Dan Hicks took his Tucson roots to the biggest stages in sports broadcasting

By then, Hicks, a Sabino High School and UA graduate, had worked for Tucson AM radio station KCEE on a sports-talk show, “The Hicks Sports Fix,” and as a public address announcer for UA baseball and women's basketball games.

Silver, now retired and living in Tucson, says, “I knew Dan had a chance to be something special, but within a few years he jumped from being a weekend sports anchor at KVOA Channel 4 to CNN and to NBC. It was a meteoric jump. But he sure made it work.”

A year or two earlier, Hicks was hired at $25 a game to be the internal public address announcer in the press box at Arizona Stadium. It was typically a stoic, stick-to-the-statistics role, but Hicks made it fun.

“He had a Ronald Regan impression that kept you laughing,” remembers Tom Duddleston, the long-time Arizona sports information director who retired in 2013. “Once, when a runner stumbled and fell, he called it 'self-tackilization.' Over the last 40 or so years, every PA announcer in the press box has carried on Dan's 'self-tackilization' term. He was so much fun.”

When Hicks became the PA announcer at the old Sancet/Kindall Field, he would introduce then-UA standout Chip Hale by saying: “Now batting, CHIP!... and then wait a few seconds for UA fans to yell “HALE.”

Hicks, 64, died Wednesday night in his home state of Connecticut of what his wife, ESPN sports anchor Hannah Storm, called “an acute illness.”

On Thursday, the Golf Channel dedicated a full hour to the remembrance of Hicks, who was NBC's lead golf announcer for the last 26 years. Studio host Jimmy Roberts wept. Later that night, long-time NFL play-by-play man Al Michaels became emotional, his voice breaking, when he spoke about Hicks during the New York Giants-Washington Commanders game.

“A wonderful soul gone way too soon,” said Hicks’ Sabino High School teammate Fred Christenson, a former senior director of programming and executive producer at ESPN.

“My mom was a teacher at Sabino. She taught typing and always said Dan was one of her all-time favorite students. My dad died when I was a senior at Sabino. Dan reached out to my mom when he heard the news. He was in the middle of his college life yet took the time. He treated everyone with respect and was beloved. One of the all-time greats.”

Hicks was inducted into the Pima College Sports Hall of Fame in 2023 and, rather than deliver a lengthy, it's-all-about me speech, he limited his remarks to 3 minutes and 55 seconds. He spent time answering questions from then-Channel 4 weekend sports anchor Jenna Fink, who said Hicks treated her like a long-lost colleague.

In his speech, Hicks said, “Everything I've done in my career has been nothing short of a dream. It has been a joy ride.”

Hicks was NBC's play-by-play voice for 16 Olympic Games, the No. 1 voice for swimming during the Michael Phelps years, and the No. 1 announcer for Alpine Skiing in the Winter Olympics.

That wasn't his background. He was a wide receiver for legendary high school coach Ollie Mayfield at Sabino, starting on the basketball team and baseball team.

The young man who grew up listening to famed Los Angeles Dodgers announcer Vin Scully late at night even became something of a mentor while he was in his 20s.

Former Tucson radio talk-show host Todd Walsh, now a long-time commentator and sportscaster for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Arizona Coyotes, remembers that Hicks offered to help him rise in the sportscasting business in the 1980s.

“Dan tried to send me to an agent and do a demo,” says Walsh, a UA grad and former Arizona basketball student manager who now works for MLB.com. “Mostly it was because Dan set the bar in my head.

“He taught me it was OK to laugh and have fun (on the air). I marveled at his ability to capture a moment, the biggest moments, like no other announcer in sports. That was his gift. He was at ease on camera with every sport and every analyst. It was a masterclass of sports television broadcasting at the highest level.

“His death is just heartbreaking.”