Before dressing up as Darth Maul on the Penguins’ Star Wars theme night in December 2017, AT&T SportsNet’s Dan Potash used his Amazon Prime membership to purchase a makeup kit for $50, complete with the face paint, stencil, black cape and hood.
As Potash prepared for 1980s night earlier this month, the first wig he bought wasn’t exactly perfect. So he returned it, found a blue mohawk on Etsy and impulsively bought a nose piercing chain link to his ear, an addendum that had his wife, Heidi, in stitches as they held a dress rehearsal the night before in their Adams Township home.
Pens Pre Game on 80”a Theme Night is minutes away !! -DP pic.twitter.com/t91e1qMSYm
— AT&T SportsNet™ PIT (@ATTSportsNetPIT) February 5, 2019
With one more theme night to go — 1990s night on Tuesday against the Florida Panthers — all eyes will be on Potash to see what sort of ridiculous getup he comes up with next. Yet Potash, an impossible-not-to-like, 49-year-old transplant from Beverly Hills, Calif., remains nervous.
“I’m kind of glad the last one’s coming,” Potash said recently. “Because it’s almost like I’m afraid to fail. I’m afraid someone’s going to go, ‘Wait, that’s it?’ ”
Failure has been a foreign concept for Potash, who was hired by Fox Sports Pittsburgh in 2000 and — through a few name changes — has been the station’s sideline reporter on the Penguins for the past 14 seasons. With an easygoing style that has endeared him to players and viewers alike, Potash has become an integral part of how we watch sports in the city.
“He’s so good with our guys,” Penguins captain Sidney Crosby. “Everybody knows him because he’s always around, and he’s a lot of fun to joke around with. He brings a good attitude every day. He’s always happy. It’s fun to have him around the team.”
Even, as it has now become his thing, in costume.
Potash won’t divulge what this final one will be, although he hopes it doesn’t disappoint. This much, though, is certain: It will face some stiff competition.
Darth Maul was Potash’s personal favorite — “I grew up a Star Wars kid,” he said — but a close second was when he went as Batman for Superhero night on Dec. 6.
“Because seriously, dude, who doesn’t want to dress up as Batman?” Potash said.
Amazon Prime has been a godsend, Potash said. When he gets an idea for a costume, he’ll search Amazon and typically find all the components separately. They’ll ship to the AT&T SportsNet’s North Shore studio, and Potash opens them a little kid on Christmas morning. The station picks up the tab.
So far, Potash said, there haven’t been many fails, other than applying eyeliner on 1980s night and a costume for Halloween two years ago that never arrived (teaser: get ready for 2019).
“My wife will send me text messages from her coworkers that say, ‘Oh, my God. Are you serious? Is he really wearing a mohawk? Is that really a nose ring? Did he get his nose pierced?’ ” Potash recalled. “But even if I didn’t dress up in these goofy costumes, I still try to have fun.”
How it started
Potash went to Beverly Hills High School (yes, seriously) and started both ways on the varsity football team as a freshman. But as college approached, Potash didn’t see college football in his future and devised a Plan B.
While attending Cal State Northridge, Potash and his friends would purchase tickets to Lakers, Kings, Clippers and Dodgers games, often sitting in the upper deck with a tape recorder. One would call play-by-play, and the other would provide color commentary. Halfway through, they’d switch.
After graduating, Potash either wanted to call hockey play-by-play or become a sports anchor, the result of watching ESPN and “SportsCenter” take off in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Potash worked his way from Clarksburg, W.Va. (1995-97) to Charleston, S.C. (1997-2000) to finally Fox Sports Pittsburgh in 2000.
“I always knew Pittsburgh was one of the best cities in America to be a sportscaster in, a place where talking about your teams will never get old,” Potash said. “After living here, I realized even more what a great city it is, with great people. I loved the four seasons and decided to call it home.”
In the summer, Potash will cover the Pirates, too, although he’s most identified for his work on Penguins, especially feature pieces on players and other key members of the organization.
“The human-interest side is what I really enjoy,” Potash said. “If I can inform our viewers of something they didn’t know before they turned on the game, I know I’ve done my job.”
‘I let that go’
Dan and Heidi Potash were married in 2014 in Napa Valley, Calif., where they’ll again vacation this summer. Heidi, who’s from Milwaukee, Wis., is a manager for a pharmaceutical company and oversees 10 reps across Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio. Because they both travel so much, they decided against having children.
“We’ve been very supportive of each other,” Dan said. “We never complain about, ‘Oh, you’re gone again? Really?’ ”
Dan Potash is a big football fan in general. He’s obsessed with the Los Angeles Chargers, and he’s currently reading “Football for a Buck: The Crazy Rise and Crazier Demise of the USFL,” by Jeff Pearlman.
As for his wife’s rooting interests when it comes to the NFL?
“She’s a Packers fan,” Dan joked, “but I let that go.”
On-air and off, Potash is relentlessly positive. While he insists that he has had a bad day and has even been crabby a time or two before, that sounds like an unsubstantiated rumor to everyone who knows Potash.
“The personality part is who I’ve always been,” Potash said. “I enjoy getting people to laugh, smile and have fun. But I have a bad day, just like anyone else.”
Some of that has occurred recently when Potash’s phone has buzzed in the middle of a game. He’s an only child and is the sole caretaker for his 86-year-old mother, Libby, who’s battling Alzheimer’s disease back home.
“Several times over the last four years I’ve gotten a call or text from someone on her nursing staff that has really derailed me and I’ve had to step away and deal with it on several game nights, in the middle of games and practice days. It [stinks],” Potash said.
“But you have to remember that you’re entertaining. If I’m having a bad day, the last thing I want is for someone else to know that. It’s important for me to remember that people are watching because they’re looking forward to a good game and hopefully a victory by the Penguins or Pirates.”
Thanks, Dan
It all started with a hug.
That was Potash’s recollection of how the close, hilarious interactions with Penguins players and coaches started, the sort of stuff that has come to define his sideline work.
It was 2007, and Ryan Malone was going through a scoring slump. After finally finding the back of the net at Mellon Arena, Potash remembers Malone saying something along the lines of “I’m so emotional right now. I could use a hug.”
“He looked at me, and he put his arms out,” Potash said. “We hugged it out on TV. It was just hilarious. Totally natural. We both had a good laugh out of it.”
Later in the year, with Malone in another scoring slump, Potash offered a hug, and off it went. During his time here, Marc-Andre Fleury played countless pranks on Potash. Pascal Dupuis routinely whacked Potash with his stick in the hallway. Joe Vitale sprayed Potash with ice shavings during warmup. The Dan & Dan Show became a thing.
“He has such a great personality, and I think he enjoys being around the guys,” Dupuis said in a TV package on Potash done five years ago by what was called Root Sports at the time. “Makes him feel like he’s part of it a little bit. … Even though we’ll never let him in that tight circle.”
That sort of respect — buried beneath the dressing room chop-busting — extends to this current group of Penguins, too.
“He’s such an easygoing guy,” Zach Aston-Reese said last week. “You can joke with him and make fun of him at his expense. He just laughs it off. He’ll give it back to you, too. You don’t even need to know him to feel that way about him.
“I think it says a lot about his character. That’s pretty hard to find a guy like him. Definitely nice to be around. We all like him a lot.”
And Potash likes doing it, too. He and Bylsma remain good friends. Potash has even gotten a few pregame laughs out of current coach Mike Sullivan, who’s usually very intense and focused.
But Potash’s identity, if you will, has suddenly become these costumes, the sort of fun-loving attire than Penguins fans expect from their favorite sideline reporter.
“As a reporter and member of the media, we want to tell the story. We don’t want to be the story,” Potash said. “There’s a fine line there in making sure that I can have fun with this along with the players and the fans … but not be the main part the night. I don’t ever want to be that, in any story I do.
“But if I can provide a little laughter and a little fun and maybe inform the fan of something they didn’t know before, then I’m happy. I have the coolest job, and it’s one I’ll never take for granted.”
Jason Mackey: jmackey@post-gazette.com and Twitter @JMackeyPG.
First Published: February 28, 2019, 3:24 p.m.
