Dale Hansen is calling it a career from WFAA 8 in Dallas - Fort Worth after 38 years.
The opinionated sportscaster will retire September 2, 2021.
UPDATE SEPTEMBER 2021
Dale Hansen WFAA 8 retirement videos
UPDATE JULY 2021
Joe Trahan named WFAA weeknight sports anchor
“There's an old proverb that says all good things must come to an end, and it's true, all good things do,” Hansen said on WFAA.com. “I've been waiting 25 years for the Cowboys to win another Super Bowl and I can't wait anymore.”
In April of 2009, I linked to Barry Horn's "Hot Air" sports column in the Dallas Morning News where columnist Barry Horn wrote concerning Hansen's reaction to then Houston sports anchor Giff Nielsen leaving KHOU 11:
"This week goes to WFAA sports anchor Dale Hansen in reaction to something he read after the resignation of KHOU sports anchor Gifford Nielsen. KHOU's news director, Keith Connors, was quoted as saying: 'There may be a better sportscaster out there, but you won't find a better person than Gifford Nielsen.'
Reacted Hansen: 'I told the people at Channel 8 that when I go, I'd rather them say, 'There may be a better person out there, but you won't find a better sportscaster than Dale Hansen.'"
I think Hansen's WFAA colleagues and DFW TV competitors would echo that statement.
He outlasted all of his long time competitors and has racked up a long list of awards to prove it.
In 2017, Hansen cut back his duties to just the 10pm newscast and Sunday night show “Sports Special,” but he has kept going all of these years.
Dale Hansen's start in broadcasting
The DFW broadcasting legend started his broadcasting career as a radio DJ and operations manager at Newton, Iowa's KCOB according to Wikipedia. That led to a job as a sports reporter for KMTV Omaha, Nebraska.
In 1980, Texas came calling when Hansen took a job with then CBS affiliate KDFW channel 4 (now FOX 4) in Dallas.
Ed "Uncle Barky" Bark wrote on March 22, 1983 (presumably in the Dallas Morning News, and reprinted on his blog) that Hansen was fired from KDFW by then news director William Wilson.
"It's been two years of Dale and the station management in a virtually continual adversarial relationship," then general manager John McKay told Bark in 1983. "Some months were better than others, but Dale chooses to do things his way. This is a team effort and Dale has trouble with team sports."
Turns out it was the second time Wilson told Hansen to leave a station. Previously the two worked at KMTV where Wilson let Hansen go. Hansen then joined KDFW, right before Wilson got a the job as ND at the Dallas station.
"I honestly believe I was a team player," Hansen told Bark back then. "I gave it a helluva shot with what I had to work with. The station has the pure-and-simple philosophy to promote and get the ratings. Given what I was given to work with, I tried to put on something that would make people tune in. I believe I did. Say what you will, but the ratings were there."
Clearly Hansen had the last laugh, and from what I've heard, and he has kind of said himself over the years, I think Hansen still, "chooses to do things his way."
Hansen joins WFAA
Just days after Bark's article on March 28, 1983, Hansen joined WFAA where he has been ever since.
“For more than 38 years Dale Hansen has informed and entertained our audience like no other, and we are forever grateful for his dedication to our team and to the North Texas community,” said WFAA President and General Manager, Brad Ramsey the station's website. “From major breaking sports news, to powerful investigations, to standing up for human rights, Dale forged an unprecedented path and became so much more than a sports anchor. There will simply never be another Dale Hansen.”
The investigation that Hansen will always be remembered for was his coverage of the 1986 Southern Methodist University football pay-for-play scandal. His reporting earned him two top journalism awards in 1987 - the George Foster Peabody Award for Distinguished Journalism and the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award.
Hansen also served as the Dallas Cowboys radio color analyst during the team's dominant Super Bowl years in the 1990s.
Hansen gets 'Unplugged'
In more recent times, his "Hansen: Unplugged" commentary segments have earned him ink in places such as the Washington Post and New York Times where fellow journalists praise his progressive and viral stances.
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“Dale’s contributions to the industry reached across the globe thanks to the power of social media," WFAA Vice President and Station Manager, Carolyn Mungo said on the TEGNA station's website. "I will always remember when we first told Dale he had gone viral. He had no idea what that meant. Thanks to Dale, the entire newsroom learned how to reach new audiences. At the end of the day, we will lose an anchor, but we will also lose a teacher.”
Now in his early 70s, Hansen can look back on a long career that led him to be the first local television broadcaster to win the Radio Television Digital News Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019.
