RUSTON – Approaching a half century of broadcasting Louisiana Tech Baseball, "Freeway" Dave Nitz has decided it's time to tap the brakes.

No one has called college baseball play-by-play for one team longer than Nitz, who has retired from the road but plans to call most home games at J.C. Love Field at Pat Patterson Park this season.

Louisiana Tech Athletics will honor Nitz in the upcoming season with several promotions and celebrations at The Love Shack.

Labeled "Freeway Dave" by Tech Hall of Famer Leon Barmore in the late 1970s because of his love of the road, Nitz called 47 seasons of Tech football and men's basketball until the 2021-22 season, when he decided "to slow down a little bit," he said, to concentrate on baseball, his favorite sport.

His first Tech broadcast was in Spring 1974 at old Arlington Stadium as Pat "Gravy" Patterson and the Bulldogs baseball team came one game short of going to the College World Series. Dr. Les Guice, recently retired as the University's 14th president, was a Tech sophomore at the time.

During a broadcasting career of nearly 60 years, Nitz has called more than 4,500 Tech games, which includes eight seasons of Lady Techsters basketball, beginning in the late-1970s. Besides serving as Voice of the Bulldogs, he spent 36 summers broadcasting professional baseball and spent time as an assistant sports information director for Tech in the 1970s and 1980s.

A native of Milton, West Virginia, Nitz, 80, is a member of the LA Tech Athletics Hall of Fame Class of 2010 and the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2019. He was named the 2009 Louisiana Sportscaster of the Year and been voted as the College Broadcaster of the Year in the state numerous times by the Louisiana Sports Writers Association.

A Nitz sidekick for 10 years on Tech Football broadcasts and a member of Tech's University Communications team, Teddy Allen will fill in for "The Nitzer" this season and broadcast road games with the help of Louisiana Tech Sports Properties, Learfield, the LA Tech Sports Network, and the team at the flagship network of Red Peach Media. All games will be heard on the LA Tech Sports App and most games will be carried on Sports Talk 97.7 KNBB.

Tech's 56-game schedule begins February 16 in Ruston when the Bulldogs take on Northern Colorado in a four-game series, part of a non-conference stretch in which the Bulldogs play 16 of their first 21 games at home.

The Diamond Dogs have 31 home games scheduled and 20 matchups scheduled against nine programs that played in the NCAA Regionals last season.

Following its first road contest of the season at McNeese State on Feb. 28, the 'Dogs will head to Sugar Land, Texas for the Battle at the Ballpark where they will take on Army, Creighton, and Air Force, March 1-3.