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Dave Bray captured the moment every time he called a major high school or college sports event. His excitement and attentiveness were equal parts infectious and insightful.
Even after transitioning from doing Fort Lewis College football and basketball broadcasts to Bayfield High School athletics broadcasts, that excitement remained.
Bray, now 72, embraced being there for some memorable highlights in the Southwest Colorado sports scene and getting to know the athletes, enduring long drives and harsh weather to see such moments unfold.
“More than just being a fan in the stands, I got close to the athletes … and their families, which was nice,” said Bray, a 2008 FLC Athletics Hall of Fame inductee.
After doing color commentary for Durango High School sports contests in 1980 and 1981, Bray was the voice of Skyhawks football and basketball from 1982 to 2009.
His tenure coincided with the tenures of former Skyhawks coaches like Gary Barnett and Mark Kellogg, who were first-time college coaches and later ascended to NCAA Division I.
Bray initially retired in November 2009 after years of traveling long distances and getting a couple hours of sleep before his shift as a front end manager at the Durango City Market the following morning. He worked at City Market from 1998 to 2015.
“That kind of wore on me a little bit,” he said. “I had to do a lot of adjusting with the store and my schedule just to get off … There were a lot of times where I didn’t get much sleep between driving and coming back.”
However, he still had more to give.
In January 2010, about six weeks after FLC’s football season ended, he followed then-Fort Lewis football coach Dave Preszler, who became Bayfield’s athletic director at the time, to BHS and became the voice of Wolverines football, basketball and baseball on KLJH radio in Farmington for more than eight years.
“(They) had a translator up here. I’d just go down to the radio station, I picked up the equipment and just took it up to Bayfield,” said Bray, who officially retired in 2018.
Bray said broadcasting Bayfield sports events allowed him to return to his roots of calling high school games.
“It was a big change when moved from college back to high school to do the broadcasting because then I could see the potential of these athletes,” he said.
Bray said some college scouts in the region would tune into the broadcasts when they were recruiting a certain player.
During the late 1980s while at Fort Lewis, Bray inquired about broadcasting women’s basketball games, something that wasn’t previously done with regularity at the time.
He said the athletic department was initially unsure whether it’d draw an audience.
“I pushed it. I really pushed it. I prided myself on trying to get girls basketball, women’s basketball on the broadcast. And all of a sudden, it just started exploding,” he said.
He said broadcasting the women’s games not only helped with attracting a growing audience, it also helped the team with recruiting connections in the region.
“I think the reach was there,” he said.
In the ensuing years, Bray noticed not only a shift in the level of interest in women’s basketball, but also “the caliber” of talent that came through FLC.
“I was real happy about that because they needed to keep growing,” he said.
Bray said he noticed larger schools did not have the same level of “cohesiveness with the community” the smaller programs like Durango, Bayfield and Pagosa Springs have.
“ (Smaller communities) really support their teams, and that’s what really excites me. They come out. They’re passionate about their kids,” he said.
Bray estimates he “touched the lives of maybe 10,000 athletes over the years” by highlighting their achievements and brightest moments on the field or court.
His final game before calling it a career was a BHS baseball game versus Faith Christian in spring 2018.
Aside from reaching an expanded audience over the years, the broadcasts proved to be helpful when it came to some concerned parents.
For example, Bray recalled when Amie Moulton played at FLC during the mid-2000s, she got injured during a game at Western State College (now called Western Colorado University).
“Her parents were listening to the broadcast. And there were, of course, home … They were scared to death that she really hurt herself bad,” he said, adding they were appreciative he described what he saw and did not go straight to a commercial break.
Bayfield boys basketball’s 2018 state title run was the last of six championship games between high school and college that Bray called in his broadcasting career.
He recalled the Wolverines outlasting Forge Christian in the semifinals before cruising to victory over Lutheran in the finals.
“I was kind of out of body, basically, because I knew these guys were going to do it … They had been together since they were in grade school,” he said.
Bray was just months removed from calling Bayfield’s 2017 state football championship game victory.
“The atmosphere of a state championship game is so different,” he said. “I went nuts every time we’d win a state championship. I’d go crazy … Those are memories.”
He also remembered an emotional, yet somewhat amusing, ending to Fort Lewis men’s basketball Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference tournament title run in 1989 during the Jim Cross era.
The Skyhawks edged Mesa State (now Colorado Mesa) 120-115 in the RMAC tournament finals, and Bray recalled coming “out of character” when Dan Gallagher came up with a critical steal and fast-break layup, screaming “Go Danny, go,” a quote embedded in FLC broadcasting lore.
Bray also recalled Cross being so drained that he had to stop for breathers in-between a few rows of seats while making his way up to the broadcast booth for a postgame interview.
A couple nights before calling Bayfield’s state football championship appearance at Platte Valley in 2015, he pivoted his foot and unknowingly broke his toe.
He still had to drive overnight to make the game, only to find there was no room in the broadcast booth. He had no choice but to call the game on the mezzanine outside the booth, out in the cold with some hot pads used by hunters.
“I put (the pads) in my gloves so that I could broadcast the game. It was so cold that game, I thought I had frostbite,” he said, adding the cold “probably” helped mask the pain in his toe.
He also said being able to broadcast that title game gave him much-needed adrenaline to get through the pain.
When broadcasting Bayfield’s regional baseball tournament game in 2018, he again found himself setting up outside the booth because there was no room. Sitting in rain and mud, he resumed business at usual, but then decided it was time to end his career.
He routinely signed off, but didn’t mention on air that he was done. He told his superiors, but didn’t tell the audience because he didn’t want the publicity.
Inclement weather didn’t stop Bray. A broken bone didn’t stop Bray. Although 2018 was his time to put away the equipment, calling games gave him joy and all the time in the world to reminisce.
mhollinshead@durangoherald.com
