Dan Hicks illness became public on Nov. 12, when Hannah Storm said he died suddenly at 64 from an acute illness. The loss landed fast for NBC Sports viewers who knew him from Olympic swimming, Olympic skiing, Notre Dame football and the PGA Tour.
Storm said Hicks was “a devoted husband of over 30 years, loving father to our three daughters, and cherished friend to so many. His loss is immeasurable.” That single line put the scale of the loss in plain terms: a 34-year NBC Sports veteran was gone, and the network’s live-event voice for some of its biggest properties was suddenly absent.
Craig Melvin and Lindsay Czarniak
Craig Melvin said, “Lindsay and I just had dinner with him” and “He will be sorely missed.” He also said on TODAY Nov. 13, “My wife Lindsay and I have been lucky enough to call Dan and Hannah our good friends for a number of years” and “Saw him a few weeks ago at a charity event.”
Melvin and Lindsay Czarniak posted a joint tribute on Nov. 12 and shared a photo of the four of them together at the 2025 Rose Bowl in California. They called him “simply the best,” and wrote that he “ALWAYS seemed genuinely happy, excited to see you and easy to talk to — just like he was so easy for all of us to listen to and watch in the most high stakes sports moments as a broadcaster.”
Mike Tirico and Rowdy Gaines
Mike Tirico said, “I can’t think of a big moment that Dan didn’t have the right call, the right energy, the right words.” Rowdy Gaines said he called eight Games alongside Hicks, while Jimmy Roberts said, “I’m just sad that he’s not here to hear all these folks saying kind things about him because he deserves it.”
That reaction spread quickly across NBC and sports media because Hicks had worked 16 Olympics between the Summer and Winter Games, starting in 1992. The tribute trail matters for viewers as much as colleagues: the people who heard his calls for years are now left with a record of how central he was to those broadcasts.
Hicks family and sports media
Craig Melvin also said, “We are also sending our love to the Hicks chicks. That’s what Dan called his wife and girls — Hannah, Ellery and Riley.” His words make the immediate next step simple for readers who knew Hicks through the broadcast booth: the story now sits with his family, his colleagues and the body of work that defined 34 years at NBC Sports.
Hannah Storm’s statement leaves the unresolved point where it belongs: the acute illness was named, but the specific cause was not. For a broadcaster whose voice carried major events for decades, that is the last unanswered detail hanging over an otherwise complete tribute cycle.
