NORFOLK, Va. – Old Dominion men's basketball fans have been blessed the last decade to have one of the best radio broadcasts in college basketball.
ODU radio voice Ted Alexander has been the broadcasting pro with a unique and energetic style and an at-times wild sense of humor. Former ODU point guard and color commentator Dave Twardzik has been the calm, basketball expert who doesn't get ruffled – even when Alexander is, in jest, giving him a hard time, which happened often.
They both told it was like was – they didn't hesitate to criticize the home team when the Monarchs weren't playing well. They also let the refs have it once in a while.
Now, after a decade doing a job he said he loved, Twardzik has decided it's time to hang up his head phones. He told Dr. Wood Selig, ODU's director of athletics, that he won't return for the 2023-24 season.
"It's the end of an era," Alexander said. "I've enjoyed every minute of working with Dave.
"He's so professional. He's not one of those guys who just shows up to a game. He does his homework. He's played and coached and been around basketball for so long.
"I'm going to miss him, personally and professionally, and I know our fans will, too."
Twardzik is a former ODU All-American who helped lead the Monarchs to the 1971 Division II national championship game, where ODU lost to homestanding Evansville. He then began an eight-year pro career, four years each with the ABA's Virginia Squires and NBA's Portland TrailBlazers.
Kathe and Dave Twardzik
Twardzik helped lead Portland to the 1977 NBA championship. After retiring, he then moved on to a long career as an NBA coach and front office employee. He worked nine years with the Orlando Magic, including seven years as assistant general manager.
He was between jobs when he teamed up with Alexander in 2013-14. The rapport between them, and the contrast between their styles, was instantly popular among fans. They have worked more than 350 games together.
"I've listened to a lot of radio broadcasts and Ted and Dave are among the very best I've heard," Dr. Selig said.
In previous years, when many ODU games weren't generally televised, "I didn't mind as much that we weren't on TV all of the time because I knew we at least had a really good radio broadcast that was informative and entertaining," Selig said.
"I've rarely heard two people on the radio with the same rapport that both Ted and Dave share. They were so colorful and so engaging."
Selig hired Twardzik after a chance meeting with him at a Taste Unlimited restaurant in Norfolk. Jeff Jones had just been named ODU's men's basketball coach and Twardzik came to town with other alumni to meet with Jones.
"I asked what he was going to be doing the next season and he said he wasn't sure," Selig said.
Selig suggested he consider a fundraising position with the Old Dominion Athletic Foundation. Then, he said: "Would you ever consider doing radio for us?' "
That piqued his interest and within a short time, Twardzik had been hired.
Twardzik cuts down the nets after ODU defeated Norfolk State in the NCAA South Atlantic Regional at the ODU Fieldhouse.
Twardzik lived in Norfolk for most of the last decade but two years ago, he and his wife, Kathe, purchased a house near Pinehurst, North Carolina. Ever since, the four-hour drive from home to Norfolk and back has become a drain.
Twardzik would usually drive to Norfolk on a Wednesday, watch practice, and then take in a Thursday-Saturday weekend series. He would drive home late Saturday or Sunday.
"About the time that I had recovered from one trip, it was time to get in the car and go back to Norfolk," he said. "It just got to be too much."
Kathe and Dave met when they were freshmen at ODU and were married a month after they graduated. Both are Pennsylvania natives – Kathe is from Philadelphia and Dave grew up 90 minutes west of Philly in Middletown, Pennsylvania.
Dave, who is 72, says it's time for him to stay closer to home and perhaps spend more time with his children, Monica, who lives in Gaithersburg, Maryland and Matthew, who lives in Lowell, Massachusetts.
"When we moved down to Carolina, I told Kathe I don't know how much longer I can continue to do radio," Twardzik said.
"I said when I do stop the broadcasting, we can go anywhere we want to anytime we want to. We can go do some traveling.
"Now we can do that."
He will continue to work as a special assistant to San Antonio Spurs general manager Brian Wright. However, beyond traveling to the NBA draft, most of his work is done from home.
Twardzik accepts his All-American certificate from coach Sonny Allen as Dick Fraim looks on.
Twardzik was among the first recruits signed by former ODU coach Sonny Allen. He had no scholarship offers when he met Allen outside a gym in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he had just played in an all-star game.
Allen had scouted the game and rushed to find him after the contest. He literally chased Twardzik down in the parking lot and asked him to come visit ODU. Within a few days, Twardzik had signed with ODU and became the sparkplug for Allen's fastbreak offense.
Twardzik is arguably the best player ever to wear ODU white and Hudson Blue. He played a wide open floor game in which he drove the lane and was often knocked to the floor. His arms and legs were covered with scrapes and bruises.
He was a great finisher who had an uncanny ability to find teammates with no-look passes.
In the NBA, his TrailBlazers' teammates called him "pinball" because of his often-reckless drives.
Jones saw Twardzik play in the NBA and said reckless was an understatement.
"Our players didn't understand who Dave was or what he did," Jones said. "They're too young. And he's very low-key and humble."
Jones asked assistant coach Chris Kovensky to put together a short highlight reel of Twardzik playing with the TrailBlazers.
"They saw him making plays against some of the best in the NBA," Jones said. "But there was one play that literally got the players up in their seats.
"Dave lands on top of a player and the entire time, as they fall down, he's throwing punches. Seeing that film, seeing him fight like that, they all realized just how competitive he is.
"No matter how quiet he is, there is still a fire burning inside him. I just loved that part of him. And the players loved having him around."
His 880 assists are three behind ODU all-time leader Frank Smith, but Twardzik only played three seasons – freshman were then ineligible.
He is eighth among ODU scorers with 1,660 and if he'd had an extra year, he might be the all-time scoring leader.
"If it wasn't for Sonny Allen, I have no idea what career path I would have taken," Twardzik said.
"He gave me an opportunity to go to school, to continue playing basketball. Sonny Allen's DNA is all over my life."
Jones said beyond being a basketball expert, Twardzik is a genuinely good guy.
Twardzik with family members of the late Sonny Allen, who recruited him to ODU.
"He's been a great friend of the program, a great friend to me," Jones said. "We all very much enjoyed being around Dave.
"He had full access to our program. He came to a lot of our practices, even our post-game meetings with the team or with coaches. He was in film sessions and pretty much everything else you can imagine. He knew the team, he knew the program. That's why he was so great on the radio, because he always did his homework.
"I trusted him completely.
"I think very highly of him from a basketball perspective, but even more highly of him as a human being and a friend."
Twardzik said most of the games he called on the radio, like the games he played, "tend to run together after a while."
But he said the one game he will never forget occurred on Jan. 5, 2019, when ODU hosted Western Kentucky, and fell behind, 21-0, in the game's first seven minutes.
The Monarchs began to chip away at the lead and rallied to claim a 69-66 victory over WKU, a team ODU would defeat two months later in the Conference USA championship game.
"And that was a very, very good Western Kentucky team," Twardzik said. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone get down by 21 points and come back and win a game."
Asked what he was proudest of, Twardzik said: "The honesty of the broadcast and the humor and interaction involved with Ted. We had fun but we did our jobs."
A former radio disc jockey, Alexander would often make musical references and wait for Twardzik to react.
Twardzik gestures to friends on the court as Billy Mann (left) and Ted Alexander (right) look on.
"Most of the time I wouldn't react," Twardzik said.
"I really got to enjoy being with Ted. We became very good friends. He was a joy to work with, the consummate pro, and is so much fun off the air. He's very spontaneous and very genuine. He's a good guy."
There is no formal farewell planned for Twardzik and Alexander says none is needed.
"Dave Twardzik will always be connected to ODU basketball," he said.
Twardzik said he will dearly miss ODU's fans, especially the old-timers who watched him play at the old ODU Fieldhouse.
"It was never a job," he said. "I loved the games. But it was the interaction with people I'll miss most.
"People often would come up to us at the broadcast table and start talking. If we were on the air, it would upset Ted, so I'd just keep talking to them to give him a hard time.
"As I said, I'm going to miss the back and forth with Ted."
As for that fundraising gig he turned down, he eventually raised money for ODU when an effort was begun to endow a scholarship in Sonny Allen's name.
Dave Twardzik, with Joel Copeland on his left. leads the ODU fast break in a game with Norfolk State at Scope.
"After Sonny Allen died, Dave worked very hard to raise almost $250,000 to endow the scholarship," Selig said. "Dave was a man possessed. He worked with Billy Allen (Sonny Allen's son) and he became the fundraiser he resisted becoming.
"He also gave us 10 great years on the radio."
Twardzik said when he agreed to do ODU games on the radio, "I had no earthly idea it would last ten years.
"A decade is a pretty good run."
It certainly was for ODU.
Contact Minium at hminium@odu.edu or follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram
After a Decade Working a Job He Loved, Dave Twardzik Stepping Aside as ODU Basketball Color Commentator
