We missed this moment in January. Bill Swartz retired January 15, 2026 as Sports anchor KNWN am 1000/fm 97.7 Seattle. Thanks to a friend of QZVX for the heads up!
Bill Swartz is a longtime Seattle-area broadcaster known for his work in sports radio, particularly in news and sports anchoring roles.
He graduated from Washington State University (class of ’78) and built a career spanning several decades in the Pacific Northwest media market.
His early career included part-time news work at KOMO AM 1000 (now part of Northwest Newsradio), which led to a full-time shift to sports. By 1984–1985, he became the nighttime news anchor before transitioning fully to sports anchoring at KOMO.
Over the years, he held sports director or anchoring positions at stations including KIRO radio (where he spent 10 years, covering events like Seahawks Super Bowls, Sounders games, and more), 710 ESPN, and KFNQ. Since the KFNQ flip to sports, the station aired a local afternoon show hosted by Steve Sandmeyer and Bill Swartz (later replaced by Jason Churchill). He returned to KOMO multiple times, including roles as pre-game co-host and University of Washington Huskies sports insider, as well as hosting shows like “The Thursday Night Dawg House” on KOMO Newsradio.
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Producer Big Mike for Ari Hoffman --- gone. Kevin Dodrell PD has now taken the Producer-Studio operations position as added job.
Great find Jason!
I too was not shared the info until I saw a post from Bill just Wed this week and someone saying "when did you leave radio"?
I finally did a search and found your story.
Bill and I have had connection back when KBSG and KIRO were sharing Eastlake building late 1990s. Later when I went to KOMO in 2015 among duty was handing four years doing Husky Football Game Day. Bill was among the 5 hours of Pre-Game fun with his features and LIVE Pre- Game show among others.
He was one of my first fans of "Husky Band Camp Challenge" which was one of the additions as Producer-News Anchor I brought to the mix. The Band supplied a 30s song each week, guess the song and win prize!
Swartz and I would learn right away we both ended up in Marching Band and not having enough "build'-speed' to play football.
Thanks for all you do my friend!!
Mark Christopher