Well, shoot.
I hate it when the game’s over.
Legendary broadcaster Dave Nitz loved being around the ballpark, loved being around the guys, loved being close to a microphone and a scorebook.
More than anyone I’ve ever known.
He also loved being around a Wendy’s single and a chocolate Frosty.
More than anyone I’ve ever known.
Oh, and the French fries. Forgot the French fries. Usually ate them first.
“That’s just Dave being Dave.”
Few people I’ve known have enjoyed being themselves as much as Dave enjoyed being Dave. And he loved loved LOVED being “Freeway” Dave, a nickname Leon Barmore hung on him in the late ’70s when a road trip sent Barmore, the Lady Techsters and Dave to Los Angeles, where Dave rented a car with “unlimited mileage” — and managed to exceed it.
Just Freeway being Freeway.
Dave. For a half century, the Voice of the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs.
A man entirely home at any ballyard, Dave Nitz was appropriately born in the middle of baseball season — July 10, 1942 —and sadly died the first week of summer, June 24, 2025, a Tuesday around 1 a.m.
For those who knew Dave, either in person or by following his thousands of broadcasts, the news of the passing of a pro whose signature call was “You Gotta Love It!” is just the opposite.
You gotta hate it.
All day Tuesday it was the same. Sad.
Calls from old ballplayers.
Sad.
Calls from colleagues.
Sad.
Calls from friends and family.
Sad.
But it was Dave, and Dave was fun for all those years, Dave being Dave, so there was this story or that, either about him being stubborn, being talented, being from West Virginia, being a guy who could embellish a story with the best of them.
I remember road trips in his old van — a VAN — when we were young. Country music concerts (well, hello!, Mr. Merle Haggard!) Gassing up and checking into hotels and strapping on press passes and then Dave getting quiet and no longer laughing but straightening his headset, knocking back a slug of Crystal Light lemonade, and saying, “OK. Here we go … ‘Hello, everybody!’”
Dave being Dave.
His passing is another tough reminder that time is undefeated, that we aren’t really built for life down here, that reality is unavoidable, an acquired taste.
He officially retired only a year ago this month — but diabetes was the thing. And time. All those road trips. Nearly 40 years of professional ball and a calendar of college ball. No one will ever do that again.
One. Of. A. Kind.
So the diabetes, then the arthritis, the creeping in of dementia. We just couldn’t get the traction to turn things around.
But in his prime … well, in his prime, different ballgame. He was a Shirts vs. Skins regular, a force who ran on no sleep, a guy who could broadcast as well as anyone, and that’s with one vocal cord tied behind his back.
One. Of. A. Kind.
Major Stud Alert.
He got older and reflexes slowed, gifts faded, but his voice was the same, the voice of a couple of generations, and down deep in there, in his Dave heart, there was still the little boy, a kid who loved ball, and I will always be grateful that, until time robbed him and he just couldn’t do it anymore, he faithfully shared that little-boy Dave with the rest of us.
Trust me when I tell you, if you heard Dave broadcasting to you from press row or a radio booth, there was no where else he would have rather been, and no one else he would have enjoyed talking to more, right then, than you.
Contact Teddy at teddy@latech.edu