San Diego sports broadcaster Lee “Hacksaw” Hamilton has watched a lot of sports in his lifetime. And, he’s expecting this Sunday’s Super Bowl game to be a doozy.
His career started in southeast Ohio as a radio play-by-play announcer for high school football games for the Logan Chieftains. Then, as a student at Ohio University in Athens, he called football games for the Ohio Bobcats, including the 1968 Tangerine Bowl.
From Ohio, he moved to Utica, New York, to call games for the Utica Blue Sox, a minor league baseball, as well as minor league hockey games. His love for hockey took him to call World Hockey Association games for the Cleveland Crusaders and Indianapolis Racers in the mid 1970s.
He relocated to Phoenix to host sports talk shows on KTAR before arriving in San Diego in 1987. He worked for 26 years in the San Diego market, including stints at XTRA Sports 690-AM (1987-2008), Sirius XM’s Home Plate Channel (2009-2012) and The Mighty 1090-AM (2011-2017). He also hosted talk shows for KLAC Fox Sports 570-AM in Los Angeles and the Fox Sports Radio network.
Hamilton was the radio voice of the San Diego Chargers from 1986 to 1997, covering the team’s lone Super Bowl appearance in 1995. He also has done NFL play-by-play for the Seattle Seahawks and Compass Media Networks, in addition to his college play-by-play work for the USC Trojans, Arizona State Sun Devils and San Diego State University Aztecs.
His TV career has included working as the weekend sports anchor on XETV Channel 6 (2016-2018) and, currently, Saturday morning appearances on KUSI-TV, which began in 2018.
For the past 10 years, the Rancho Bernardo resident has stayed busy creating content for his website, www.leehacksawhamilton.com, where his fans read his “Hacksaw’s Headlines” columns and listen to and watch to his commentaries, called “Best 15 Minutes” and “One Man’s Opinion,” plus his twice-a-week podcasts.
Hamilton says he has more than 4,500 subscribers to his YouTube channel. And he says his three-times-a-week commentaries posted on Instagram have drawn impressive numbers, depending on the topic, including: former Los Angeles Chargers coach Brandon Staley is in over his head (110,000 hits in 30 hours); the Spanos family (350,000 hits in one week); money problems for the late San Diego Padres owner Peter Seidler (400,000 hits in two weeks).
“Don’t write that I’m retired, because I’m not,” the 76-year-old told Times of San Diego. “I’m working to keep my brand active. I’m an old guy using all these social media platforms like a young person. I know I’m 76, but I feel like I’m 46. And, I still have my Royal manual typewriter in my garage.”
Hamilton says his health is fine and admits to being a workaholic when it comes to sports.
“Sports journalism is not what I do, it’s who I am,” he said. “It’s in my DNA. I have sports in my genes.
“Before he went to World War II, my father was a pro baseball player for the Philadelphia Athletics. Also, my uncle, Jack Mahon, was a sportswriter covering the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1930s and 1940s. Then, he covered General MacArthur in the Pacific theater. I have a photo of my uncle on the U.S.S. Missouri, watching the signing of the Japanese surrender treaty.”
Hamilton got the “Hacksaw” nickname while working as a radio talk-show host in Cleveland. “We had kind of a stormy night on the air,” he said. “After the show, a guy said ‘Man, you were like a Hacksaw. You cut through all the bull.’ That was the start of it, and the name followed me to Phoenix, then to San Diego.”
On San Diego radio stations, he was famous for such lines as “I want to talk sports with you,” “Show me your lighting bolt,” “I am bleeping brilliant,” “I know everything about everything,” and “Raider Nation, out of jail and out on bail, give me a call.”
At this later point in his life, Hamilton admits he has experienced a storybook career.
“Who would have thought. Here I was, an 8-year-old kid growing up on Long Island, who used to sit on the front porch reading the box scores in the newspaper,” he said. “I’ve had a spectacular career in radio-TV journalism. I’ve worked at some of the biggest radio stations in the country. I’ve called NFL games. I’ve been living the dream.”
Regarding the National Football League’s Super Bowl LVIII championship game on Sunday, Feb. 11 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Hamilton is predicting the Kansas City Chiefs will defeat the San Francisco 49ers by the score of 35-31.
“Look for a lot of scoring and a turnover or two,” Hamilton said. “It will be a great game. It is a superb matchup between two genius coaches with Kyle Shanahan (49ers) and Andy Reid (Chiefs). But Reid’s experience and the Chiefs’ brain trust with Matt Nagy (offensive coordinator) and Steve Spagnuolo (defensive coordinator) will be the difference.”
Both Nagy and Spagnuolo are former NFL head coaches. Nagy spent four years with the Chicago Bears, leaving in 2021. Spagnuolo, who has run the Chiefs’ defense the past five years, led the Los Angeles Rams for three seasons and was an interim head coach of the New York Giants. No other NFL team this past season had two former head coaches as coordinators.
It will be the Chiefs’ fourth trip to the Super Bowl in the past five seasons, giving the defending champions a chance to be the first team to win consecutive Super Bowl championships since the New England Patriots did it almost two decades ago.
The Chiefs have won three Super Bowls. The 49ers have five Super Bowl wins, but the San Francisco team hasn’t won since 1995, when the 49ers beat the San Diego Chargers 49-26 in Super Bowl XXIX.
It was the Chiefs who stopped the 49ers from their most-recent opportunity at the Lombardi Trophy in 2020. More than a dozen players on both teams also played in the 2020 game won by Kansas City 31-20 in Miami.
“Spagnuolo will devise a few schemes that (49ers quarterback) Brock Purdy has never seen before,” said Hamilton. “Brock is young and not as experienced as (Chiefs quarterback) Patrick Mahomes.” Purdy was picked last in the 2022 draft.
“I saw the same thing happen in 1995 with the 49ers’ blowout win over the Chargers. San Francisco scored two touchdowns on their first six plays. I looked at the Chargers sideline and the players were overwhelmed. It was a humbling experience. The Chargers never caught up. They were running uphill the entire game.”
Hamilton admits there’s nothing like Super Bowl Sunday. “The game has become part of Americana,” he said. “The NFL is reveling right now. It’s a great matchup and a rare rematch (only eight Super Bowl rematches in the previous 57 games).
“Plus, the romance between Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce (Chiefs tight end), has drawn a new younger demographic interested in the game. I’m waiting for K-C to win and then Kelce to get down on one knee and propose to Taylor Swift when she joins him on the field. All the Swifties worldwide will go crazy.”
Kickoff for the game is 3:30 p.m. on CBS.
Brands Hire Social Media Influencers to Extend Super Bowl Impact
A host of brands are benefiting this week from Super Bowl-related hype without spending millions of dollars on a 30-second TV commercial during the game broadcast.
As an effective and affordable marketing strategy, companies are sending social media influencers and content creators to the host city to spearhead social media content of their products both in the lead-up and during the Big Game to be played Sunday in Las Vegas, as reported by Ad Age, an advertising industry news outlet.
There are two Super Bowls in terms of attention, including one happening the week prior to the game and the other the game itself, noted Ad Age.
“Both have equal levels of relevance, if not more in the pregame, that your brand can achieve that is unparalleled the rest of the year,” Nick Miaritis, chief client officer at Vayner Media, told Ad Age.
For several previous years, the NFL has hired content creators for pregame programming across social media platforms. However, this year, more brands are paying for influencers to produce sponsored content across YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Reddit and X, formerly Twitter, Ad Age said.
An NFL spokesperson told Ad Age this year’s Super Bowl has the most creators on the ground in a Super Bowl host city. Many of the creators are expected to offer their viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the events leading up to the game while distributing a plethora of content every single day, reports Ad Age.
Influencer marketing agency Billion Dollar Boy reports a 55% year-over-year increase in mentions of the Big Game across both sponsored and organic posts across social media in the past few weeks, reported Ad Week.
“There are only a certain number of spots in the game, but there are tons of brands who want to engage audiences around the Super Bowl,” said Ed East, founder and CEO of London-based, Billion Dollar Boy, to Ad Age. “Digital creators are a far more accessible and affordable route where you can have comparative impact.”
IABC San Diego Predicts 2024 Communications Trends
The International Association of Business Communicators San Diego chapter will host a webinar panel discussion featuring a panel of senior industry professionals predicting 2024 communications trends from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 6, over Zoom.
The panel members will discuss top trends shaping internal and external communications, impact of AI on communications, external factors influencing communications and new tools for effective and efficient communications, IABC said.
Panel members will include: Paul Garcia, director of communications, San Diego Tourism Authority; Christina Hastings, associate director of corporate communications, Illumina; Mary Beth McCabe, marketing professor, Point Loma Nazarene University; Margie Newman Tsay, founding partner, Intesa Communications Group. Moderator will be James Canning, chief external affairs officer for San Diego County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer.
Admission to join the webinar is free for member, $10 for nonmembers. The Zoom link will be provided upon registration. For more information, visit sandiego.iabc.com.
Voice & Viewpoint Newspaper Presents 2024 Gala
The San Diego Voice & Viewpoint, a locally Black-owned weekly newspaper, will host its 11th annual gala starting at 6 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 10, at the Liberty Station Conference Center, 2600 Laning Road, San Diego. The public is invited to attend. Theme of the gala is “The Future is Now: Documenting Change.” The dress code is black tie optional or suit and tie, in either black or blue colors.
The gala will feature dinner and recognition for individuals who have given generously and tirelessly of themselves, the newspaper said. Honorees will include Peggy Cooper, Jennie Hamilton and Detlef Williams for Unsung Hero Awards, Mark Jenkins and Dr. Jerome Robinson for Gerri Warren Humanitarian Awards, Tinicia Smith and Sheri Jones for Black an Diego Change-maker Awards and Samantha Williams for the Organizational Excellence Award.
Cost to attend is $95 per person. For more event information, call the newspaper at (619) 266-2233 or visit www.sdvoice.info. The gala is traditionally held in February during Black History Month.
Now in its 64th year of continuous publication, San Diego Voice & Viewpoint has a weekly print readership of more than 25,000. In 1987, the newspaper was acquired by husband-and-wife John E. Warren and the late Gerry Warren, who passed away in 2009 at age 62.
Rick Griffin is a San Diego-based public relations and marketing consultant. His MarketInk column appears weekly on Mondays in Times of San Diego.