Published: Feb. 3, 2015
Hartford’s Krause finds calling behind the mic
1980 HUHS grad cut from basketball team twice
By NICHOLAS DETTMANN
Daily News
MILWAUKEE — Dennis Krause was cut from his high school
basketball team twice and his high school career in cross-country and track and
field wasn’t much better.
That wasn’t his calling, however.
It was to be on the call for sporting events — television
and/or radio — something he’s done for more than 25 years in the Milwaukee
area, including the last 18 with the Milwaukee Bucks radio network.
“I knew I was never going to be good enough to be an
athlete,” Krause said. “The irony of someone who was cut twice from the
Hartford high school basketball team doing color analysis for the Bucks is kind
of crazy.
“But I never really wanted to be a pro athlete. I always
wanted to do this because I liked to communicate. I thought it was a nice way
to be affiliated with sports without being good enough to be an athlete. They
always talk about it’s a frustrated athlete that goes into broadcasting. I
wasn’t really frustrated. I knew I wasn’t going to be good.”
Krause, 52, graduated from Hartford Union High School in
1980. He has been the color analyst for the Bucks radio network for the last 18
years.
Krause is a five-time Wisconsin Sportscaster of the Year winner,
most recently in 2012.
In 1987, he joined WTMJ in Milwaukee, where he served as the
sports director and won a Midwest Emmy Award.
In addition to his duties with the Bucks, he hosts the daily
“Roundtable” show and the interview program “The Dennis Krause Show” on Time
Warner Cable SportsChannel in Milwaukee. He is also the host of the Green Bay
Packers’ pre-game show, “Packers Preview,” on the Packers radio network.
Krause has also covered three Super Bowls and a Rose Bowl.
“I never tried to be something I’m not,” Krause said. “I’m
still a kid from Hartford. I was very fortunate, have been fortunate and
blessed, but I don’t ever start to think I’m something because I know a lot of
people that would love to be in this situation. I’ve been very blessed to be
here.”
Krause learned relatively early broadcasting was something
he wanted to do.
“When I was growing up in Hartford, I listened to a lot of
sportscasters,” Krause said. “One of them was Eddie Doucette with the Bucks. It
just seemed like a cool job to do, to be able to describe sporting events. I
just thought it’d be something interesting and I gravitated to it.”
In reality, it took some time for Krause to pursue his
ambition.
At Hartford, he said the audio and visual department was
ahead of the time in the late 1970s. But, for some reason, he didn’t pursue it
until he got into college at UW-Oshkosh.
“Maybe it was because I was paying for the education,”
Krause said with a smile. “I felt motivated.”
Of all of his years in sports broadcasting, last year’s
15-67 season by the Bucks was one of the toughest of his career.
“It was very painful,” Krause said.
“We will try to present an entertaining product so that if
people are listening to it, of course they know the Bucks were struggling, but
we try to give them a reason to have fun, to listen to the games,” he added.
Krause is the broadcast partner for Ted Davis, who’s been
the play-byplay voice for the Bucks for 18 years.
“From my standpoint, I work better when I can bounce things
off of someone and get a reaction,” Davis said. “That’s what we’ve developed
over 18 years where he knows where I’m going with stuff.”
Davis also admires Krause’s preparation.
“He comes up with things I wouldn’t have,” Davis said.
“He’s a very good interviewer,” he added. “Dennis has the
ability to ask people thorny questions that they would’ve otherwise found
irritating and not realize they’re being asked a thorny and irritating
question. He has this ability to get information out of people that probably
wouldn’t want to tell if I asked the question.”
This year, it’s been different for the duo as the Bucks are
25-22 after Saturday’s victory over Portland.
“This year has been a blast because the team is so much
better,” Krause said.
“It’s always easier if the team is doing well,” he added.
“I’m not saying anybody can do it, most people can do that.
“The challenge is when the team is not any good. How good
are you then at keeping their interest and give them a reason to tune in. I
think last year was the ultimate challenge.”
He has wondered what life would’ve been like for him without
broadcasting and he got a glimpse of it from 2004-06.
“It just reinforced to me how lucky I’ve been to do this,”
Krause said.
He was a fundraiser for Concordia University in Mequon and
the Mequon-Thiensville School District.
“You don’t have the immediate report card with how you’re
doing,” Krause said. “You’re sowing seeds for years down the road and building
relationships.”
There are not many hard feelings about the two basketball
coaches who cut him in high school — Doran Timmer (freshman) and Bob Halsey
(sophomore). He can at least say he has a connection with NBA great Michael
Jordan.
“I was very unexceptional in both,” Krause joked about his
involvement in cross-country and track. “I was in track and cross-country to
get in better shape for basketball.
“You see how that turned out.”
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