Tom Dillon, who for 20 seasons was the voice of Arizona State sports, and also was the voice of the Arizona Cardinals for 12 seasons, died after collapsing at his home early Tuesday. He was 65.

Growing up an Arizona State fan in the Valley, I listened to Dillon broadcast many games that weren’t on television. His enthusiastic voice, along with his ability to paint a mental picture, made him a favorite of mine. He was also one of the reasons I was drawn to sports broadcasting at an early age, and why I pursued it as a career.

In 2000, I got to work every day with Tom Dillon. Tom did the morning sports updates two sports talk show I co-hosted– “Bare Naked Sports” with Chuck Powell and “The First Team” with Bruce Jacobs on KGME-AM. I do have to say it was very cool having someone I idolized as a child working with me on a daily basis.

At that time, I was also the play-by-play voice for Arizona State women’s basketball. Tom, an avid pilot, also kept a close eye on what was happening in ASU sports. I remember a few days before the women’s team was taking a trip to Oregon to play Oregon and Oregon State, Tom approached me with a proposal. He offered to fly me to Eugene, and sit in on the broadcast and serve as my color commentator. I don’t like small planes and I thought he was half-kidding, so I politely turned down the offer. I’m sorry I didn’t take him up on it, for a lot of reasons.

Monday, at Dennis Erickson’s weekly press conference for Arizona State football, I grabbed the ASU media release and got excited that Tom would be doing play-by-play for the Sun Devils-Wildcats game on Saturday for USA Radio. I thought how great it would be to hear Tom calling an ASU-U of A game again, when my earliest memory of him was his call of Arizona’s 28-18 win over ASU, which knocked the Sun Devils out of the Rose Bowl. Sadly, none of us will get to hear that call.

Rest in peace Tom. You’ll be missed by many.

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