 |
| WFAA |
By Andrew Leffler
Syracuse, N.Y. - Many times, broadcasters try to please the public, and very seldom do they tell it how it is, without even a tad of sugarcoating.
Meet Dale Hansen, sportscaster for WFAA in Dallas. With no college degree, the Nebraska native has built himself a successful sports-broadcasting career, spanning more than three decades. Hansen says that what distinguishes him from others in his field, is that "I only say what I believe, and I absolutely believe what I say."
Hansen has made a profession that goes beyond the typical sportscaster job description.
The advances in technology have made life easier for the sports fan, and much more difficult for the sports anchor. On the one hand, technology has given the sports fan access to the very information a sportscaster would usually provide (scores, highlights, interviews), and on the other, it has forced sportscasters and sports anchors to distinguish themselves in such a way that an audience still watches them. Hansen sees that the role of the sportscaster is a dying breed, and because of this, he has had to view sports from a different lens.
Sports has proven to be a useful platform for Hansen to correlate important social and political issues.
"I do think there is something to be said the impact sports has on society in general. I think that a lot of the lessons that we supposedly follow in society are rooted in the same lessons we learn on the baseball field, you know playing ball as a kid."
While the world is not as good as Hansen would like it to be, and he acknowledges that it will probably never meet his expectations, he says he does understand that it's much better now than it used to be.
"It gets very discouraging, but it's true, and I find myself, I find myself wrestling with the simple fact that, that I thought 50 years ago when I was coming out of high school that my generation was going to change the world."
Hansen finds himself very fortunate to be able to work at a news-station that encourages him to state his opinions, regardless of how the station feels.
"I think I would swallow a bullet if I had to go on the air every night and say, 'here’s the ball scores from today’s games.' That would bore me to tears. I would’ve walked away from this business a long time ago, if that’s all I was allowed to do."
Sports has served as a vehicle for Hansen to introduce brow-raising subjects.
"On many nights I get incredibly frustrated that we still have so much racial discrimination, and the wars going on etc. But I just think that it’s imperative that we don’t give up and we keep trying to make the world a better place, and that’s in my opinion all I’m really trying to do in sports."
.
Dale Hansen Interview
Andrew: I'm here with Mr. Dale Hansen, could you just give some brief information about yourself.
Dale Hansen: I'm a sportscaster in Dallas, Texas at WFAA TV, and I have been for 33 years now. I have been a sports anchor in Dallas for 36 years, and I'm 68 years old, never went to college, and grew up in a small town in Logan, Iowa. And there is everything you need to know about me.
Andrew: Having not gone to college, and getting in this particular line of work, did you face any challenges?
Dale Hansen: Oh, it was very difficult. I got my first job at a radio station in Newton, Iowa, KCOB Newton, and I went to a trade school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin called, Career Academy, and I only spent a couple of months there, and then once I got into broadcasting, I started out as a disc jockey, and I guess I just kept moving along. But the first TV job I applied for was at KNTV in Omaha, Nebraska, and the first thing the news director said to me, I was primarily a news reporter at that time, and the first thing he said to me was, "where did you go to school?" And I said, Logan, Iowa. And he said, "no, where did you go to college?" And I said I never did. And he said, "well you can't work here. Every news reporter has to have a college degree, preferably one in journalism, but the very least, a college degree." During our conversation, the phone rings, his weekend sportscaster unexpectedly quit, so he turns to me and says, "do you like sports?" And I said, well heck I love sports. And he says, "how would you like to audition for the weekend sportscaster's job?" And I said, I thought you said everybody that works here needs to have a college degree, and he goes, "not to be a sportscaster, you don't need an education at all. Haha and I ended up getting hired, and that was in 1977, and I've been going ever since.
Andrew: How have you been able to take sports and approach it a different way? You have said that the job of a sportscaster is kind of a dying breed, just because, with the advances in technology, you can look at scores, highlights, just by the push of a button (touch of a screen). And I was wondering with that being said, do you feel that has enabled you to see sports in the way that you have, touching up on important social and political issues?
Dale Hansen: Yeah, I think that's exactly how I quite honestly, accidentally morphed into the way I do sports right now. One, I do think there is something to be said the impact sports has on society in general. I think that a lot of the lessons that we supposedly follow in society are, are rooted in the same lessons we learn on the baseball field, you know playing ball as a kid. But, but at the same time, I figured out a long time ago, and a lot of people didn't like it especially in the beginning, and some people still don't, but as you point out, I think it's very hard, not impossible maybe, but it's very hard to make a living going on the air at ten'o'clock at night, and telling you what happened in the Rangers game, because by ten'o'clock at night, when I started years ago, you probably didn't know what the score of the game was, you definitely hadn't seen the game, you haven't seen any of the highlights, you haven't heard any of the interviews with the players or the manager, and almost everything I was telling you ten'o'clock at night was fresh. Now, anyone who really cares, has probably seen the game. At the very least, anyone who cares has checked out the highlights, they absolutely know the score. So if I was just simply to go on the air at 10:20(pm) and say "today the Rangers played in Kansas..." and I do, and I mean I quite honestly do some of that. But if I was to simply go on the air, and the Rangers are playing in Kansas City tonight and here are the highlights and here is the score, there is really not much of a reason to watch me, because as you point out, you could get that from so many places now that it really doesn't add much to the conversation. So even when I'm doing a simple thing like highlights for a game, I still try to interject my own personality, my own arguments, if you will, I question players decisions, I point out mistakes a manager makes, you know whatever it might be, as best I can. But the most important aspect is I'm constantly looking for something I can write about other than the Rangers playing in Kansas City tonight, because that day is gone. That day's been gone for quite a while now, and it's not coming back.
Dale Hansen: I’m not afraid to criticize owners, or rich people, powerful people, that does appeal to a lot of people, but at the same time, I still to this day, after doing sports, basically this way for more than 20 years now, to this day I still get a lot of criticism when I say something that people don’t agree with. And when I write something they don’t like, they disagree with, then usually they begin their argument by saying that I have no business to give my opinions, just give us the ball scores, and I mean they don’t understand what I’m doing at all, and I don’t put a lot of stock in those arguments, to me it’s just common sense, I swear to you, I’ve never thought of it as being anything other than just common sense. I do think I have a great deal of common sense, but as I’ve also learned over the years, common sense is not necessarily all that common. And what I like to do is I speak to what I absolutely think is the truth, um I’m not saying that I’m right 100% of the time, obviously I think I am or I wouldn’t have said it. But I always believe that there is room for debate, there is wiggle room for many of the arguments that I make. It’s not as simple as people make it out to be in the sense that I speak the truth. When people say that, they usually say that because they agree with what I said, but if they didn’t agree with me, then they’d argue about the fact of my own personal glory, or that I’m just trying to sensationalize an argument, or whatever it might be.
Andrew: In the past you said that the message was to end discrimination, to end world hunger, to end wars, but you say that it’s still the case today and basically we talk the talk but don’t walk the walk. We say we want change, but we don’t do anything about it, with that being said, do you feel that in your segments you try to incorporate these sorts of issues?
Dale Hansen: It gets very discouraging, but its true, and I find myself, I find myself wrestling with the simple fact that, that I thought 50 years ago when I was coming out of high school that my generation was going to change the world. The reality is , and its funny you bring this up, because I just had this heated argument with one of my best friends, who is very discouraged about America right now, and he basically is giving up, he says he’s done. He’s frustrated by all of it. And for whatever reason I still have this attitude that while it’s not as good as I want it to be, the reality is, it’s never going to be as good as I want it to be, but I know for a fact that it’s better than it was when I was 18 years old. We’ve made a great deal of improvement in America, in society in that 50 years. Have we made enough? No, not even close, but it’s better, and at the end of the day, at the end of my life, all I really want to be able to say, is, is that we made a difference. We helped move the country forward, and that’s not enough for some people, and on many nights, it’s not enough for me. On many nights I get incredibly frustrated that we still have so much racial discrimination, and the wars going on etc. But I just think that it’s imperative that we don’t give up and we keep trying to make the world a better place, and that’s in my opinion all I’m really trying to do in sports. I think I would swallow a bullet if I had to go on the air every night and say, “here’s the ball scores from today’s games.” That would bore me to tears. I would’ve walked away from this business a long time ago, if that’s all I was allowed to do. But I’m very lucky, I work at a station that not only allows me to give my personal opinions about social issues, they encourage me to give my opinions, and even on several occasions when they don’t agree. There’s not many stations willing to do that, and I never forget how lucky I am to be working at this particular station at this time.
Andrew: In regards to your pieces on Baylor and Michael Sam, when planning what you are going to say, and maybe this person thinks you’re full of it, you’re completely wrong, how do you balance being able to say what you say, but also understanding that maybe the majority of the people, especially in Dallas, where we both know that football is one of the religions, how do you approach that?
Dale Hansen: Well I never, I never really worry about the critics. Um, I think that’s the simple starting point. When I first started doing this, started writing commentary years ago, uh the phones would light up, because you know 20 years or so ago, it was incredibly unusual for a sportscaster to be writing about the things that I write about and there were a lot of people in the newsroom or people in my own department who were concerned that I was getting this criticism. And critics have never bothered me, now let me be very clear about this, I wish everybody would write me and say how much they enjoyed what I had to say, how much they enjoyed my writing style, delivery, whatever. But, but many times, and certainly the Michael Sam commentary, is one of them, many times, I know that I’m going to get a flood of critical mail and phone calls, and I did, but I also knew I couldn’t say anything else. I never write, the bottom line is I never write anything to appeal to the audience, I don’t for a moment write with any thought in my head that this might anger somebody, or this will make people like me more, or whatever. I’m aware of that, you know, I’m aware of when I am writing somebody is going to love this or somebody is going to hate this, but it never influences my writing, and I do think that there are people that make that mistake. I think that there are people who do want to write something but they are afraid of offending someone, or getting the backlash the criticism will bring, and consequently they temper their comments, and they lose the edge. And I think if anything that is the one thing that I do well, is that I only say what I believe, and I absolutely believe what I say, and I think people are aware of that. Now for the most part, not everybody but for the most part, when people do disagree with me, it’s usually pretty cordial. They state their opinion, certainly the people that know I respect the disagreement, but people I think in many cases make that mistake of trying to write to the audience, instead of writing for the audience. And by that I mean, in this conservative state of Texas that I live in now as you well know, I never thought for a moment, that I can’t say this because a lot of people won’t like it. That never ever crossed my mind. Now I did think a lot, that people weren’t going to like it, but I just don’t care about that, I never have. And when I think you start writing, and you start doing commentaries and opinions, bottom line doing your job, and you start doing that based on how someone is going to feel about that, I think you’re in a lot of trouble. It’s the same way I cover the teams. I can’t report on a football team, worrying about whether or not the owner, general manager or the coach or the players are going to like me, and a lot of sportscasters in particular do. They want to be buddies with the coach, they want to be buddies with the players, so they temper their remarks, and their criticism, because they don’t want to offend any of the players, and I haven’t done it that way for you know, 30 plus years, and I think I’m doing quite well. People have this mistaken notion, and it’s an absolutely mistaken notion that if they don’t offend anybody, if they don’t make people think that everybody will love them, and the reality is that they just don’t and they never will.
Andrew: Mr. Hansen, thank you very much for your time.
No comments:
Post a Comment