Utah
Utah Jazz PA announcer looks back on 46-year career as he retires
SALT LAKE CITY — After 46 years, Dan Roberts is reflecting on his time as the public address announcer for the Utah Jazz after his last season.
With the NBA draft lottery approaching, the Utah Jazz have a decent shot at the number one pick, and fans are hoping for a better year next season.
The Delta Center sits quietly as renovations for the next season of hockey and basketball are well underway in the warm spring air. Soon, spring will turn to summer, and summer will turn to fall, signaling yet another season of Jazz basketball awaiting on the other side.
However, after 46 years, there will be one thing different: A voice that fans have heard since day one.
Dan Roberts, the long-time public address announcer for the Utah Jazz, is retiring.
“I donated a lot of my life to this situation, and I’m not unhappy with a moment of it,” Roberts said.
Roberts has been a public address announcer for five decades.
“Let’s go back to day one with my first game with the ABA, the Utah Stars. That was in the old building, the Old Salt Palace, which is long ago and far away. But that’s where it all began,” he explained.
When the Stars left in 1975, he kept busy, but then a little team called the Jazz came to town.
“I was invited for auditions and stuff like that,” Roberts said.
And the rest is history, starting in 1978 with their first game.
“Milwaukee came in, we had a crowd of about 8,000 or so, if that, and they beat the crap out of us,” Roberts said. “Frank [Layden] would call people, invite them to come to the games. You let us know when you can get here and that’s when we’ll start. Because it was the start, and it was a rough start, but slowly but surely it caught on.”
Even early on, Roberts said there were a few nerves starting out. Roberts Roberts confidently stated,stated,Roberts confidently stated,
“My presentation was a little bit more electric than it is today,” he admitted. “There was more energy coming out of me because of that, and that was a way of distributing the potential fear… If you were to see film from back then, I had longer hair and a beard and stuff.”
Then there’s that famous saying — if you’ve been a Jazz fan long enough, you know which one I mean.
WATCH BELOW: How Roberts’ famous catch phrase “How ‘bout this Jazz” came to be
Story behind the saying
When asked about his favorite time period in his tenure, Roberts replied: “Yeah, the Karl and John years. The two of them took us to two championship series. I mean, that was part of my life as well. The way they played, the way John fed Carl, the way Carl scored, it was just the highlight of what was going on.”
Now, he’s a seasoned pro.
“46 years will do that to you,” he said, with that even being an NBA record.
“Nobody’s going to come up with 46 years too much, in my opinion. It should be a fairly safe record,” Roberts confidently stated, .
As his final season wound down, he expressed optimism for the future of the team he has served for so many years.
“They’ll always be popular. It’s just going to grow and grow and grow, basically.”
And one thing’s for certain: The team he loves loves him back tenfold.
“What would your message be to the fans who have watched you and heard you over so many years?” I asked him.
Roberts responded: “Thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for letting me motivate you. Thank you for letting me scream in front of you. Thank you for not getting angry with my screw-ups every now and then.”
“You know, longest tenured announcer in the league, that’s OK. I can live with that. That’s an accomplishment.”
Utah
Here’s who will lead Utah Valley University as its next president
Jon Anderson will be charged with moving the Orem school forward following the death of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk on campus last year.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Incoming UVU President Jon Anderson poses for a photo with his family after an event announcing his selection at Utah Valley University in Orem on Friday, July 17, 2026.
Utah
Beaver County residents set up thousands of sandbags ahead of flashfloods
BEAVER COUNTY, Utah — A massive community effort is underway as volunteers and Beaver County crews distribute thousands of sandbags to protect homes from the potential path of floodwaters.
After the Cottonwood Fires, residents have been waiting for weeks for relief to come in the form of rain, though officials now warn it may come all at once with an increased risk of flooding and debris flow.
Emergency Service Director Les Whitney believes that the fire has left plenty of debris to bring trouble for residents.
“We got a lot of water. We’re bringing debris with it, so tree branches, tree limbs, logs, lots of different size firewood, and that’s all in the creeks. We’re worried about that plugging up our bridges and stuff, so we have heavy equipment and excavators located in strategic places so that we can keep those bridges open,” said Whitney.
An estimated 140 homes and condominiums were spared from the flames, but remain in the paths of floodwaters.
Residents can also pick up sandbags at the Beaver County Sheriff’s Office or at the Beaver County Rodeo Fairgrounds.
Utah
Utah man arrested again for allegedly abusing dog twice in three months
EAGLE MOUNTAIN — An Eagle Mountain man currently on pretrial release in 4th District Court who is accused of abusing his dog has been arrested again for allegedly punching the same animal.
Keith Reaves Davis, 43, was booked into the Utah County Jail on Wednesday for investigation of aggravated cruelty to an animal.
Utah County sheriff’s deputies were called Wednesday afternoon to a grocery store on a report that a man was beating his dog after it had gotten off its leash and was stopped by a bystander, according to a police booking affidavit.
“I reviewed security camera footage from the grocery store, and an individual matching the description of the suspect was seen holding the dog in the air by one paw and repeatedly striking the dog on the right hind leg area. I observed the male strike the dog several times before dropping the dog from approximately 1-2 feet. The strikes appeared to be as hard as the male could hit,” the arresting deputy wrote in the affidavit. “The dog did not cry out or whimper as if the dog was accustomed to the abuse.”
When questioned, Davis “admitted to striking the dog because it was not behaving,” the affidavit states.
An animal control officer who responded to the scene to take custody of the dog noted it was the same dog he had taken from Davis exactly three months earlier during another animal abuse investigation.
In that case, Davis was charged in 4th District Court with aggravated cruelty to an animal, a class A misdemeanor; and public intoxication, a class C misdemeanor, after deputies received a tip from a neighbor that a dog was being abused at Davis’ home, according to charging documents. When questioned, Davis “acknowledged hitting his dog as punishment,” the charges state.
Deputies also reviewed videos that the neighbor had filmed. The neighbor told investigators “there was blood from the dog on the ground of the garage and (the neighbor) can hear the dog screaming as if it’s being hurt. Deputies got the videos from the (neighbor) and you can hear very loudly the dog screaming and crying with a lot of loud banging noises. In one of the videos, you can hear the dog sounding like it is being choked by a collar and is grasping for air,” a police booking affidavit states.
Davis’ next court hearing in the April case is scheduled for July 28.
In their latest booking report, sheriff’s deputies note that they “believe further harm will be inflicted on this dog if it is released back to the male a second time,” and have recommended the dog not be returned to Davis.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
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