Dave Wills

Class of: 2025

Sport: Broadcaster

Team: Tampa Bay Rays

Wills spent 18 seasons in the Rays’ radio booth, partnering with Andy Freed to form a broadcast team that was wildly popular with the team’s fans.

Wills created a few signature, instantly recognizable calls when on play-by-play duty, including his roaring refrain immediately following every victory – “Rays win! Rays win! Rays win!” – and his exaggerated “Heeeeee struck him out!” after every K by a Rays pitcher. And perhaps many fans have committed Wills’ call of the final out from Game 7 of the 2008 American League Championship Series to memory, when Boston’s Jed Lowrie grounded into a forceout to Akinori Iwamura: “Swing and a ground ball to second. This should do it. Aki has it, takes it to second himself. This improbable season has another chapter to it! The Rays are going to the World Series!”

A Chicago native who grew up as a huge White Sox fan, Wills spent 11 seasons as part of the White Sox radio broadcast team prior to joining the Rays before the 2005 season. Wills’ radio broadcasting career began with four years as the first play-by-play voice of the Kane County Cougars, a former Marlins and Orioles affiliate, from 1991-95. He was the radio voice of the Illinois-Chicago men’s basketball team from 1997-2005 and anchored the pre- and postgame shows for Notre Dame football and basketball.

Wills was particularly known for his “big personality” and his ability to connect with fans off the air. His sudden death on March 5, 2023, was a blow to his entire fan base. On April 14, 2024, Wills was inducted into the Tampa Bay Rays Hall of Fame, the fourth individual to be inducted, after Don Zimmer, Wade Boggs, and Carl Crawford.