Norm Hitzges (born July 5, 1944) is an American author and sports talk radio host. He is a member of the Texas Radio Hall of Fame.
Career
Hitzges hosts at
KTCK (1310
AM / 96.7 FM, "SportsRadio 1310 The Ticket") in
Dallas
Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...
. Hitzges pioneered radio sports talk in the morning at
KLIF radio at a time when sports talk was mainly on in the evening. Hitzges moved to (former rival) KTCK in early 2000 after 15 years at
sister station KLIF when the latter removed sports talk programming from its lineup.
Hitzges also serves as the television play-by-play voice of the
Dallas Sidekicks.
He has also provided major league baseball commentary for
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...
.
Hitzges is known for his enthusiasm and knowledge of sports trivia and has been compared to
Dick Vitale
Richard John Vitale (; born June 9, 1939), also known as "Dickie V", is an American basketball sportscaster. A former head coach in the college and professional ranks, he is well known for his 41-year tenure as a college basketball broadcaster f ...
for his energy and love of sports.
Hitzges has been honored by the Dallas All Sports Association and the Texas Baseball Hall of Fame.
Hitzges also hosts "Norm-A-Thon", a yearly 18-hour marathon broadcast to raise money for the Austin Street Center, a Dallas area homeless shelter.
Hitzges has also been a long-time supporter of Texans! Can Academy, an organization that provides at-risk youths with education and training.
Weekly segments on his show include “The Birdhouse,” “Shuttle Run,” “The Meatheads of the Week,” and “The Weekend-around.”
On August 7, 2020, Hitzges celebrated his 45th anniversary of sports talk radio. During a call-in,
Mark Cuban
Mark Cuban (born July 31, 1958) is an American billionaire entrepreneur, television personality, and media proprietor whose net worth is an estimated $4.8 billion, according to ''Forbes'', and ranked No. 177 on the 2020 ''Forbes'' 400 list ...
related that Norm's KLIF show was the first radio program streamed on the internet on his original radio simulcast platform, AudioNet (later Broadcast.com). This required recording the show on an 8-hour VCR tape and then encoding the tapes onto a Packard-Bell PC to upload to the internet.
Personal life
Since 2010, Hitzges and his wife have lived in the Dallas suburb of
Little Elm, Texas
Little Elm is a city in Denton County, Texas, United States, and a part of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is an extended suburb of Denton; its population was 46,453 as of the 2020 census. In 2000, the census population was at 3,646. By the ...
.
On August 27, 2020, Hitzges announced on the air that he is being treated for bladder cancer. Notable DFW media members were quick to show their support, including Fox 4's Mike Doocy
Partial bibliography
* ''Horizons in the Mirror'' (1971, Naylor Co., )
* ''Norm Hitzges Historical Sports Almanac'' (May 1991, Taylor Publishing, )
* ''Essential Baseball: A Revolutionary New Method for Evaluating Major League Teams, Players, and Managers'' (with Dave Lawson, December 1994,
Dutton Penguin, Dutton, )
* ''Greatest Team Ever: The Dallas Cowboys Dynasty of The 1990s'' (August 2007,
Thomas Nelson, )
References
External links
Norm's ClubhouseNorm Hitzges' entry on The Ticket website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hitzges, Norm
Living people
1944 births
American sports announcers
Major League Baseball broadcasters
Radio personalities from Dallas
Sportswriters from New York (state)
Sportswriters from Texas
Texas Rangers (baseball) announcers
Dallas Cowboys announcers
People from Little Elm, Texas
Major Indoor Soccer League (1978–1992) commentators