Everybody who follows Viking sports knows Tom Hewitt.  That is, they know his voice.   
        
For the last 13 years, the 56-year-old former Marshall High School social studies teacher (he chose to retire when the school was closed this spring, and has just begun teaching Introduction to Broadcast Communications at PSU) has carried the message of big Viking wins and gut-wrenching defeats to tens of thousands of fans for 142 straight football games and around 325 men's basketball games.
      
Over that time, the George Fox University Basketball Hall-of-Famer has learned a lot about human nature and endured some amusing glitches (Hewitt was a point guard at GFU, averaged 19 wins during a four-year career, held the school record in assists and scored 36 points one game. Incidentally, he earned a Master's Degree in Education from PSU) .
     
Like, the time at Montana State when he broadcast a basketball game over a telephone and had to physically hold the wall connection to the phone the entire game to maintain the link to the radio station.
     
Or the time that, at the same school for a football game, he dialed the number he'd been given to reach the broadcast station and “some girl in a dorm on campus answered. No, we didn't want a date; we just wanted to broadcast a football game.”
     
Then, another time the station connection failed at the end of a major gridiron win for the Vikings. “It was in the early days of cell phones. I managed to get my cell phone integrated into the system.  When I went to interview Tim (Walsh) after the game, he looked at me as if I'd gone nuts.  I said 'just bear with me' and handed him my cell phone,” Hewitt recalled.
      
He started learning the human end of broadcasting early, while assisting a well-known sportscaster who was known for criticizing coaches' decisions on the air. Hewitt was providing sideline color at the down-valley Pac-10 school. He filled in at play-by-play one game where “I learned early that you don't criticize coaches' decisions. As a newbie, I didn't think it was my place to criticize anything. After the game, I got comments from some of the coaches' wives saying how much they'd enjoyed my broadcast.”
     
And, he has learned, you never tell tales out of school, even dressed up to protect the not-so-innocent.
     
“We were playing at Montana and Dennis Erickson (then coaching the Seattle Seahawks and with a free weekend) came to watch his son (a walk-on with the Grizzlies).  Tim Walsh and Dennis had been friends for a long time. Anyway, they went out for a rather long evening which involved a number of adult beverages.
       
“During the game, I mentioned Tim and Dennis had spent the evening before discussing coaching strategy and working on X's and O's. The next day, Tim said: 'Don't ever mention anything like that again'.  After the game, he got a call from his wife saying 'what have you been up to?  I know when you and Dennis get together something bad is going to happen.'"
        
Like many broadcasters, Hewitt has become a passionate fan of his teams. Sports information director Mike Lund lauds him for that, but Hewitt said it can also create problems.
       
“Tom has come to really care for PSU. He keeps that passion. Often broadcasters don't have the same passion…oh, they do a professional job, but they don't really have the same personal commitment to the team…every game,” said Lund.
        
As a broadcaster and fan, said Hewitt, “you've got to control your emotions. When you don't, you get in trouble. If my team loses, I get upset.  As a broadcaster, I have things I have to do to finish out the broadcast. By the time I'm finished, I've cooled down a bit. That helps,” he said.  “You need to be emotionally involved, but not emotional, if you know what I mean.”
    
And, if you go too far personalizing your comments about a coach or official, there's always someone who will point it out.
     
During Tyler Geving's first year as head basketball coach, Hewitt (who also has refereed) thought he was adding to the broadcast when he ventured that a couple of technical fouls picked up by Geving “were (the referee) letting the rookie coach he know that he wasn't going to put up with that.”
    
The next day, he heard from the Big Sky Conference office about the remark “although my fellow broadcasters weren't really sure why.”
    
Another thing, he said…he tries never to get down on individual players.
    
“They are just college kids. After all, they put in a lot of time and they really want to win. You never personalize their mistakes. Although, if a quarterback is having a really bad day, you might say something about him not making good decisions this game,” said Hewitt.
     
Asked what he saw as Hewitt's biggest strength, Lund immediately cited “his preparation. He's been a teacher and he knows how to prepare. No one is better prepared. If you listen closely, you can tell how much preparation time a sportscaster has put in. No one does more preparation…and he knows the sports, especially basketball. He knows the sports and he knows the people.”
     
And knowing the people, said Hewitt, is one of a sportscaster's biggest challenges, especially in football.
   
“You've got probably 35 players on each team who are active in the game. Realistically, you probably don't need to know most of the linemen, but you need to recognize all the skill players and the defensive backs…and the special team players. You need to know the holder in case he makes a mistake, and who the kicker is.”
     
The challenge in basketball is different with the need to know only a few players.
     
“On the road, the challenge with basketball is that you're your own statistician and you have to do your own color. It's a very intense time…up to three hours…when you're locked and loaded. You don't even have time to get to a bathroom,” Hewitt said.
      
Calling a basketball game “requires total concentration from the time the game starts until it's finished. If there's a break, you're checking stats, or Mike is texting me updates. People don't realize what a rush it is to broadcast a game,” he said. At the same time, “they also don't realize what a huge emotional letdown it is when you're done.”
       
Football is different. Lund provides color commentary to fill out Hewitt's play by play. 
     
“When Mike is talking, he may be responding to something I said, but I may not even be listening. I'm looking something up or doing something else,” said Hewitt.
      
For all the challenges, Hewitt loves being a play-by-play announcer. It's something he's wanted since he was little, “when I was always talking into a microphone or into a tape recorder every chance I got.” 
      
And, when he decided to pursue it for real, his first step was to attend a sports broadcasting camp in 1990. In those days, he was coaching basketball at Marshall with games on Tuesday and Friday and broadcasting George Fox games on television (the school had a TV major) on Saturday.
       
As an aside, he said, most broadcasters prefer radio because “with TV you're talking a lot less. You rely on your color guy to be your expert and on the picture to tell the story. Broadcasters love radio, but many end up in television because the money is better.”
      
The Vikings have bounced around among Portland radio stations over the years, he acknowledged, because sports take a big chunk of airtime and often aren't particularly lucrative for the station.
    
“The list of schools without radio contracts would surprise you…Pepperdine, Loyola Marymount, for example. They aren't on the air because of the expense,” he said. He's pleased with the school's current relationship with Alpha Communications, Freedom 970 AM, because it has a relatively strong signal.
     
The biggest difference he's seen in PSU teams over his tenure has been the increased depth and he has high hopes for Viking basketball and football this coming year.
    
“I think that Tyler has really found some very good players and that Nigel Burton has got the football program going in the right direction. I'm really high on the coaching staff he's assembled,” said Hewitt.
      
He's describes himself as “an eternal optimist.  At this time of year, we're 0-0, and I'm always optimistic that we're going to have a great year.”