Catching up with former Chiefs WR Danan Hughes

Former Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Danan Hughes is staying plenty busy these days, including a busy broadcasting schedule that keeps him close to K.C.

Whether you are old enough to appreciate the Marty Schottenheimer era of success with the Kansas City Chiefs or you’ve seen him on pre- or post-game shows for the team, you’re likely familiar with some of the work of Danan Hughes. The former Chiefs wideout has been “blessed” enough to stay connected to his love of sports even after he retired from the NFL, making good use of his college degree from the University of Iowa.

We recently sat down with Danan to hear more about what keeps him busy in 2017, what it was likely to play with a living legend like Joe Montana and his favorite Arrowhead moment.

To start, I’d love to give our readers an idea of what you’re up to these days.

I wear multiple hats now, so I stay busy. I can’t think of a time where I haven’t been busy. My main job is in sales with a company called Bennett Packaging. We do retail displays, point-of-purchase displays, boxes, etc. I have national accounts that I not only work with here in the Kansas City area but across the country. Then I also do a lot of radio and television: college baseball and college football on the Big Ten Network, college football and basketball on ESPN3.

I also do the Chiefs pre-game and post-game shows between Spectrum Sports and Chiefs.com and KCTV5 during the football season. So I have brief windows where I have less work to do, but I stay busy pretty often. I also coach high school kids in baseball and travel for that. That’s one of my passions as well.

Was it clear to you early on that you were interested in broadcasting?

I always felt comfortable in front of the camera. I went to college at the University of Iowa and my major was broadcasting communications. Derrick Thomas had a weekly radio show in the nineties, and he had stepped away from it. The radio station contacted me and asked if I’d want to take over, so I took that over for two years and did that. When I retired a year later from football, Metro Sports of Time Warner Cable called me and said, “Hey, we need an analyst. Would you mind coming in and doing a studio show?”

Just by word of mouth and treating those guys right while I was playing and being willing to talk, that opened up the doors. Then 610 Radio called and Big Ten Network called for baseball. That was my first job doing baseball, so it’s all just grown from there. It’s been 17 or 18 years and it’s all been a blessing.