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North Texas sports loses another strong voice with Dale Hansen’s retirement | Opinion

Since Ellen DeGeneres announced she is ending her show it makes sense that her good friend, Dale Hansen, is as well.

The big man with the bigger mouth who has been around DFW for 38 years is retiring.

(For the uninitiated, Hansen appeared on The Ellen Show in 2014 after his commentary about Missouri defensive end Michael Sam, who is gay, went viral.)

WFAA in Dallas made the announcement on Tuesday that Hansen is done. Dale’s first show on the station was March 28, 1983. His last is scheduled for Sept. 2, 2021.

“I’ll be damned. This is the end of the TV dinosaur era right here,” former Dallas Morning News and Fort Worth Star-Telegram sports columnist Randy Galloway said in a phone conversation. “I don’t think in any other major TV market you’d have an old, fat, bald white guy who is very liberal on the air this long. Hansen survived and thrived all these years.”

Hansen returned a phone call shortly after the announcement.

“I’m looking for reasons not to get on the treadmill so this is working out great,” Hansen said. “I am not afraid [of retirement], but I am not excited about the next major event in my life I can tell you that.

“One of the reasons I’ve been sticking around for the last few years is just that. I think a piece of me dies when I do this. Maybe the best part of me.”

Sources said Hansen originally wanted to extend his run with the WFAA, but had some structural editorial disagreements with management. Rather than stay, he simply has decided to end a historic tenure.

“It’s accurate in that I’ve had those disagreements for about 38 years. That was a small part of it,” Hansen said. “It was nothing major. There was nothing that could not have been worked out had I wanted to work it out. I didn’t. ... The last few years I was working for a check.”

Whenever Dale’s final interview is with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones will be must-watch TV. No one in this area has more repressed Dale hate than Jerry.

Hansen’s retirement is the slow continuation of the departure of our most recognized, and accomplished, men who covered the Dallas-Fort Worth sports since basically its inception, which unofficially would be the birth of the Cowboys in 1960.

Men such as Blackie Sherrod, Frank Luksa, Jim Reeves, Galloway, Norm Hitzges, Eric Nadal, Brad Sham, Scott Murray, and Mike Rhyner.

The rest of us try like hell to be those guys, but ... we’re not.

“The greatest compliment I can give Dale is I wish he had retired 10 to 15 years ago,” said Mike Doocy of KDFW Fox 4. With Hansen’s departure, Doocy will become DFW’s longest tenured sports TV anchor.

“When I got here in 1994, he was the dominant figure in sports media in this market, and to have retained that for all of these years is just amazing. I take no pleasure in saying that as a competitor. I’m also realistic in what a huge voice he’s been and continues to be. It’s so rare to put together a career like that, especially in one market.”

What you saw on your TV with Hansen’s commentary is not shtick. He is unapologetically candid, quite often left of a Nancy Pelosi, and drives viewers to the point where the station receives complaints —and threats — over Hansen.

With his unique delivery, and opinions, Hansen drove ratings.

People hate the hell out of Dale Hansen. People watch the hell out Dale Hansen.

The guy won every award except a Tony.

In the ’80s, his interviews and investigation into the SMU football program ultimately led to the NCAA giving the program “The Death Penalty.”

In the ‘90s, Hansen was a part of the radio broadcast team for the Dallas Cowboys for 10 years. It’s not every day, or decade, when the team’s radio analyst is openly critical of the team’s owner.

“It’s true what you see on Channel 8 is what people get off the air,” said Hansen’s partner with the Cowboys, the team’s long time radio voice, Brad Sham.

“Dale was never going to try to do the job of being the analyst in a conventional way. He was going to do it in a Dale way. But to say that he didn’t care about that job would be an incorrect assumption. He cared a lot.”

Hansen’s tenure with the Cowboys ended in 1996, not long after he had a heated on-air debate with then coach Barry Switzer.

The confrontation was uncomfortable TV gold, with Dale calling Switzer out on his lies and Switzer brashly attacking Dale in return. It was two kicking mules locked in a closet.

After Dale left the Cowboys, he eventually added to his resume with brief tenures as a radio show host on ESPN 103.3 FM, and other places.

In recent years, the station gave him a broader platform. His editorials on social issues, which were titled “Unplugged,” often created viral hits.

He says his editorial on Michael Sam “changed my life.”

“I came into the station and they were saying, ‘You went viral,’ and I thought, ‘I feel fine,’” Hansen said. “I didn’t know what it meant.”

Hansen also credits his friendship with WFAA weatherman Pete Delkus as a big reason he remained on air with the station.

Over the last five years, as men like Rhyner and Galloway retired, there was considerable speculation when Hansen would walk.

“Well, now you know,” he said. “I wanted to be sure my finances are in order, and if they’re not ... I’ll be the greeter at Wal-Mart telling you where the hammers are located.”