But in his 34 years as the Voice of
the Aggies, the 63-year-old Nixon has certainly made a significant impact. On
Saturday, Nixon will be one of three individuals inducted into the U.S. Bank
New Mexico State University Hall of Fame during the Aggies' home game against Utah Valley
University
Nixon's career has spanned 34 years
and includes stops in Tulsa , Denver
and Poplar Bluff ,
Mo. But it's his work as the Aggies announcer that has included over 1,000 NMSU
men's basketball games and over 400 NMSU football games that Aggies fans have
come to look forward to.
"I'm really excited for him,
he's such a great guy and a humble soul and those are the people who you want
to be rewarded," said NMSU men's basketball coach Marvin Menzies. "In
our seven-year journey so far, he's one of us. We feel like we all got
something when he got it."
The Sun-News sat down with Nixon to
discuss his time in broadcasting and his career as a broadcaster:
What makes a good play-by-play
announcer in your opinion?
Nixon: Having a good education,
being able to draw on a wide range of knowledge. Knowing sports is important
too, but to be able to describe something, you have to have a good vocabulary.
To make it real to people, you have to relate it to things that they understand
in life. I think there are different levels to broadcasting. Some people will
get some stuff, others will get other stuff. You also have to be able to think
quickly. ... I have worked with some people who understood sports and the game
better than I did but they couldn't express it in the timeframe.
At what point did you realize it
was what you wanted to do?
Nixon: I remember I was really
nervous. The first time I realized I wanted to was when I started working at
the campus radio station. I went to Bradley
University Kansas University
How did you identify your
play-by-play style? Did other people influence you?
Nixon: I have to be honest, I stole
my sign off from Jack Buck, who was the announcer for the Saint Louis
Cardinals. ... There was a guy in Omaha
named Joe Patrick. He was good but he also had a sense of humor about him. He
took it seriously but he let you laugh about it. He also hosted the wrestling
show. When I was 10 years old, that seemed like the ultimate. ... Chick Hearn
as far as technically, to me he was the best that will ever be. I admired
Howard Cosell's journalistic integrity. ... I got to meet him once. ... I
always thought it was very important to not be head over heels homer guy. I
don't think it hurts that people know that I'm on the Aggies side so to speak.
I'm happy when the Aggies win and I don't mind if people hear that in my voice.
You replaced Tom Dillon at NMSU.
What were your thoughts on him?
Nixon: We became friends. He was
the guy that I had to be better then in my mind. He was a great broadcaster,
but in my mind, I had to be as good if not better. You want people to like you.
That's what broadcasting is. I wanted to establish myself in this career. I
didn't want people to say, 'This is the guy that replaced Dillon.' I wanted
them to say, 'This is the guy we like.'"
Why did you leave NMSU (in
1982-86)? What was the USFL like? Did you think you would return to Las Cruces ?
Nixon: To answer the last part, no.
There were some places I have been where I wouldn't want to go back and this
wasn't one of them, but I felt like my career was going skyward. I think that's
what everyone thinks. They had lost the rights to the (NMSU) games and I was
facing a year when I wasn't going to be doing it here. I had some other things
in my life that were really kind of bad. I was hanging around with some crummy
people and was doing stuff that was not good. It was time to get out of here. I
got a job with a news talk station in Tulsa and
was going to do Tulsa
games. I got there and found out I wasn't going to necessarily do Tulsa games. ... Tulsa was a bigger market
and I kind of got the rug jerked out from under me. It wasn't as bad as I
thought initially, but after nine months, they changed the format and everyone
got fired. I moved back (to Las Cruces )
and lived out in Vado. I felt really low as a person. Your ego is so tied into
broadcasting and then I had to see people back here. I had to eat crow and deal
with it. ... I moved back (to Tulsa )
in October and went to work for the USFL. The thing in Tulsa was fun. It was new and Sid Gillman was
our general manager. Doug Williams was our quarterback. Your job was to work
for a pro football team. It was really exciting and then the team moved out of
town and I was out of work again. ... A guy I had met through the league who
worked with the Houston franchise said Denver had changed
owners. They needed a guy to sell tickets. It was a job. I moved there to sell
tickets and kind of hang on. I was depressed frankly. It wasn't as if I was on
the verge of the network (in Las
Cruces ) but I had a thing going. ... I was their best
salesman, but they took me out of that and I did the team's program and did all
of their travel. It was an interesting job. ... The league goes out of business
in 1985 and I went back to Tulsa .
... A guy named Mike Ryan, who was a
former (NMSU) SID, had moved (to Las
Cruces ) and was at NMSU administration (Herb Taylor's
predecessor). ... It was KASK at the time. It was 103.1, which is now HOT.
That's how I came back. That was in July 1986.
Now that you have had a Hall of Fame career here, do you see yourself retiring at NMSU?
Nixon: I don't know. People ask
that all the time. I don't want to retire until I have to and I will know that
I have to at the point where I can't do this at the level that I think is good
enough. I would hate for people to say it used to be fun to listen to him. ...
Lets say that I have a chance to go do this in Omaha where my family is. I would have to
seriously consider it. Obviously at this age, if the KU job or the USC job
probably won't look for a guy my age, but if they called and said we are going
to pay you $200,000 a year for two years as the voice of the Jayhawks, it would
be hard to say no. But I would leave here reluctantly if I ever had to.
How would say local radio landscape
has changed?
Nixon: When I came here it was KOBE and Walt Rubens owned
the station and we had a director and I
was one of the three reporters. There was a heavy news emphasis at the station.
Walt was on the AP Board. Walt wanted to always get the story before the
Sun-News. We had to have it first and accurate. ... Most of the programming now
comes from satellite. Then the technology. You would have to play records and
they had these cartriges that had commercials on them. It was inefficient but
it was what you had then. It has really helped a lot. ... Every job I have had
in broadcasting has involved news, either as a news director or a reporter. I enjoyed
that. ... I think that true journalism, you are cynical about stuff but there
is also an innocence in your view of it. Hopefully what you are reporting has a
clarity that stands on its own. I'm very cynical, but to be a good journalist
there are clear cut ideals. The Sun-News played a prank on me and I bit on it
and was embarassed by it. ... That did happen and it was a mistake but I have
made a lot of mistakes. Everyone does.
Where haven't you been that you would like to call a
football or basketball game from?
Nixon: A Bowl game. An actual Bowl
game. I don't know that there is any really. I've done a game at Nebraska . A game at Kansas . In the Rose
Bowl. There really isn't one as far as a facility.
Can you tell me one or two of the
best NMSU football teams you have seen here?
Nixon: The ones where they had Mick
Rodemeyer on the line. I think the best quarterback I saw was Buck Pierce. The
best running back was Denvis Manns. Denvis was one of Jim Hess's players. Cody
Ledbetter's last year, they were really exciting and had a good offense. When I
started, Jim Bradley was the coach and they could never get over the hump. Gil
Krueger won with his players basically. Probably Tony Samuels' teams. The one
that went 7-5 (in 2002).
What would be your starting five
basketball team and a coach if you like in your tenure at NMSU?
Nixon: Randy Brown, Steve Colter.
There have been so many. Wendell McKines, Slab Jones and Billy Keys. That's not
a true center, forward guard. A coach would be very hard. Even though Neil
(McCarthy), even though his reputation was tarnished, he was a good coach. He
was a guy who didn't respect you unless you stood up to him. And then you were
his guy. He did a lot of nice things for me. When my sister was terminal as it
turns out, I didn't know how to handle it and I called Neil and he gave me some
really good advice. It was more common sense but it was something I was really
caught up in the emotion. He was a good friend, to me. Coach Henson knows so much about basketball and he was a
super guy. I liked Reggie a lot. He was crazy but he was fun to be around.
Marvin is probably the one I'm closes to. If I had to choose one, I don't know.
I liked all of these guys. I couldn't choose one.
What does it mean to you to be
recognized by the University as a Hall of Famer?
Nixon: It, on one hand validates my
efforts. At the same time, I have a feeling inside. This speaks more to who I
am but I don't know that I deserve this. It's more about me as an insecure
person. I've worked hard and people compliment me on my work, which I
appreciate and I accept. There is something that has to do with me that I
wonder if this is right. That is more the insecurities that I have. It's one of
those things you don't set out to do. ... I was extremely ambitious when I was
22 years old. I did pro football and college sports, which is a lot more than
most guys get. For the people to say you have earned this status is
tremendously humblling. It truly is hard to express. To say that, Lou Henson,
Steve Colter, Denvis Manns, Charley Johnson. You are in the company with them.
It makes you think hard about what you have done and it's tremendously
flattering.
Presley Askew (1957-59)
Robert Banegas (1962-65)
Greg Berry (Assistant coach 1975-85)
Raymond Brito (1967-68)
Dave Brunson (1979-80)
Scott Caton (1966-67, 1972-75)
Steven Colter (1980-84)
Cyrus Cormier (1975-79)
Albert Slab Jones (1976-80)
Notie Pate (1975-79)
Bob Porter (1947-51)
Gil Williams (1981-83)
Gerald Drake (1959-63)
Stewart Meerscheidt (1947-49)
Jeff Williams (1984-89)
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