Don Hansen's Short Bio

• Don is also recognized as an Authority on Small College Football.
• He is a member of Melberger Award Selection Committee.
• A member of the Committee for NCAA Division III player of the year.
• A member of the John Gagliardi Award selection committee and Sports Information Directors of America. 
• A member of the NCAA Division II Hall of Fame Committee.
• A member of the "The Farm Team All-American Selection Committee.
• Celebrity Certificate of Appreciation from the American Red Cross.
• Listed in the following Marques Who's Who, America, The World, The Media, The Midwest and Finance and Industry.
• Leadership Trophy from Chase Park, Chicago
• Statistician of the Year, Oak Park-River Forest High School, Oak Park, Ill
• Originator of Oak Park annual wrestling tournament
• He also contributes articles to professional Journals. 
• His polls have been published all over the Nation.

My uncle Tom Bourgart was already attending small college football games back in the mid-1950's when one day he asked me to go with him to a football game, and I've become hooked ever since. At that time we would travel by car over quite a wide area each weekend, and try to catch a day game and a night game. Some years we would see as many as 20 games.

Back then we could catch a Friday night game, maybe in River Falls, Wisconsin, catch a day and night game on Saturday in Minnesota and finally catch a game on Sunday also in Minnesota. I continued to feed my enjoyment of college football throughout the years. In 1980, I would make predictions on all the college football games and send them out to newspapers across the nation. Football News asked me to rank the smaller college divisions (NCAA 1-AA, II, III and NAIA) along with my predictions for them. I also did All-Americans for them that year. It is hard to believe, but I have been covering football since 1980. But the real motivation to create my own niche in this world started many years earlier.

I had spent many years in children's homes, foster homes, and orphanages since I was six. When I was 13 years old in 1949, while living with my dad, I took off hitchhiking from Williams Park, Illinois to Ajo, Arizona, which I've always considered as my adopted city, to find my mother.

I was only in Ajo a short time, but my experience there has stuck with me and been an inspiration to me for the rest of my life.

While in Ajo, I met a girl who was able to restore a belief in myself and help me in developing my confidence. We enjoyed roller-skating in the outdoor roller rink, swimming in a "cow watering hole" and taking long walks in the desert.

It's funny, but a few years ago I wrote a "letter to the editor" in the Ajo Copper News trying to locate her after all these years. One problem was that the only name I new her by was "Toughie", and after running the "letter to the editor" in the Ajo Copper News for several weeks, it seemed as though no one recalled a girl with the nickname "Toughie". I remember Ajo with a special place in my heart and always will. The people in Ajo were some of the nicest that I have ever met and retain a special place in my memory.

Skipping a few eventful years, I received my discharge from the U.S. Navy and proceeded to live in Mexico for a while and in 1955 I moved to Kansas City, Missouri. In Kansas City I started out by setting pins in a bowling alley, worked in a Mexican bakery, worked as a busboy in the Muhlenbach Hotel, vended Coca-Cola at the Kansas City Athletics games and finally laid rail for the Santa Fe railroad in Kansas.

I was getting no where and I didn't have a high school education. I went back to Mexico and soon decided to return to my place of origin in Chicago. I yearned to have a high school education. But I finally decided that the best I could do at 21 was to get my GED. While working in an old peoples home in Kenilworth, Illinois, in their laundry, I studied for my GED.

I finally received an Associate Degree in Accounting, and worked 21 years at a meat packing company in Chicago.

People have been asking me for years how I got started in covering small college football and I thought that there might be more people out there wanting to know what gives me the drive to persist in doing the Football Gazette. It is still a struggle, to keep the Gazette going, as I am unable to attract advertisers, but somehow I keep managing to keep it going.

Don't forget I love college football.

My ex-wife Rose, is a success in her own right, and brought four wonderful kids into this life that both of us can enjoy. Both my boys, David (Bachelors' degree in computer science [Football Gazette's WebMaster and Assistant Editor]), Daniel (Bachelors' degree in Physical Therapy) are married and own their own home. My girls, Teresa (insurance underwriter) and Donna (housewife) have great husbands and own their own homes.