DALLAS – It’s been a whirlwind two weekends for Victor Villalba.
Not only is Villalba the Hispanic play-by-play radio voice of the Dallas Mavericks on Univision 1270 AM. He’s also the Hispanic play-by-play radio voice of the Dallas Cowboys for their various affiliates.
So, occasionally that creates one of those fast-moving dilemmas.
For instance, on Jan. 4 Villalba worked the Mavs’ game in Boston. After the game the Mavs immediately flew to Philadelphia, where they had a contest against the 76ers on Jan. 5. But on the morning of Jan. 5, Villalba flew to Dallas because the Cowboys were hosting a wild card playoff game in Arlington against the Seattle Seahawks on Jan. 5 at 7:15 p.m.
That meant Miguel Cruz, Villalba’s backup, was flown to Philadelphia to work the Mavs-Sixers game.
“Miguel Cruz has been doing games with me for a number of years now where he actually flew from Dallas to Philadelphia on Saturday morning (Jan. 5) and arrived at the hotel, went to the game, did the game and flew back with the team,” Villalba said. “So it all worked out.”
Villalba is faced with a similar set of circumstances this weekend. The Mavs played in Minneapolis on Friday and their charter arrived back in Dallas at 1:20 Saturday morning.
After a few hours of rest, Villalba hopped on a plane and flew to Los Angeles, where the Cowboys will play a divisional playoff game on Saturday at 7:15 p.m. against the Los Angeles Rams. Then it’s back to Dallas on Sunday as Villalba will do the play-by-play for the Golden State Warriors-Mavs game, which is Sunday at 6 p.m. at American Airlines Center.
All of the back-n-forth can sometimes create havoc with Villalba’s travel agent. But not in this case, since the travel agent is his wife Olga.
“She’s great, because she’s been doing this for a while,” said Villalba, a Texas Tech graduate. “So she was able to get me a flight leaving Saturday morning to get to LA.”
Mavs guard J. J. Barea, who was born in Puerto Rico, appreciates the compelling way Villalba broadcasts a game.
“I think he’s the best at it and I love the Hispanic passion that he carries when he does a game,” Barea said. “Back in the day we did an ESPN radio show together in Spanish, so we’ve gotten a bunch of time together.”
Since there are several thousand Hispanic-speaking citizens in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, Villalba’s job as the play-by-play voice of the Mavs is of great significance.
“It’s important for us because as an organization and a franchise we believe in diversity,” coach Rick Carlisle said. “We know that there is a very, very large contingent of Spanish-speaking people that want to listen to games.
“I’ve gotten to know Victor over the last several years. Wonderful guy and loves the game and has great knowledge of the game, so we’ve been fortunate to have him on board.”
Villalba, 59, has been working the Cowboys’ broadcast since 2002 and the Mavs’ broadcasts since 2005.
“With the Cowboys I manage the Spanish language properties TV/radio, and also the affiliates, the commercial logs and the promos,” he said. “We have a partner with Telemundo – they carry our weekly show – then we have affiliates that air our preseason games and our monthly specials. So it’s a little more involved there.
“Here with the Mavericks it’s been basically just doing the games, doing a weekly radio show and being available to any sort of marketing ideas that may arise where Spanish language can be instrumental in what they’re trying to do.”
In addition to the broadcasts of the games, Villalba has a Mavs radio show on Tuesday from 4-5 p.m. on Univision 1270 AM. And he has a Cowboys TV broadcast on Telemundo on Saturday
“He’s in high demand and for good reason,” Carlisle said. “He’s great at what he does and he can deliver the message in multiple languages, and that’s a great ability to have.”
An ability that Barea truly treasures.
“I’ve been around him for a while now, and he’s awesome,” Barea said. “I heard him doing football games, too. He’s special man. He does a great job and I think it’s really important.
“We know how big in the Latino community it is to have him, and to have the games in Spanish is amazing. In Dallas and in all over the place, if they can’t hear the game in Spanish they really don’t know what’s going on. I think he does a good job of explaining what’s going on in Spanish, so it’s pretty good.”
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