He has a clear, strong voice that flows from the radio. When he announces, "Touchdown Sun Devils," his voice booms. Listeners don't only hear the game - they see it.
He isn't just Tim Healey, "Voice of the Sun Devils," he is the team's biggest fan.
"I get to be the eyes and ears of the listeners," says Healey, 52, during a recent interview at a local restaurant.
His bespectacled bright blue eyes are wide as an excited child's as he pauses before adding, "I find the challenge exhilarating and on game days there isn't a person in the world that I'd rather be than me."
Brett Wallerstedt, general manager of the Sun Devil Sports Network says Healy "pours his heart into his work and takes pride in his preparation."
His passion is the result of being a "life long sports fan," which he began at an early age through trips to the ballpark with his father.
"We bonded following the Redskins and professional football," Healey says. "He passed away three years ago and there is a space that will never be filled," he says.
Healey realized in eighth grade what he wanted to do with his life. "I was just staring out the window in class one day and I just knew right away that I wanted to be a sports-broadcaster," he says.
Healey carried those aspirations with him to Penn State, where he worked at the student radio station while pursuing a degree in speech. He graduated in 1973 and got his first job doing what he calls, "a little bit of everything" in Salisbury, MD., scraping by on $150 a week but taking with him three years of valuable experience doing news, sports, and weather broadcasting.
After submitting a tape, Healey was hired in 1976 as a news anchor at a CBS affiliate in Scranton, Penn. Even though the job was a step up for Healey, his desire to be a sportscaster kept his eyes always on the door.
The door finally opened for him in May 1979.
"An acquaintance told me about a sports anchor position in Dallas, so I sent a tape," Healey says.
"Unfortunately, they gave the job to some male model and not me," he adds.
But Healey managed to wedge himself into that door. He landed the anchor job and spent four years broadcasting sports at KDFW in Dallas until one particularly "serendipitous event" occurred.
"I picked up the phone in Dallas one day and a headhunter was calling for my co-worker Brett Lewis," Healey says, "but he wasn't there."
"He then says, 'Well maybe you'll be interested then,' and told me about a job in Phoenix."
In 1983, Healey became Sports Director of Channel 10 in Phoenix, which was a top 25 Southwest Market with one pro sports team.
The job brought a good salary and allowed Healey, his wife, and two children to live comfortably in Arizona. It was the position and lifestyle for which the ambitious broadcaster had worked so hard, for so long.
But only three years later, just before Christmas, Healey was told that he would be replaced.
"It was the only time I have ever been fired," Healey says.
So in 1988, he brought his family back to Phoenix, where he worked for Channel 3. He stayed with the station, which broadcast ASU football, for 11 years. During his final year, he also worked at KTAR radio broadcasting for ASU.
"Tim is one of the most well-prepared sports broadcasters you will ever meet," says Steve Wygle, a co-worker from Channel 3. "He's legendary for the charts he prepares for games and he is knowledgeable in all facets of sports trivia."
So when Viacom Outdoor Sports Marketing gained the ASU sports casting rights, Healey gained his dream job as the play-by-play broadcaster for football, baseball, and men's basketball.
Today, Healey packs six years of radio under his belt along with 25 years of television.
"I don't miss TV one bit," Healey says, "or the superficiality and instability of the business. In a way, I feel bad that I spent one-fourth of my life doing something that I don't miss at all." But he still acknowledges that the jobs were necessary.
"I managed to stay employed, support my family and educate my kids for 30 years straight, in a business that has the potential to chew people up and spit them out," Healey says.
He has also become a well-known figure to ASU sports fans that recognize him by his signature game phrase, "Hubba hubba," which he exclaims after any worthy sports play.
He is a fan among the fans, who loves his work unconditionally. "The only time I'm frustrated in my job is when the Sun Devils aren't doing well," Healey says. "Aside from that, it's almost not even like a job at all."
He stops for a minute and smiles thoughtfully. "I just hope I can last at ASU for a very long time. And I hope that some day the fans can remember me as someone very important to them."
Reach the reporter at kathleen.mcdevitt@asu.edu.
