BRADENTON, Fla. -- High school sports fans in Manatee County are getting ready to memorialize a member of their community.
Dave Bristow, 59, the public information officer for the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office, passed away Sunday night from natural causes.
He didn’t graduate from Manatee High School, but his wife and two daughters did. He loved football and this community. It’s why he dedicated 33 years of his life to this team and their fans. He was the team’s play-by-play radio announcer on 930 WLSS AM.
He was known as "the Voice of the Hurricanes."
Friday night, fans will open the game with a moment of silence and a video tribute to say ‘thank you.’
During high school football season, Friday afternoons are spent setting up the radio booth for the home game. This one is special: it’s homecoming at Manatee High School.
“He was the professional,” says Gene Brown, Dave’s co-announcer and long-time friend. He made this one of the best radio program for Manatee High School and in the country.”
Brown says, “It’s going to be tough. For the first time in my life whole life I’ll be doing it without him.”
Holding back tears, he added, “It’s just going to be hard, be very hard."
Aside from sharing the broadcast booth, the two men were bonded in other ways: They met on the night they became fathers. Their daughters were born in the same hospital room, one after the other.
“Being with him, I loved it," Brown said. "I sit and talk a bit … he’d be detail-oriented, be right with the play by play … that what was fun watching him do that at a level most colleges don’t have. That’s the passion we’re going to miss."
Bristow helped raise $2 million for the team’s video board and started video streaming the games along with the radio show during the 2012 championship game.
“We had 27,000 viewers for that game,” the most on record for a high school game, says Brown.
On the field Friday, players’ helmets will have a sticker on the back in his memory.
As Bristow would want it, the show will go on.
“We’ll make it for the radio broadcast about him, but the game is about the kids and that’s why he did it,” says Brown. “This drives you to make him proud for what he’s done.”
The video tribute by the Manatee football teams ends with Bristow's signature sign-off after each game, “So long everyone!”
The team plans another more intimate memorial for Bristow at its next home game.
Bristow’s funeral is at 1 p.m. Saturday at the First Church of the Nazarene in Bradenton.
Instead of flowers, the family and school have set up a scholarship fund in his memory. The money will help a student attend the school he graduated from and also loved: The University of Florida.
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