Dusty Litster’s impact will always extend far beyond the microphone
The first message I ever received from Dusty Litster was back in 2016. He was working with Ben Criddle on a radio show and wanted to bring me onto the show for an interview. That conversation was enough to crack the seal of the beginning of a really great friendship.
Fast forward to 2018 and BYU had just beaten Arizona in Las Vegas. As I was walking back to my hotel, a voice from behind me yelled, “Jeff Hansen in the flesh!”
I’d never met Dusty in person before, but within seconds it felt like we’d known each other for years. That was Dusty - he never met a stranger, just a friend he didn’t know yet. As we walked back to our hotels, we swapped stories, shared movie quotes, and, almost offhandedly, he told me I should give him a call if I ever wanted to call high school football games. At the time, I shrugged it off as a simple pleasantry. Looking back, it was classic Dusty - always pulling people in and always opening doors.
Dusty and I remained friends in the years that followed. I continued to watch his high school coverage because it helped me cover BYU recruiting. His BYU fandom overlapped with mine and we shared information back and forth. We went to lunch a couple handfuls of times and he extended a few more casual invitations to join Rewind, but I never made the move.
By summer of 2022, Dusty decided to stop hinting and start pushing. He went all in:
“By the way, I wanted to let you know that I have a warm seat for you with Rewind if you want something else to do in your life. RedZone could use a host ‘in the know.’ RedZone is going to be simulcast this year on KSLSports.com and 97.5/1280. I would love to have you on the show,” he said.
I told him I would think about it. 24 hours later, I politely declined the invitation. But if you knew Dusty, you knew a polite “no” wasn’t the end of the conversation.
“Okay - let’s do this. I strongly believe in the ‘first taste is free’ method. You don’t need to commit to every week. I am an easy guy to please. I don’t have to have a co-pilot with RedZone but it is nice when we have someone there. I think we would have great on-air chemistry and it would be a fun thing for viewers/listeners to hear your perspective too. So, think about it. I don’t know that I need 12 weeks outta ya, Just enough weeks that I get some of that Andy Reid Lite goodness on me,” he said.
I didn’t respond for six minutes, obviously too long for Dusty’s salesman patience.
“I’m dead serious, Jeff. It doesn’t need to be every week. You aren’t hurting a thing if you can’t make it. We are the cockroaches of Utah media. They CANNOT kill us. Whatever works for you, works for me. I have no problem with an open-ended thing. My wife is the only person in my life who doesn’t get the luxury.”
That kind of fight embodied what I would eventually learn about Dusty. He was funny, determined, and was determined to help you see the best in you the way that he did. He wore me down. I shuffled my schedule and the next thing I knew, I was co-hosting RedZone inside the KSL Studios alongside Dusty.
I immediately fell in love with it. Being in KSL studios, sharing a microphone with voices that I listened to in my car for years, was surreal. I loved seeing high school football in ways that I had never seen before. Schools that I didn’t know existed were suddenly on my screen and I was supposed to talk about them. It was a blast.
But what hooked me wasn’t microphones or football, it was Dusty. I got to see a different side of him when we talked about high school sports. He wasn’t just a dude doing a job - he genuinely loved the kids and the schools that he covered. High school football wasn’t a gig for Dusty, it was a privilege. He believed he had a responsibility to tell stories in a way that kids would remember for the rest of their lives.
He loved building a platform for coaches who worked for pennies. He loved shining a spotlight on high school athletes who might never play another down but would remember those Friday nights forever. Everything that he did, he did without ego and without attitude.
I saw a man who worked tirelessly all of the time. Many didn’t realize it, but high school sports wasn’t Dusty’s primary job. He did all of that on top of his 9:00-5:00. I worked on Friday nights in the fall; but Dusty worked hard throughout the high school year. Seemingly every night, Dusty and the Rewind crew were calling games and creating chances for athletes to have special moments.
As much as he poured into sports, it was nothing compared to what he poured into his family. The way he lit up when he talked about his wife and kids is something that always stuck with me. High school football made him happy but his family made him whole.
Dusty became a role model for me. His work ethic. His joy. The way his family fueled everything he did. I wanted to be like him - I still want to be like him. I wanted to work with him in every way that I could. I talked with him daily, constantly looking for more ways to collaborate. He kept insisting that he saw potential in me. I just wanted to keep learning and soak up the energy of someone so positive and pure.
Somewhere along the way, Dusty stopped being just a friend. He became one of my best friends.
Dusty kept a positive attitude when he first suffered a stroke. When the stroke uncovered cancer, he called me to give me the official diagnosis.
“Well, Jeff, I have brain cancer,” he told me through his tears. “But as long as there is a fight to fight, you know I’m going to fight as hard as I can.”
And that’s exactly what he did. The man who had fought so hard to create moments for high school athletes to create everlasting memories needed to fight for himself. The man who had fought so hard to create opportunities for his wife and kids was now fighting for his life.
He never stopped. The trials piled up and the complications came, the cancer was relentless - but Dusty refused to quit. He got frustrated, sure, but he kept his hands up.
Dusty loved quoting movies and sportscasters - it was part of what made hanging out with him so much fun. I know that he would have echoed the words of the late Stuart Scott, who summed up his own fight with cancer this way:
“When you die, that does not mean that you lose to cancer. You beat cancer by how you live, why you live, and the manner in which you live. So live! Live! Fight like hell!”
When Dusty announced his diagnosis to the world, his words carried the same spirit:
“It’s scary to think that there could be cancer in my brain - that freaks me out. But also, as I’ve shared with my kids, if there is anything I’m down for, it’s a fight. I want to show my kids how we fight through adversity - I’m not excited for it, but I’m willing to take it on.”
The way Dusty fought, for everything, will inspire me for the rest of my life. He found a way to do exactly what Stuart Scott said, that is to fight in a way that allowed him to live. He didn’t lose his fight to cancer, he lived and fought in a way that will reverberate throughout our community for years. His fight makes me want to live life more fully. His fight makes me want to fight harder for the things that matter most. His fight will live on with me forever.
Dusty’s fight is over for now. As he reunites with his mom and so many of his loved ones who have passed on before him, he leaves behind a legacy that is too bright to ever be forgotten. The thousands of athletes and coaches he gave a platform to will continue to remember what he did for them. His friends will never forget the way he made them feel like they could take over the world. His sweet wife and his incredible kids will carry forward the fire of his fight, even as they face the hardest days ahead. Please keep them in your prayers.
The entire GEHB community will miss Dusty. He represented the very best of us.
I love Dusty Litster. He changed my life. He inspired me. I’ll miss him profoundly every day. But I know what he would tell me right now: Keep fighting. Keep living. Show your kids, just like I showed mine, how we fight through adversity.
And I hope I can fight in a way that would make him proud.