Dean Pantazi has been a go-to person for Fort Wayne sports since 1974, and has served 17 years as sports director of WPTA-TV.
Dean’s tenure at WPTA is one of the longest for any active anchor in any community, and he has been visible throughout Fort Wayne. He has covered six Super Bowls, the World Series, the NBA Playoffs, the Pan American Games — where he ran with the torch in 1987 en route to Indianapolis — and virtually every sports event in the Fort Wayne area, including every Fort Wayne high school, college and professional local team championship.
Upon becoming sports director in 1994, Pantazi began an Athlete of the Week and Coach of the Week program, honoring all of the award winners with a year-end banquet.
Pantazi has also called games for the Fort Wayne Komets, Fort Wayne Firehawks, college baseball and football and high school baseball, football and basketball. He currently serves as IPFW’s basketball radio announcer. In addition to his work with WPTA, Dean has worked for four different radio stations, doing play-by-play and talk programs. He helped create and co-hosted WOWO Sports Talk from 1985-2001. He also co-hosts WPTA’s The Score program, a Friday night highlight show. In addition to all of that, he also is the nightly sports anchor of WMYD-TV in Detroit, which he anchors from the WPTA studios.
In 2005, Pantazi was named Fort Wayne’s favorite television sportscaster by a Journal-Gazette reader poll. He also has been honored with distinguished service awards from the IHSAA, Indiana Baseball Coaches Association, Indiana Basketball Coaches Association and the Indiana Interscholastic Athletic Administrators’ Association