Oklahoma State University Athletics
The Voice of the Cowboys: Dave Hunziker
July 21, 2010 | General
July 21, 2010
Dave Hunziker arrived at Oklahoma State in 2001 in the most adverse of conditions. The university was struck by tragedy on January 27, 2001, when a plane carrying ten people associated with the men's basketball team crashed in rural Colorado after a game against the Buffaloes.
All ten men lost their lives that night, one of whom was the Cowboys' radio sportscaster Bill Teegins. Hunziker came to Stillwater to replace Teegins as the Cowboys' radio sportscaster; a job that was not easy for him.
"It was difficult and certainly a hard time to come in, but it was a lot more difficult for the people directly affected," Hunziker said. "For those 18 months afterwards, there was a lot of suffering still going on, and that was hard to watch." OSU and the Stillwater community are known to be friendly places, as Hunziker can attest. He said he is forever thankful to the Cowboy faithful for welcoming him and his family with open arms.
"The way I looked at it was just to go and do my job to the best of my ability," Hunziker said. "The people [of Stillwater] were unbelievably kind to me and nice to me."
The Cowboys fans took an immediate liking to him and they continue to enjoy his broadcasts to this day. Hunziker's first call for the Cowboys came during the 2001 football season.
In the second game of the season against Louisiana Tech, Hunziker blurted out "Pistols Firing" after the Cowboys scored a touchdown, and that phrase has been his signature call ever since.
"I just threw it out there for fun," Hunziker said. "I did it to see what would happen. I threw it out there and people liked it so I kept saying it."
Hunziker developed a love for radio broadcasting at an early age. As a kid growing up in Missouri, he and his father would listen to Jack Buck broadcast the St. Louis Cardinals games. After his father passed away, he continued to listen to the radio and aspired to be there himself one day.
He attended the University of Missouri and earned a degree from the university's prestigious School of Journalism in 1988. During his time between semesters, Hunziker worked as a broadcaster at a radio station in Memphis, Mo.
After he graduated, he worked for three years at a radio station in Columbia, Mo. doing pre- and post-game reports for the University of Missouri football and basketball teams. He also did reports on local high school sports. He then spent a year at Columbia College doing anything from media relations and broadcasting to fundraising.
Hunziker then moved to Radford, Va. to head up the radio and television networks at Radford University. He spent eight years there before moving to Bowling Green, Ky. to do the same job at Western Kentucky for one year.
He moved to Stillwater after that and has been calling the Cowboys' football and men's basketball games ever since. Going into his 10th season in Stillwater, `The Voice of the Cowboys' has been around for some of the most exciting times in those two sports.
Hunziker said it has been a great experience for him watching the growth of the Cowboys football program. One of his favorite games with the Cowboys came in 2008 when the team traveled to Columbia to take on the Missouri Tigers during prime time. Although the Cowboys beat his alma mater 28-23, he was excited to see the Cowboys take home a victory.
But his favorite football game of all time came early in his days at OSU. He said his favorite game he called came in 2002 when the Cowboys beat the Oklahoma Sooners for the second consecutive year, 38-28, after beating the Sooners 16-13 in Norman the previous year.
"I enjoyed the OU game here in '02 as much as any," Hunziker said. "16-13 was fun. Somebody might have just thought that was a fluke.
"To finish here the way they did and to just beat Oklahoma soundly, that's probably as favorite as any."
Hunziker took over the radio broadcasting duties for men's basketball for the 2001-02 season, the first season after the plane crash. He said calling the first few games was tough, but he quickly began to admire the squad coached by Eddie Sutton and found it easier to call the games.
He named quite a few basketball games that he enjoyed being a part of, but his favorite is the 64-62 victory against St. Joseph's in the Elite Eight -- a victory that got the Cowboys into the Final Four in 2004.
"The run to the Final Four, St. Joseph's, would probably be No. 1," Hunziker said. "In the Elite Eight, John Lucas hitting that shot was a great win."
Other games that he enjoyed were the 88-67 victory against Iowa State in Ames and the 80-60 victory against Kansas, which helped propel the Cowboys to an NCAA Tournament bid in 2004. He also enjoyed the 105-103 triple overtime victory against Texas in 2007.
The Cowboys' 85-77 victory this past season at home against top-ranked Kansas is another one of his favorites.
"You can't put a trip to the Final Four anywhere but No. 1 on the list, but the win this year against Kansas was awesome," Hunziker said. "To take the No. 1 team in the country and just destroy them, it doesn't get much more fun than that."
Hunziker's duties only include calling the football and men's basketball games, but he is a regular attendee at the women's basketball games when he brings his daughters along. He is also a huge fan of golf, and he has grown fond of the golf teams at OSU.
"One of the hidden benefits of this job has been getting to know the people involved with the men's golf program and the women's golf program," Hunziker said. One of Hunziker's closest friends is his college buddy from Missouri, ESPN personality John Anderson. Hunziker could have gone into television if he had wanted, but he decided to stick with radio because it allowed him to be more involved with the games themselves.
The radio business landed Hunziker in Stillwater, and his upbeat personality and his work around the community were exactly what Cowboy fans needed to help them get through the tough times after the crash.
Hunziker has become a staple among the Stillwater community, appearing in commercials for the local Janzen car dealership and doing weekly radio shows with coaches Mike Gundy and Travis Ford, proving that the Cowboys fans have accepted Hunziker as one of their own.
