Lubbock Sports Broadcaster Woody Van Dyke Passes Away

Woody Van Dyke, General Manager of 92.7 KJAK-FM and owner of the Sports Express Radio Network, passed away yesterday at the age of 74.

In the Lubbock sports community Van Dyke is best known as the person who organized and broadcast high school sports for decades on radio stations in and around Lubbock via the Sports Express Radio Network.

At one point in the late 1990s and the early 2000s the Sports Express Radio Network broadcast football, boys and girls basketball, baseball and softball for Lubbock High, Estacado, Monterey, Coronado, Frenship, New Deal, Lubbock Cooper, Idalou and Roosevelt high schools.

Both SportsRadio 1340 The Fan and News/Talk 790, KFYO have been a part of the Sports Express Radio Network for over the past 15 years.

Van Dyke served as the general manager of KJAK-FM since 1986, and continued to call play-by-play of high school sports (mainly baseball) up until his death.

He received the Lifetime Achievement Award for Youth and West Texas Baseball in 2009 and was an inaugural member of the Board of Directors for the Lubbock ISD Athletic Hall of Honor in 2010.

Van Dyke is survived by his wife, Margie, two sons, two daughters, four step-children, 20 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

Woody's favorite sport was baseball.  He could talk for hours about the game and the history of the sport.  He had two-year stint in the 1960s with the Atlanta Braves providing color commentary and calling play-by-play on their radio network.  Woody's office at KJAK was a shrine to baseball. He had photographs, signed baseball, bobble-heads, stadium models and other memorabilia of the Nation's Pastime.

Visitation for Woody Van Dyke will be held tomorrow evening from 6pm-8pm at Lake Ridge Chapel and Memorial Designers.  The memorial service will be held at 11am Wednesday at Trinity Church.