Long time WFAA Sports anchor Joe Trahan reflects on a journey rooted in family values, shaped by faith, and grounded in the community he calls home—revealing how early passions, relentless work ethic, and a deep love for storytelling built a lasting career in North Texas sports journalism
By Stephen Hunt
Since 2003, Frisco’s own Joe Trahan has been a fixture on WFAA Channel 8, first as a weekend sports anchor and reporter before a 2021 promotion to main sports anchor following the retirement of iconic local TV personality Dale Hansen. A Houston native, Trahan attended Loyola University in New Orleans, where he first gained experience with a station before a stint in Charleston, South Carolina, and back in the Big Easy before joining WFAA in June 2003. During his long, distinguished broadcasting career, he has won numerous Lone Star Emmys and is a multiple winner of the Edward R. Murrow Award, awarded annually for outstanding work in broadcast journalism and media by the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA).
Trahan has also used his ease at public speaking for noble causes by leading WFAA’s coverage of the American Heart Association Heart Walk, hosting a North Texas Food Bank telethon, and emceeing events for the Frisco Chamber of Commerce. For the past 13 years, he and his wife, Amy, a kindergarten teacher, have called Frisco home along with their daughters, Sophia and Sydney, both graduates of Frisco Lone Star High School.
Early Seeds Sown
Trahan remembers attending a small Catholic grade school from kindergarten through eighth grade in Houston, which was where he first caught the public speaking bug by narrating a school play at age five. He also remembers his father planting early seeds for his lifelong love of sports.
“My dad was really smart and made me learn math watching sports. I remember learning how to compute [baseball] batting averages when I was five, six, or seven,” Trahan recalled. “The race was always what’s the current batting average before the graphic would pop up.”
His high comfort level as a public speaker was further reinforced by speaking at his church youth group. And given how important the church was to his family growing up, that is the career path his mother envisioned for him. “My mom wanted me to be a priest,” he said. “I would give homilies [short sermons offering encouragement] at the youth mass, so the whole public speaking aspect of it, I grew up doing that. That was how I was raised and part of what I did.”
Naturally, Trahan also grew up playing sports (baseball and football) and always held a leadership role as a captain or a player who spoke up on those teams. At Strake Jesuit, he fondly remembers co-hosting a school news program and “a goofy, little game show.”
After graduating from high school, he made his way east on Interstate 10 to the Big Easy for college. Joe spent his first year and a half at Loyola in pre-med, but after a particularly tough science course, he knew his future was elsewhere. “I realized I didn’t want to be a scientist as [much as] I wanted to be a doctor. Inorganic quantitative analysis was the chemistry weed-out course, and that’s when I got on my true path,” he said.
The Jesuit priest who ran Loyola also owned the local television station WWL, so Trahan started working there as a production assistant as a junior. As a senior, he became a news writer for WWL’s popular morning show, working from midnight until eight a.m. and then going to class. “It turned into this incredibly fortunate circumstance where, yeah, I was working my butt off, but I was able to take what I learned at the station to my classes and took what I learned in my classes to the station. It was the best preparation I could have had for my career,” Trahan said.
TV-Related Travels
Upon graduating from Loyola, Trahan’s compass again pointed east, this time to Charleston, South Carolina, and WCBD, a station he joined in 1991. It was a move accompanied by a big leap of faith for the young college grad. “I didn’t know anyone when I moved to Charleston. I was on my own, it was sink or swim and the best thing for me,” he said.
Trahan quickly became close friends with fellow sports anchor Bill Baer, a Texas Tech University grad. During his time in Charleston, the College of Charleston basketball team, which was then coached by John Kresse, whose name would adorn the program’s arena in the future, made the NCAA Tournament for the first time.
And since that area is a hotbed for college basketball, Joe figured he’d do a sports special featuring prominent college basketball announcer Dick Vitale, who he shared an agent with. “I was able to get in his heyday, Dickie V, the whole shtick. I did an hour-long special, and it featured Dick Vitale prominently,” Trahan recalled. “After I did that, the people at the College of Charleston and a lot of the people I worked with were like, ‘First of all, who are you that you got Dick Vitale?’ From that moment on, my time in Charleston was fantastic, and that was a springboard back to New Orleans.”
Stations back in New Orleans took notice of his fine work in Charleston, and two of them ended up bidding for his services. Trahan landed with WVUE as its Sports Director, a role he held for nine years. A significant factor in his return to the Big Easy was that because of his tireless work ethic during his time at Loyola for WWL, he was already a known commodity in local TV circles.
“People just remembered me. The MO (modus operandi) was out; I was a hard worker. While I was in school in New Orleans, I went one stint where I worked something crazy like 93 days in a row because I was writing the news during the week, but on the weekend, I was doing sports,” he said. “I was committed to it. I fell in love with it, and it worked out really great.”
In 2003, he returned to his home state with WFAA, and from day one, it’s been a perfect match for him and his family. Not only did he get to absorb everything he could from a legend like Hansen, but he also got to experience WFAA’s commitment to excellence. “It’s amazing to think back. It doesn’t feel like as long as it’s been, it really doesn’t. I’ve been here more than 20 years,” Trahan said.
“The thing about WFAA is we’re committed to being best in class. When I got here, seeing how that worked fell in line with my values, my work ethic, but also getting to see how it’s done. At that point in my career, the timing was perfect. There will never be another Dale Hansen – never. The word unique is overused, but Dale was unique and getting the chance to pick his brain and see how he would do things and see how he would distinguish himself and, how he could make stories come to life, and how he could gain the viewer’s attention…and there was a lot of intention in his craft, getting the chance to watch that was kind of like a Masterclass. The hard part is trying to follow a guy like that.”
However, maybe the greatest lesson he learned from Hansen was a simple one – just be yourself, and everything else will take care of itself, a formula which served Hansen very well during his nearly four decades on the air and one which has also served his successor equally well.
“[I’ve learned] if you can be authentically yourself, people will gravitate to it. That’s what I hang my hat on,” Trahan said. “When I see people at Home Depot or Market Street or The Star here in Frisco, I’m the same guy you see on WFAA. People get it, and they know it. It’s not the flashiest. I call it a slow burn, but it’s got staying power, and that has been the blessing of my life, to be honest, that people can see that and can see the kind of person that I am. That’s how I do it. I haven’t changed from when I got here 23 years ago.”
For the past 13 years, he and his wife, Amy, who he gladly admits to meeting at one of his favorite watering holes in New Orleans, have called Frisco home with their two daughters, and there is nowhere the Trahan family would rather be than in Sports City USA. “I used to joke I want to be the mayor of Frisco. I just love the place, I do,” Trahan said.
“When you have the right motivation, your decisions are going to work for the best. The reason we moved here was very simple – our kids were young, and we wanted a little more house. I knew it would make my commute to Channel 8 a little bit tougher, but it was the best decision for my family. It has turned out to be an incredible decision for all of us because I had the right motivation. We love it because the people here are great, it’s business-friendly. I move here, and then Jerry [Jones] decides to put The Star seven minutes from my house when I was the Cowboy’s reporter when that was my main gig, what I did 90 percent of the time. You want to talk about fantastic for me. It’s been a fantastic decision for the entire family to put our roots down here in Frisco. I’ve got great friends here. Fortunately, we made the right move, and we had the right motives.”
Trahan cites three events as his most memorable with WFAA. The first was the University of Texas winning the 2005 college football national championship at the Rose Bowl since the star of that show was quarterback Vince Young, whose high school coach in Houston was a friend of the Trahan family. He also cites the Dallas Mavericks’ surprising run to the 2011 NBA title and the Texas Rangers’ improbable march to the 2023 World Series title, both the first titles in franchise history for those clubs and the ensuing victory parades, as his other two most memorable experiences.
“Being able to share the triumph of the human spirit through sport I think is what I was put here to do. I can’t put it any more plainly than that,” Trahan said. “Some of my best work days, some of the more meaningful things I’ve done in my career have all revolved around being able to share athletes and their backstories and being able to overcome things that most people don’t see as possible, redefining possibilities and showing the triumph of will and determination against all odds is as good as it gets for me.”
Stephen Hunt is a longtime Frisco resident who also works behind the scenes in sports television.
