal with medical issues. 

Valvano arrived in Louisville in 1994 as the head coach of the Bellarmine men's basketball team. After four years with the Knights, he ended a 19-season coaching career and joined ESPN as a radio host. 

He has since become a fixture alongside play-by-play broadcaster Paul Rogers during radio broadcasts of Louisville basketball games and has also provided in-game TV commentary for ESPN. In 2016, he was named the Kentucky Sportscaster of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. 

Valvano is the brother of the late college basketball coach Jim Valvano, whose battle with cancer in the 1990s inspired The V Foundation for Cancer Research. Valvano is a member of the foundation's board of directors and wrote a biography about his brother, "The Gifts of Jimmy V." 

In a follow-up tweet Monday, Valvano said his cancer doctor was taught by his brother's cancer doctor at the Duke University School of Medicine. 

"I know I'm in good hands!!!" he wrote. 

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