lit a candle 1h ago64. That's it, that's the whole gut punch of it. My dad had NBC on every Sunday during the U.S. Open just for that voice. Praying for Hannah and their three girls right now.
Their story
Dan Hicks was an American sportscaster who spent 34 years at NBC Sports and was, for more than a quarter of a century, the network's lead play-by-play voice for golf. He also called Olympic swimming, speed skating and alpine skiing, Notre Dame football, the NFL and the NBA, and his…
Dan Hicks was an American sportscaster who spent 34 years at NBC Sports and was, for more than a quarter of a century, the network's lead play-by-play voice for golf. He also called Olympic swimming, speed skating and alpine skiing, Notre Dame football, the NFL and the NBA, and his calls of Tiger Woods at the 2008 U.S. Open and the U.S. men's 4x100 metre freestyle relay at the 2008 Beijing Olympics are among the best remembered moments in American sports television. He died on Wednesday, November 11, 2026, at the age of 64, following what his family called a sudden and unexpected acute illness.
He was born John Daniel Hicks on June 2, 1962, in Tucson, Arizona, to James E. and Diane W. Hicks, and grew up there. He graduated from Sabino High School in 1980 and from the University of Arizona in 1984. He started out in radio and then became the weekend sports anchor at KVOA, the NBC affiliate in Tucson.
In 1989 he moved east to Atlanta as a sports reporter and anchor for CNN. It was at CNN that he met Hannah Storm, the sports broadcaster who became his wife. In 1992 he joined NBC Sports, where he would stay for the rest of his life. In his early NBC years he called NFL games on NBC from 1992 until the network lost the package after the 1998 season, and he worked the NBA on NBC, first as a sideline reporter and then, from the 1997 to 1998 season, as a play-by-play announcer for a limited number of games through 2000. He also anchored NBC's weekend sports updates and hosted the network's winter sports special Ice.
Golf became the centre of his career. He worked as a tower announcer on NBC's golf coverage until Dick Enberg left for CBS in 2000, when Hicks was promoted to the lead play-by-play role. He held it for 26 years. For nearly two decades he partnered two-time major champion Johnny Miller in the booth, with Hicks providing a measured counterbalance to Miller's famously candid analysis. He anchored NBC's weekend coverage of The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass for three decades. At the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines he called the birdie putt with which Tiger Woods forced a playoff against Rocco Mediate, a call fans still quote.
At the Olympics he was the stroke-by-stroke voice of swimming from the 1996 Atlanta Games onward, alongside analyst Rowdy Gaines. In Beijing in 2008 the pair called Jason Lezak's anchor leg as the United States came from behind to beat France in the men's 4x100 freestyle relay, keeping Michael Phelps's bid for eight gold medals alive. Hicks also called speed skating at the 2002, 2006 and 2010 Winter Olympics and alpine skiing in 2014 and 2018, called diving in 2000, served as late-night anchor in 2002 and 2004, co-hosted closing ceremony coverage and hosted CNBC's The Olympic Show.
In 2013 he succeeded Tom Hammond as the play-by-play voice of Notre Dame Football on NBC, a role he held through the 2016 season before Mike Tirico took over. NBC brought him back to the Notre Dame booth for the 2024 season. He also called the January 2014 AFC Wild Card game in which the Indianapolis Colts beat the Kansas City Chiefs with one of the biggest comebacks in NFL playoff history, and from 2019 he called tennis from the French Open for NBC.
Hicks and Hannah Storm married on January 8, 1994. They made their home in Greenwich, Connecticut, and raised three daughters, Hannah, Ellery and Riley. In 2006 the couple swapped jobs for a television feature, with Storm attempting golf play-by-play and Hicks stepping into her morning television role.
His death was announced on November 12, 2026, in a statement from Storm, who said the family was heartbroken by his sudden and unexpected passing and described him as "the person everyone wanted to be around." NBC Sports executives Rick Cordella, Sam Flood and Molly Solomon called him "an extraordinary colleague, friend and person," and the PGA Tour said the sound of his voice was "woven into our memories of the game." Neither the specific cause of death nor the place of death has been made public.
Biography adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), Golf Channel, PGA Tour, Barrett Media, NBC Sports statement, New York Times (1994). Wikipedia ↗
In their own words
“Expect anything different?”
Dan Hicks on NBC as Tiger Woods holed the putt to force a playoff at the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines.
“Here comes Lezak! Unbelievable at the end! He's done it! The U.S. has done it! A new world record!”
Dan Hicks calling Jason Lezak's anchor leg in the men's 4x100 freestyle relay at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, with Rowdy Gaines.
“Dan was truly one of a kind and, quite simply, the person everyone wanted to be around.”
Hannah Storm, family statement, November 12, 2026.
“Far beyond his on-air excellence, Dan was a better person who welcomed teammates with a smile, a joke, or a word of encouragement, sometimes all three in the same sentence.”
NBC Sports statement from Rick Cordella, Sam Flood and Molly Solomon, November 12, 2026.
Photos
1by People Forever
same, he just felt like part of the furniture of summer