Dan Hicks (sportscaster)

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J. Daniel "Dan" Hicks (born on June 2, 1962 in Tucson, Arizona) is an American sportscaster for NBC. His primary duties for the network include play-by-play commentary for golf, but he also does occasional play-by-play commentary for The AFL on NBC and Notre Dame football. Hicks was also a play-by-play man for The NBA on NBC, and The NFL on NBC, and was a tower announcer for NBC's golf coverage until Dick Enberg left NBC for CBS in 2000, promoting Hicks to the top spot. Hicks also hosts NBC's annual winter sports special, Ice.

He is also the primary anchor for the network's sports updates every weekend. Hicks is also heavily involved in NBC's Olympic Games coverage. During the Summer Olympics, Hicks is the stroke-by-stroke announcer for swimming, and he is the play-by-play announcer for speed skating for the Winter Olympics, in addition to serving as co-host of the Closing Ceremony. At the 2000 Summer Olympics, Hicks called diving. At the 2002 Winter Olympics and 2004 Summer Olympics, Hicks served as late-night anchor, although in 2004, Pat O'Brien served as late-night host for the first week of the games because of Hicks' swimming duties. Hicks also hosted the former CNBC show, The Olympic Show. He will serve as the play by play announcer for NBC's coverage of Speed Skating in the 2006 Winter Olympics.

His biggest job before joining NBC was as a sports reporter for CNN, where he met his wife, Hannah Storm, who is co-anchor on CBS' The Early Show. Hicks and Storm have been married since January 8, 1994. They have three daughters.

Hicks graduated from the University of Arizona in 1984. He is also known to do good impressions of former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw, and fellow NBC Sports colleague Bob Costas, and once had his impression of former President of the United States Richard Nixon as the outgoing message on his answering machine. [link]

Hicks' color commentators

The color commentators Hicks works with are champions in their own right. For golf, Hicks works with former U.S. Open and British Open champion Johnny Miller. On the women's events Hicks does, he'll work with former LPGA great Dottie Pepper, although at the U.S. Women's Open, Hicks works with both Miller and Pepper. Pepper, though, has since joined NBC's regular golf announcing team as a course reporter. When he does Olympic speed skating, Hicks is paired with 1994 Winter Olympics gold medalist Dan Jansen, and is paired with Rowdy Gaines for swimming. Gaines won three gold medals at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. For Olympic diving in 2000, Hicks worked with former Olympic bronze medalist Cynthia Potter. His co-host for the last three Olympic Closing Ceremonies (the 2002 Winter Olympics, the 2004 Summer Olympics, and the 2006 Winter Olympics) was former tennis player and now-renowned broadcaster Mary Carillo. Hicks and Carillo have gained critical acclaim for those Closing Ceremonies. They were the network's 3rd different team up in the past 4 Olympics NBC had covered up to 2002 to do the Closing Ceremony. At the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Bob Costas anchored studio coverage, while Enberg anchored from Estadi Olímpic de Montjuïc itself. At the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Costas and Enberg hosted the ceremony from Centennial Olympic Stadium together. At the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Costas and Al Trautwig anchored Closing Ceremonies coverage from Stadium Australia.

Originally, Costas and legendary sportscaster Jim McKay were supposed to anchor Salt Lake's Closing Ceremony, but McKay made mistakes while anchoring the Opening Ceremony alongside Costas and Katie Couric, leading to the pairing of Hicks and Carillo.

External links

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