Courtesy the Tulsa World

(November 5, 2010) This is a different kind of voice mail: Oklahoma State football and basketball broadcasts could be interpreted as love letters to Dave Hunziker's parents.

Hunziker, the Cowboys' play-by-play man, was 12 years old when his father, Paul, died of cancer.

Don't be afraid to broach the subject. Hunziker enjoys talking about his father.

He'll tell you Paul hit the sack early to rise and shine for a job at a rock quarry. Li'l Dave used to crawl into bed with dad and, while waiting for the sandman, they listened to Jack Buck call St. Louis Cardinals games.

The kid couldn't get enough of those radio voices. He listened to Missouri basketball and football games, courtesy of John Rooney and Bill Wilkerson. He explored the AM dial and was thrilled to discover that, in addition to Royals and Cardinals games, he could pick up Yankees, White Sox, Indians, Twins and Tigers games in little Kahoka, Mo.

Hunziker said he went through a rough patch after cancer took his dad. Listening to games was an escape.

"You felt like it just kind of took you away from whatever bad things might be going on," he said.

Hunziker chose to pay it forward. He wanted to be the guy who transported radio listeners to a happier place.

For almost 10 years (and nearly a fourth of his life), the 44-year-old Hunziker has been part of Cowboy culture.

If you don't know any more about Hunziker than "pistols firing!" (he auditioned the trademark phrase in his second OSU game and got positive feedback) and "goodnight, Vienna!," it's because he adheres to the commandment that you never bring personal life into the broadcast booth. He reasons that listeners don't need to hear about him or the crew. They are owed a getaway from the daily grind.

So you've got to talk to Hunziker off the air to learn his love of sports came from growing up in a small town where playing any kind of ball was the primary entertainment option.

Does this count as career prep? As a child, he learned weather impacts sports because, when a north wind was blowing, it was danged hard to rap a Wiffle ball homer onto the roof of the Green Monster, alias the green house next door.

When it was too cold to play outdoors, Hunziker read magazines and newspapers in the library where his mom worked. Or he played snooker and 8-ball at an all-ages pool hall. Blame nostalgia, but Hunziker has a pool table in his Stillwater home.

"That will be my break," he said. "I'll fix myself something to eat for lunch and rack them up and shoot a couple of games and just kind of take my mind off of it and go back to work."

Of course, Hunziker was the proverbial lad who got his start doing play-by-play of imaginary games. Whether he did it silently or out loud depended on who was in the house at the time.

Hunziker got his first "real" radio job when he was a high school senior. A station in Memphis, Mo., needed help with high school reports and asked if Hunziker could be an "oldies" disc jockey from 5 p.m.-midnight Sundays. His mother, Charlotte, didn't object, never mind that it cut into his sleep time before school. She knew how badly he wanted a future in radio. He was later shifted to an afternoon slot and the format changed to country.

"Whenever I hear a song from Restless Heart, that's all I can think about is being at that station because 'I'll Still Be Loving You' was a huge hit," he said. "I must have played that song 300 times one summer. I can hear that song and I think of the guys that gave me my first chance and how much fun I had."

A 1984 graduate of Clark County High School, Hunziker packed his bags for the University of Missouri with the goal of becoming a sports broadcaster. He befriended a high jumper and future SportsCenter anchor (John Anderson) and crossed paths with one of mom's old pals.

Mom and then-Missouri basketball coach Norm Stewart attended school together in Shelbyville, Mo. Stormin' Norman had a soft side. He sent Charlotte a nice card before Hunziker lost a second parent to cancer in 1999.

As a member of the student media and as an employee of Columbia radio station KFRU (Hunziker was offered a full-time gig before he graduated), he was obligated to fire questions at mom's childhood friend.

"I would say (Stewart) was a little kinder to me than he was some of the others, especially with some of the stuff that was going on when I first got out of school," Hunziker said. "That's when all that NCAA stuff hit and things got kind of crazy."

Hunziker hosted a sports talk show at KFRU, but his true love was calling games. He moved wherever a voice was needed, and he built a resume that got him in the mix when OSU needed a successor for Bill Teegins.

Color analyst John Holcomb and producer Joe Riddle said Hunziker came into an impossible situation because Teegins was universally loved and met a tragic end. Teegins was among 10 men killed in a 2001 plane crash while returning from a basketball game in Colorado.

But Holcomb said Hunziker was a perfect fit because of:

1, Personality.

"He makes your all-polite first team," said Holcomb, adding that Hunziker apologizes for things that aren't his fault.

"You are never going to find a better human being, which is disgusting for the rest of us that hang out with him," Anderson said.

"He's a great guy, just like Bill was," Riddle said.

2, The way Hunziker handled the job, with an emphasis on passion and preparation.

Holcomb said Hunziker's prep chart "looks like a Denny's menu" and said Hunziker delights in unearthing facts or trends that aren't in game notes distributed to the media. Hunziker will call Holcomb or Riddle with his latest discovery to say "you may not find this interesting" - and it's always interesting.

Hunziker's passion extends to OSU. If you want proof of his loyalty, you should have been at Faurot Field when he suspected his alma mater was trying to land a knockout hit on Dez Bryant. Hunziker got hotter than a fired pistol.

Riddle and Holcomb aren't the only folks who share the booth. Hunziker is the father of two daughters, ages 14 and 10. The youngest is a "little performer" and the oldest, said Hunziker, was bitten by the sports bug to the extent that she volunteers for a junior high football chain gang and spends Saturdays in the press box with dad. Said Hunziker, "She would watch 11-on-11, three-legged billy goats play football against each other."

Anderson said Hunziker fawns over his wife and girls. The job often takes Hunziker out of town, but he coaches the kids' teams and loves taking them to and from school. If Holcomb calls and Hunziker doesn't answer, it's probably because that's family time. A person who lost parents understands how precious it is to be a parent.

Anderson was asked what must be included in any story written about Hunziker and, after a pause, said "the influence of his parents is big."

Anderson said Hunziker operates in such a way that whatever he does, he wants to do it well. That's not necessarily because Hunziker is still trying to please his dad.

"But," said Anderson, "he knows his dad would be proud of him."

blog comments powered by Disqus