Forty-eight consecutive years. That’s how long Texas Radio Hall of Famer, Norm Hitzges, has done sports talk in Dallas. He’s accumulated quite the following over nearly half a century. But refreshingly, Hitzges sounds like a guy who’s had a career that’s lasted 48 days. He’s humble, appreciative and thankful for the people he’s connected with and for his lengthy run on the air.
It’s fitting that after 23 years at legendary Dallas-Fort Worth station The Ticket, Hitzges will retire on June 23. Think about that; outside of his 23 years at The Ticket, Hitzges still has another 25 years of on-air experience in the metroplex. It’s been an amazing ride.
Hitzges has covered a lot of ground in his broadcasting career. Now he wants to cover even more territory traveling the world. We also chat about expecting the unexpected during an emotional final week at the station, how the possibility of unretiring doesn’t exist, and what his mom and dad might’ve said about his outstanding career. Enjoy!
Brian Noe: What do you think you’re going to miss most about not being on the air every day?
Norm Hitzges: I’m going to miss the daily rush of preparing for a show. It’s wonderful to work. I love this work. I’m going to miss this work so. I’m going to miss my show mates and my radio station mates, but I’m going to miss the rush of being on the air every day. And without trying to sound too highfalutin, trying to create something.
BN: Do you think it’s a little bit like an athlete? I think of a guy like Tom Brady who’s been at it for so long. A lot of athletes talk about trying to replace that rush of competing. Do you feel like you can relate to that, as you’re moving away from something that has given you a rush for so long?
NH: Oh, yeah. Years ago, I read the poem To An Athlete Dying Young. And that athletes are amongst the few people on Earth that have to die twice. Once, when they can’t be who they’ve always been, and then once with the rest of us. This has been a phenomenal run. I have loved this city and love these people. I don’t know if anybody’s ever had 48 continuous years on the air doing sports talk in one major city. I am so blessed. I’m just so blessed to have had a voice in this wonderful city for all these years. I’m going to miss it like Tom Brady is going to miss playing quarterback. You miss that rush.
BN: Why does it feel like now is the right time for you to step away?
NH: At nearly 79 years old, I still have my health. I have a wife that loves to travel, which is a passion of mine. And she’s good at it. When we travel, my wife’s bag isn’t very big, Brian. [Laughs] We go. It’s not that I was being kept from traveling at all by this job, but now we’ll be able to do things almost on the spur of the moment. If something happens where airline ticket prices suddenly drop on a certain route or things like that. There’ll also be time to just relax and say we got nothing to do this week. And by the way in September, I am going to start a podcast. And it’s going to be five days a week called Just Wondering.
BN: What are you going to cover on that podcast?
NH: Well, mostly sports, but lots of other stuff. American life, big questions, little questions, things you wonder about in life.
BN: What are your biggest passions outside of watching and covering sports?
NH: Well, I have the great fortune to have married a woman and married into a family with two spectacular boys. Besides that family, I think my biggest passion in life is travel. We were trying to figure out just a few minutes ago how many countries we’ve been to. Mary, she’s a professional photographer, so she brings back real memories of these trips. I think it’s probably near 30 countries we’ve been to. That’s something we’re going to do. Podcast, hang out with friends. I now am free to have breakfast with anybody during the week. [Laughs]
BN: It’s quite the change. What countries have you pinpointed that you’d like to see?
NH: We’ve already traveled a lot. A lot. But there are some places. Let’s rattle off a very short list.Spain. Portugal.I want to see if I can get up the mountain in Rwanda to go to the silverback gorillas.I’d like to go to the jungles of Borneo before the jungles of Borneo don’t exist anymore, if you know what I mean.
There’s a little country on the west coast of Africa called Gabon.Back more than a decade ago, they decided they’d turn, I don’t know, a fifth or sixth of their country into national parks. They’ve got no oil, they’ve got no uranium, they’ve got no diamonds. What they’ve got is Gabon. It’s beautiful. The people who run Gabon have tried to convincetheir citizens, don’t cut down trees in the jungle. Learn to cook, learn to drive, learn to translate, learn to guide. Learn all those things that a tourist industry has.I’ve wanted to go to Gabon now for several years and we are going to make that happen.
BN: How do you feel right now, just with having announced the upcoming retirement? What’s your sense after delivering that message?
NH: There was some apprehension before. There was some excitement before it. To be frank, there was some grief before it and still is to some degree. I mean, men in life look for an identity. I’ve been blessed to have a certain amount of identity from this job. And now I’m not going to have that identity anymore. But you know what? The station has been great to me. They’re being great to me.
I don’t know if you know the ratings from this city, but the Ticket dominates the city. Not just the other sports stations; number one in the city. Very few sports stations ever get to be number one in the city and stay there for a length of time. These guys have become incredibly good friends. I’m gonna miss them. I’m gonna miss competing. But to answer your question, I’ve come to be at peace with it. I’m content. The apprehension is not gone; it’s now sort of morphed into a celebration.
BN: What has changed about the Ticket from your first day there until now?
NH: Well, I would say I like it. Because I didn’t like it when I was transferred down there. [Laughs]
BN: [Laughs]
NH: It’s the same company. But I was doing sports talk on another station, and the station decided to do talk radio without sports. Don’t get me into discussing that decision. But I didn’t want to go. I wasn’t a particular fan of this station. But I didn’t understand the station. I didn’t understand how hard these people worked to create things. I was pretty much a straight arrow sports talk show host, and the Ticket made me a far better host over the years. Far better.
BN: What would you say are the ingredients of the Ticket that lead to it being so dominant in that area?
NH: I’d say there’s a kind of segment-to-segment unpredictability. You’re going to get real insight, real wackiness, real analysis, real life. We share our lives with our audience. We share some of the high points and the low points and some of the screw-up points, but we return to the base of being a sports talk station. That doesn’t change. If there is something pressing to talk about in the sports world, we just stay with it, man. But if there’s not, we may wander off into other things. Thought pieces. Funny stuff. Personal stuff. I think it’s the station’s ability to offer an incredible menu of things every day is what has attracted even just semi sports fans to tune into the station.
BN: What has been one of the most personal stories that you’ve shared with your audience at the Ticket?
NH: Oh, my God. My surgery to remove a tumor from my spine. My friend at the station, Grubes, called me when I was in recovery and taped an interview.
BN: Oh, man.
NH: [Laughs] I had no idea what I was saying. And the interview is proof of it. You think, who the hell calls somebody in the recovery room after intense surgery? Well, Grubes did. The Ticket does. [Laughs] If it had been bad, they wouldn’t have aired it. But it was just wacky. It sounded like I was on helium or something.
BN: That’s great. What would you say is your proudest accomplishment throughout your career?
NH: Twenty-two years ago at the suggestion of my producer, Mark Friedman, we started doing something called the Norm-athon for charity. Mark’s bright idea [laughs], was for me to do 24 hours of broadcasting. And I said what? There was a charity here, Austin Street Center for the homeless. They do spectacular work. That would become our charity. So, we do this for three, four years and we’re astounded.
The first year we made $48,000. The shelter was just, what are you kidding me? Somebody just put $48,000 into our revenue stream? Then we started raffling off a car. Ooo boy, that jumped it up some. Then we started raffling off two. And now every Norm-athon, we do three and we’re up to $9 million now in pure cash.
They just built a brand new 59,000 square foot building all one level. They will handle 500 or more people a night. They job train them. They counsel them. They have programs if they need that. But the most important thing is — I think we’re going to get to the heart of your question — this place understands the dignity of the human being. And it’s hard to imagine dignity in homeless people; you think that’s totally been squeezed out of them, that there’s no dignity left with sleeping on a heating grate when it’s cold outside. But they give it back to them.
This place does spectacular work and I think that’s what I’m proudest of, what we’ve become. Even now that I’m gone, I’m going to come back and do the Norm-athon for the station. I’m going to come back and do the NFL Draft. We were the first station to do the NFL Draft wall-to-wall in 1986. We did every pick, 12 rounds. Oh my God, Brian, 12-round NFL Draft. We still do it wall-to-wall. This past draft, I announced the 10,000th pick of our doing the draft. It was the No. 173 pick and it was somebody named Beal from Georgia.
BN: [Laughs] Man, I just think of Mr. Irrelevant each year and that’s only like pick No. 260 or something. You’re on pick No. 10,000.
NH: [Laughs] Yeah, I’m not sure I knew all those people, I’ll tell you that, pal.
BN: Do you have any regrets now that you’re walking away from everyday radio?
NH: Regrets? I don’t think so. I have wishes. I wish my mom or dad could have seen this run, but they’ve long passed away more than 20 years now.
I think the small things, we all have regrets. There’s always regret built into some things you do. But, you know, I think my answer is no. I think this has been a really good run. A happy run. I’m happy it’s ending with a kind of celebration at our station.
BN: What do you think your mom and dad, if they were here today, would tell you about the run you’ve had?
NH: My mom worked six days a week standing on her feet in a laundry eight hours a day. My dad worked six nights a week standing on his feet bartending till one in the morning. My dad never made more than $250 a week in his life. I think they’d be astounded that their little boy, who all they probably ever hoped for him would be to come back and be the assistant parts manager at Weimer Chevrolet. [Laughs] I don’t think they could have ever imagined this. I just don’t think they could.
They were such fine folks. Now, my mom didn’t know how the world worked, Brian. She never learned to drive a car. She never knew who the vice president of the United States was. She never voted. She just didn’t know how it worked. But I think she’d be wide-eyed.
BN: If we go back to Tom Brady, there are so many people asking him, are you coming back? Are you going to come out of retirement? Do you think you will face similar questions?
NH: Well, it’ll be easy to answer them. No. [Laughs] In fact, as soon as they announced this, the rumors started that I was going to come back at another station in Dallas. No. Brian, you can put that down in capital letters. NO. I mean, I’ll do some projects for the Ticket and fill in at times on the Ticket. But no. I want to have this time to spend with Mary, to spend traveling. I can’t tell you that I won’t miss this fiercely ‘cause I will. But I’m not coming back for it. If I were ever coming back for it, I would have never left.
BN: What do you think that last show is going to be like for you?
NH: Unbelievably emotional. I know it’s going to be emotional for Donnie, my partner, and Sean, my producer. DJ who does the tickers, and Tyler who’s our technical director. You form such a bond when you’re on a show like that. It’s hard for the bond to stop happening. There’s going to be a lot of emotion that last day. We’re saving it for just what we want to do. And that can be anything.
BN: Are you going to try to make it more of a celebration, something happier?
NH: Oh, God, yes. The celebration’s already started. Guys on the show, other shows have had me on and we were just at Summer Bash. A good portion of the conversation was about me. [Laughs] It’s going to be a fantastic final week. I know it. I know my friends on the other shows, and I know somewhat how they’re going to react. Now, might I get pranked a time or two? Oh, yeah. It wouldn’t be the Ticket if I didn’t get pranked a time or two.
BN: [Laughs] Oh, man, yeah. Probably some that you can see from 100 miles away. And there are others that you will never know about until it’s time.
NH: These people are brilliant at hoarding audio. I can’t imagine some of the horror moments they’re going to bring back.
BN: That’s great. Well, hey, man, I hope you have a fantastic final week and really enjoy it. And then life beyond the daily radio show, I hope that’s amazing for you too, Norm.
NH: Thanks, Brian. Thank you. That’s really nice of you. Really nice of you. I’ve been really blessed.
Brian Noe is a columnist for BSM and an on-air host heard nationwide on FOX Sports Radio’s Countdown To Kickoff. Previous roles include stops in Portland, OR, Albany, NY and Fresno, CA. You can follow him on Twitter @TheNoeShow or email him at bnoe@premierenetworks.com.
