Clark Hunt’s Front Office Forced Chiefs’ Stadium PA Voice to Resign After Announcer Asked to Cross Red Lines

Back in 2019, if you watched the AFC Championship game between the Kansas City Chiefs and New England Patriots, you would have heard Dale Carter’s voice in the background. He was seated in an open-air booth, some nine stories above the Arrowhead Stadium, and called the game as the public address announcer. “It’s a great feeling knowing you have 80,000 fans in the palm of your hand,” he had said just days before the game. That was an interesting comment, considering he had held the job for a decade. But at the start of his career, he didn’t set out to be the voice of the Chiefs’ fanbase. Far from it.

He started off as a program manager and co-host of the Dale Carter Morning Show on KFKF-FM, which is a country station in Kansas City. There, he’d play music and talk about news from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. But in 2009, when he came across an opportunity to become the voice of a team and fanbase he admired for 24 years, he took it up. Interestingly, he had never done a public address previously; only play-by-play. So, he auditioned at the Kansas City Royals’ Kaufmann Stadium because Arrowhead was under construction. As the Los Angeles Angels practiced batting, Carter called the highlights shown on the video board. Truth be told, Carter knew he sounded weird, but he got the job anyway and kept it for 16 years. However, someone new will make the call this Sunday, after Carter decided to resign.

Explaining his decision, he wrote on Facebook: “Today I feel like an enormous weight has been lifted from me. I have informed the Kansas City Chiefs that I am resigning, effective immediately, as Stadium PA Voice of the Chiefs. I have had an incredible 16+ year run that included 6 AFC Championship games at Arrowhead… a record 5 in a row! I truly enjoyed being the “Audio Propagandist” for the team I love… doing everything I could do (within the rules) to give our guys an advantage!!

“So, why leave? Over the last few years, the team has made changes to what I do. Going into the playoffs last year, they asked me to make a significant change to how I’ve called the games (which I tried to do, even though I disagreed with it). Going into this season, they wanted a further adjustment that crosses my red line. Frankly, it just hasn’t been as fun as it was. It takes a lot of time away from my family, especially around the holidays. This just feels like the right time... My work life is full too with KFKF, Q104, my podcast, Blue Springs/Blue Springs South High School football broadcasts, and, now, a run for Jackson County Legislature.”

It seems Clark Hunt’s front office wanted too many changes, which Carter was not okay with. Regardless, Carter was so invested in the Chiefs throughout his tenure that in January 2022, he took on a friendly bet too. The Buffalo Bills headed to Arrowhead Stadium to battle it out against the Chiefs for the divisional playoffs. All eyes were on them. But just a day before the game, the Buffalo morning radio show ‘Clay & Company’ from 106.5 WYRK called ‘The Dale Carter Morning Show’ from Country 94.1 KFKF to place a wager:

• If the Bills won, ‘The Dale Carter Morning Show’ would have to play the ‘Bills Shout! Song’ the next morning.
• If the Chiefs won, ‘Clay & Company‘ would need to play ‘Take It Back’ by Blane Howard. That is the touchdown celebration song for the Chiefs.

Well, we all know how that game went.

Interesting Fact: In 2011, Dale Carter was inducted into the Country Radio Hall of Fame.

Dale Carter: Bosse High School is where it all started

Carter, who grew up in Evansville, attended Bosse High School. There, he played football, but his coach suggested that he’d make a good broadcaster. Interestingly, his school had a radio department, and his radio teacher, Ray Begarly, had the most influence on him back then. He would teach topics like ‘Phase Elective English’ and ‘Radio Directing’.

One fine day, Begarly gave him a script to read. It was titled ‘Cold Copy’ and was a nonsensical list of commonly mispronounced words. Carter marched up to the podium and read it while his teacher circled everything he said wrong. Well, by the end of it, it was all mostly red… but that was the spark that got Carter going.

While he wouldn’t have dreamed about a Hall of Fame induction, he not only achieved it but also went beyond. Since the second grade, he wanted to enter politics. Well, he ended up becoming a three-term City Council member in District 1 as well.