‘He just got things done’: Hanson retires after decades of bringing sports to Wichita
After more than two decades as a key figure behind the biggest sporting events in Wichita, Bob Hanson announced Friday that he is retiring as president of the Greater Wichita Area Sports Commission at the end of the year.
Hanson is best known as the creator of the Buster Posey National Collegiate Catcher of the Year Award, for developing the Prairie Fire Marathon Race Series and for the campaign to make INTRUST Bank Arena a reality in downtown Wichita.
If a major sporting event was happening in Wichita over the past 23 years, there’s a good chance Hanson helped in some way to bring it to the city.
“When I started looking for jobs in 1997, I had never heard of a sports commission,” Hanson said. “And my job was just a concept before they hired me. They had a concept and then I just took it and ran with it. I thought it seemed like a great opportunity and it turned out to be something that was. It’s been great for me and my family and we’ve enjoyed our part in the community.
“I knew two people when I came to Wichita. Now I feel like I know everybody in Wichita.”
When talking to his peers, Hanson’s tireless work ethic is the first thing that always is brought up.
“Bob is a doer, a guy who is going to get in the trenches and just get things done,” said Kevin Jenks, the general manager of the NBC World Series. “He’s a throwback, old-school kind of guy. In the sports world, you really have to go in with the mentality that no one is going to help you and it’s on you to get things done. That’s Bob in a nutshell. He just got things done.”
The best example of this came in 1999, when Hanson and Mike Gehrer, the former Collegiate football coach, attended the Lou Groza Award ceremony in Florida to watch Kansas State’s Jamie Rheem. On the way back from the event, Gehrer made an off-hand comment about how it would be neat if Wichita could host a national award ceremony like that.
The two brainstormed what award could be possible and Gehrer mentioned nothing was done for catchers. Less than one month later, Hanson had a commitment from Johnny Bench to launch a national award. The next year, in 2000, the Johnny Bench National Collegiate Catcher of the Year was awarded in Wichita and is still hosted annually under Posey’s name.
“The thing about Bob that always amazed me was his willingness, his doggedness,” Gehrer said. “He just stays after it. Some people thought that project might have been too big. Bob was never that guy. He never was afraid to go ask and he never backed down. That was the basketball coach in him. He always had a terrific work ethic. He just got things done.”
That doggedness comes from growing up on his family’s farm in LaGrange, Wyoming, where Hanson developed the tireless work ethic that made him successful in life.
“That’s where I learned how to work hard and that’s all I’ve ever done since,” Hanson said.
When he was hired in 1997, Hanson said he had never taken a marketing class in his life. But in a way, Hanson had spent his entire career in a different kind of marketing.
While Hanson is known in Wichita for his role in bringing sports to the community, he spent the first 55 years of his life mostly in the college basketball realm. After a standout career at Wyoming, Hanson most notably was the head coach at Nebraska-Omaha for 25 years from 1969-94 and an assistant at Kansas State from 1994-97. He also served as the president of the National Basketball Coaches Association.
“There’s no doubt that coaching helped me tremendously when it came to this job,” Hanson said. “As a recruiter in basketball, you have to be able to sell what you’re doing. When I was at Omaha, I had to fund-raise money for my program and I was able to do that regularly and efficiently.”
It also helped that Hanson never took no for an answer, which became a hallmark of his over the years in Wichita.
“I once had someone tell me, ‘I don’t know what part of the word no you don’t understand, but you are the most persistent son of a gun I’ve ever met,’” Hanson said, laughing.
In the last two decades, Hanson has played a role in bringing an array of high-profile events to Wichita, including the World League Volleyball, the Intercollegiate Bowling Championships, the USATF National Junior Olympics Track & Field Championships and WNBA and NBA exhibition games.
Hanson said there isn’t any one thing that sticks out to him when he looks back on his body of work. Rather, it’s the totality of everything he was able to achieve “with limited dollars” over the years.
Those who know him say his legacy in Wichita is secure.
“Bob’s legacy is instrumental to a lot of sports organizations and sports events in Wichita since he came in 1997,” Jenks said. “When you look at his resume and his impact, it’s impressive.”
“People might not recognize him because he was never worried about being out in front and center, but he’s the man behind the scenes making things happen,” Gehrer said. “Bob was able to make a lot of things happen because of the tireless work that he and his staff at the sports commission put in over the years.”
Hanson, who turns 80 in April, said he isn’t sure what he’ll do in retirement. He wants to travel more with his wife, Linda, who he has dated since they were two of eight total members of their high school graduating class in Wyoming. He would also like to continue his streak of attending the NCAA’s Final Four, which he says he has been to every year for the last 50 years.
For the first time in his adult life, Hanson is about to have time to spend on himself. After so many years of constantly being on the move, he says that will be a nice change of pace.
“I don’t feel any different than when I was 55 when I came here,” Hanson said. “Maybe I’m not as limber or as nimble, but I continue to work out and eat healthy. So I still have my energy and I’ll be excited to see the future of the commission.
“I put 23 years of ideas in there and now it’s time for someone new to come in and start putting in new ideas and bring new energy to the place.”
This story was originally published November 6, 2020 at 12:38 PM.
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