Dan Hicks Dies at 64: NBC’s Voice of Golf and the Olympics
Hicks spent 34 years at NBC Sports, calling golf, 16 Olympics and Notre Dame football. His wife, Hannah Storm, announced his death.
Dan Hicks, the longtime voice of golf on NBC and a fixture of the network’s Olympic and Notre Dame football coverage, has died at 64. His wife, ESPN anchor Hannah Storm, announced Thursday that he died following an acute illness, calling his death “sudden and unexpected,” Fox 9 reported. She did not name the illness.
NBC Sports confirmed the news. Hicks had spent 34 years at the network and was still working. He was in his seventh season calling Notre Dame football and had been scheduled to call a game this weekend, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Dan Hicks’ career, from Tucson to the Olympics
Hicks was born in Tucson and graduated from the University of Arizona in 1984 with a journalism degree. He started in local radio and TV there, including at NBC affiliate KVOA, before CNN hired him as a national sports anchor in 1989. He moved to NBC Sports in the summer of 1992, Bleacher Report noted.
Early on, NBC used him almost everywhere. He did play-by-play for the NFL on NBC from 1992 to 1998 and worked the network’s NBA coverage in the 1990s, Yahoo Sports reported. In 2000 he became NBC’s lead play-by-play voice for golf, the job most fans knew him for.
The calls fans remember
Hicks was on the mic for some of the biggest moments in modern golf and Olympic swimming. He called Tiger Woods’ birdie on the 72nd hole of the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, the putt that forced a playoff with Rocco Mediate. Two months later in Beijing, he and partner Rowdy Gaines called the U.S. men’s comeback win in the 4×100-meter freestyle relay during Michael Phelps’ eight-gold run.
He worked 16 Olympic Games, Summer and Winter, and won a Sports Emmy as part of NBC’s coverage of the 2024 Paris Olympics. He also called Alpine skiing for the network. On the football side, he called Notre Dame games from 2013 to 2016, then returned to the booth in 2024.
Tributes from NBC, the PGA Tour and ESPN
NBC Sports executives Rick Cordella, Sam Flood and Molly Solomon called him “an extraordinary colleague, friend and person.” Versant CEO Mark Lazarus, who worked alongside Hicks for decades, said he was heartbroken by the sudden loss of a friend.
The PGA Tour said in a statement that Hicks’ voice had filled living rooms for more than 25 years of NBC golf coverage, calling many of the game’s biggest moments. ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro also released a statement on behalf of the network where Storm has anchored since 2008. Broadcasters across the industry, including Ernie Johnson and Dick Vitale, posted their condolences, EssentiallySports reported.
A broadcasting family
Hicks and Storm both worked at CNN before NBC, and they married in 1994. They had three daughters, Hannah, Ellery and Riley. “Our three daughters and I are heartbroken,” Storm wrote, per USA Today.
Initial reports did not say who will take over this weekend’s Notre Dame broadcast. The Irish are No. 5 in the latest CFP rankings, and their next game will be the first in three seasons without Hicks in the booth.
Sources: Fox 9, The Hollywood Reporter, Yahoo Sports, Bleacher Report, USA Today, EssentiallySports