Former Republic and South Bend Tribune assistant sports editor Eric Hansen sits in the press box overlooking Notre Dame Stadium. Hansen, who now is publisher for Inside ND, was inducted into the Indiana Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame on Sunday.
Submitted photo
GREENWOOD — Eric Hansen remembers his first assignment as a sports writer at The Republic after arriving in town in August of 1983.
The Cleveland native and Ohio State graduate was sent with a local Fiero dealer to Indianapolis Motor Speedway to do a story since Fiero was going to be the official pace car of the Indy 500 the following May. When they got there, the car dealer and Hansen each had a chance to drive a lap around IMS.
“My editors were like, ‘Oh let’s let him get his feet wet,’” Hansen said. “They invited car dealers up there, and the guy from Columbus decided to bring me with him. You got to take two laps. One guy would take one, and then we would switch seats, and I got to drive the second lap. I hadn’t driven a stick in a few years, and I stalled the car. So 32 cars were in front of me. I passed every one of them, and on Turn 4, I pulled even with the pace car. Coming up to the last turn, I came up to the pace car, and I passed him. I was bound and determined I was going to cross the line first.”
Nearly four decades and thousands of stories later, Hansen is a Hall of Famer. He was inducted Sunday afternoon into the Indiana Sportswriters and Sportscasters Hall of Fame during its annual banquet at Valle Vista Golf Club in Greenwood.
Hansen stayed in Columbus for a little more than three years, working as a sports writer for sports editor Jeff Hittler, than as assistant sports editor for sports editor Eric Wohlford. One of the stories Hansen wrote that first fall he was at The Republic in 1983 was on Columbus East graduate and Notre Dame then-senior quarterback Blair Kiel.
“Blair Kiel played for a guy that turned out to be my father-in-law (John Stafford), so I wrote a feature on him,” Hansen said. “He and I got to be friends after awhile, and because he had played for John Stafford, and we kind of had that connection. So we stayed in touch after I left Columbus, and he was doing other things.”
Hansen left Columbus in December 1986 and went to the Hammond Times. After a year-and-a-half there, he embarked on a 33-year career at the South Bend Tribune.
At the Tribune, Hansen covered Notre Dame football and served as assistant sports editor. He also was managing editor of Irish Sports Report for seven years.
Hansen also was co-host for the radio show Weekday Sports Beat on WSBT in South Bend for nine years.
“We did some other stuff in the offseason, but we were Notre Dame football all the time, and we had a national audience because of it,” Hansen said. “We’d have (former Notre Dame football coach) Brian Kelly on, and we’d have callers from all over the world. We’d hear from Ireland, Canada, all over the United States. It was pretty crazy how wide Notre Dame’s following is.”
Hansen has written two books on Notre Dame football. His 2004 book, “Notre Dame Fighting Irish: Colorful tales of the Blue and Gold” was a first-place winner for non-fiction books by the Indiana Society of Professional Journalists. A year later, he published “Notre Dame Fighting Irish: Where Have You Gone?” He has won several national awards from the Football Writers Association of America.
On Dec. 31, Hansen left the South Bend Tribune, and on Jan. 1, became publisher for Inside ND Sports, which is part of the Rivals College Sports Network. He covers mostly football, basketball and baseball at Notre Dame, but occasionally branches out to other sports when a compelling story pops up, such as when the Irish fencing team went to the national championship.
In his acceptance speech at Sunday’s ISSA Hall of Fame banquet, Hansen shared a story about reaching out to one of his college professors from Ohio State a few years ago. Hansen knew that the professor, Carl Tyrie, had left OSU for Appalachian State in Boone, North Carolina, and Hansen looked up his address and mailed him a letter updating him on his career and the awards he had won and thanking Tyrie for what he had done to help Hansen in his development as a writer.
“I sent him a letter catching him up on my life, and he sent me back all my grades and my notations from the stories I had written when I was in his class,” Hansen said. “It blew me out of the water. I still have it. It’s one of the coolest things that ever happened to me.”
Then in January, when Hansen wrote his farewell column for the South Bend Tribune, he wanted to share it with Tyrie and again looked him up. This time, though, he discovered an obituary for Tyree from the summer of 2020.
“He never let on that he thought I was great,” Hansen said. “He was tough, but very fair. I’m glad I got to share with him while he was still alive.”
Hansen also credited former Republic executive editor Stu Huffman and former managing editor Harry McCawley for taking a chance on a young kid from Ohio.
“Columbus Republic was the best thing for my career,” Hansen said. “The people were the best there. They were really incredible there, and they set me off on a great trajectory. I’ll always be thankful for working at the Columbus Republic.”
