MHS grad climbs sports TV ladder to Detroit
Sports reporter
Camera on shoulder, mic in hand, and heart in throat, she stared eye-to-eye with the man with the salt-and-pepper beard and enough championship rings for all but one pinkie.
Minutes later she was interviewing a seven-foot, 300-pound basketball god, and then the most popular player in the National Basketball Association.
Just two months earlier the once medical school-bound college student was finishing her communications degree in preparation for a sports anchor position in Cheyenne, Wyo.
Sure, as a division one basketball player at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill., she'd been around cameras and newspaper reporters before, but it didn't really compare to Phil Jackson, Shaquille O'Neal, and Kobe Bryant.
Now, Katrina Hancock, former Marion resident, wouldn't even bat an eye if the Hall of Fame coach and all-world basketball players walked into the room.
Then, in the spring of 2001, it was a different story.
"My heart was pounding," Hancock said of her first big-time interviews as a sport anchor. "Afterwards I sat in my car and said, 'What did I just do?'"
The 1995 MHS grad then knew what she was doing was for real.
Three strikes, but not out
It really didn't matter that she was named 1995 MHS Senior Athlete of the Year. It didn't matter that she was good enough to be on the Wichita State University volleyball team, or graduate from Bradley University in Peroria, Ill., with a double major and three years of division I basketball under her belt.
Katrina Hancock is tall, blonde, and female, and that's all that mattered to some of her colleagues who are mostly middle-aged, out of shape, but more importantly, male.
"I have three strikes against me," Hancock said. "That's the way it will always be. It is what it is."
That doesn't mean Hancock likes that her profession is male dominated, or she has to work twice has hard to earn respect, but she knows it's the reality.
"When I first started it was very intimidating," she said. "[Men] look at you differently. But it shouldn't be that way."
Whether it was in Topeka, Cheyenne, Toledo, Ohio, or currently Detroit, the same stigma of being a woman persisted.
Now though, at 30 years old, Hancock has earned the respect of not only the sporting news world, but the athletes as well.
In December she was hired by WDIV-TV in Detroit as a weekend sports anchor/reporter. She also hosts a weekly sports talk show on the same channel, Sports Final Edition — a program that has been on the air for nearly 40 years.
She just became the second female sportscaster in Detroit since 1984.
"It's a great boost," Hancock said. "It showed the news director had great confidence in me."
Having fun
Since breaking into the business in 2001, Hancock has had her share of fun.
She packed her bags three weeks after graduating from Bradley and drove to Cheyenne for her job at KGWN.
"I took the job sight unseen," she said.
After a phone interview she was hired on the spot and began working. Just 90 miles north of Denver, she was able to cover the National Hockey League's Colorado Avalanche during its Stanley Cup victory season. It also was there, while covering the Denver Nuggets, she interviewed multiple stars including the trio of Jackson, O'Neal, and Bryant.
Just a few weeks ago she did a piece on Detroit Tiger Magglio Ordonez, who isn't cutting his hair all season.
Hancock went to downtown Detroit and had an Ordonez replica wig made, complete with curly, dark locks down to her shoulders.
She then had Tiger fans try on the wigs for her piece that would run on the air.
The fun and excitement are great, but at the same time, Hancock knows it means late hours and little time for much else.
"The life span of a TV anchor is about five years," she said, "because they get fed up."
Mainly anchors get fed up with the amount of time and effort, which can include shifts until the wee hours of the night, but Hancock loves it all.
She loves being in a town that has baseball, hockey, and basketball teams that are among the elite in their leagues.
This season she covered the opening day for the Tigers who last year played in the team's first World Series in 22 years.
"It's going to be crazy up here," she said of the baseball season.
At the same time Hancock knows big-time television gigs usually mean living in a large town. Detroit fits that category with a population of more than one million.
A far cry from the feel of 2,000 in her hometown of Marion.
"It's definitely not Kansas," Hancock said with a laugh. "Here there is terrible weather, murder, road rage, crime. My mom was totally freaked out. But now she's OK with it."
Her mom Anita is used to the small-town life. She has lived in Marion since 1989, and still teaches music at Marion Elementary School.
"I feel for her safety," Anita said. "She works late at night and I'm concerned for her when she drives to her condo. My prayer life is very active."
At the same time she is proud of her daughter's accomplishments. On a recent trip to Detroit, Anita saw first-hand Katrina's love and passion for her job.
"You can tell she is very excited and loves the human interest story. She finds stories other sports reporters don't. I appreciate that about her."
Although Katrina is used to bigger cities now, she remembers where she came from, coming back to Kansas every six to eight weeks.
Town residents have not forgotten where she came from either, including former speech teacher Mary Griffith.
"She is one of our success stories," Griffith said, "because we can see her on TV."
Katrina spoke at an event last year Griffith and former speech teacher Janet Killough both attended. Griffith was impressed with the anchor.
"She was so complimentary of Marion," Griffith said. "She said it all started with her high school background."
A background that is well-rounded and includes forensics, sports, and even musicals.
Although she enjoyed the public speaking, it was medicine that motivated her in high school. Even in college she thought medical school was what she wanted to do.
That was until Dave Snell of WNBD radio in Illinois, who interviewed her during her Bradley playing career, said she should try sports broadcasting.
"I was like, 'You're crazy, dude,'" Katrina said.
The more she thought about the idea, the more she liked it.
"He kind of planted that seed," she said of Snell.
With enough prerequisites already taken, she hurried for a second degree in communications, and finished it by December 2000.
Hitting the big time
Katrina's life right now is focused on the Detroit-area sports scene, but at times Manhattan, N.Y., is on her mind as well.
That's where her agent Ezra Marcus calls home. Marcus' firm, N.S. Bienstock, has clients such as Dan Rather, Bill O'Reilly, and Anderson Cooper.
And it also has Katrina Hancock.
"I knew from the minute we met she had that 'it' factor," Marcus said.
Marcus' job is to find clients in the smaller markets outside of New York, Los Angeles, and other large cities.
Marcus, a former TV news reporter for KSN in Topeka, said his duties for Hancock are similar to that of a Hollywood agent.
He job hunts, negotiates contracts, and helps her with fine tuning her writing and delivery while on air.
Marcus said Hancock had all the basic tools when they met.
"She's now breaking through the scene," he said.
Despite Marcus working in downtown Manhattan and Hancock in metropolitan Detroit, it's Kansas that once again plays a big role in Hancock's life.
Dale Messing, who worked for KSN and now lives in Kansas City, is one of Marcus' Midwest contacts. Messing knew Hancock from working in Topeka, and recommended her to Marcus.
"He's a good friend," Marcus said of Messing. "He's my eyes and ears in Kansas City, Topeka, and Wichita."
That extra set of eyes and ears helped Hancock move to where she is today.
Kansas not forgotten
No matter how long Katrina is away from Marion, the "Town Between Two Lakes" always will seem like home.
An avid KU fan, Hancock attended the 2006 first round NCAA tournament game between KU and her alma mater, Bradley.
She wore a Bradley hat and KU sweatshirt. But who was she rooting for?
"Both. Well, maybe Bradley a little bit more because they paid my way through school," she said with a laugh.
Still, Kansas is in the back of her mind even while she sits in front of a camera, informing millions of Detroit fans whether their teams won or lost.
At the same time she has appreciated living in smaller towns such as Toledo and Cheyenne, and mixing her experiences there with that of bigger cities.
She's covered everything form rodeo events to the Stanley Cup and high school heroes to NBA legends.
No longer in awe of professional athletes, reporting and anchoring has become a job for Hancock — but a fun one at that.
Shaq and Kobe on the court, might as well be Jim and Bob by the water cooler.
For Hancock it's all in a day's (or night's) work. And she wouldn't have it any other way.
"I'm in the job I'm supposed to be in," she said.
