Héctor Lozano to lead Telemundo World Cup coverage

Chicago’s longest-tenured active sports anchor, Héctor Lozano, is set to begin leading Telemundo Chicago’s World Cup coverage this week. The 58-year-old—now in his 31st year—will helm a schedule that includes 92 live broadcasts for the Spanish-language network

On a personal timeline that stretches back more than three decades, Héctor Lozano is walking into the busiest kind of sports assignment.

The 58-year-old Chicago anchor—now in his 31st year and described as the longest-tenured active Chicago sports anchor—begins leading Telemundo Chicago’s coverage of the World Cup this week. Since 2021. he has appeared on Telemundo Chicago’s signature newscast. “Noticiero Telemundo Chicago. ” and this tournament adds a relentless rhythm: Telemundo is the exclusive Spanish-language home for every match.

Lozano said he hasn’t missed a World Cup game in over 30 years. He also knows exactly how quickly the schedule can swallow time. The tournament, he said, is the biggest World Cup in history: 104 games and 48 teams. “A lot more to cover, and it’s gonna be busy,” Lozano said. “The first two weeks of group-stage action, there’s gonna be three, four games a day.”.

How does someone keep up with that? “I don’t know,” Lozano said. “But I’m gonna make an effort.”

To hear him tell it, his ability to handle long stretches has always come from practice—sometimes accidental, sometimes hard-won. Back in high school, Lozano was a blossoming soccer player as a left fullback at Farragut. He also played on a club team, Atlas, that recorded its games on a camcorder. After matches, the players would gather at someone’s house, order pizza, and rewatch their games together.

One of those early recordings took a different turn. Lozano injured his ankle in one of the games and was out of commission. The man holding the camcorder told him he had a microphone and suggested Lozano do play-by-play while he recovered. “I’m like, ‘Why not?’” Lozano told the Sun-Times. Then the group started doing interviews postgame with his co-players. turning talk into a kind of comedy they could all share. “We really enjoyed it,” Lozano said. “Just talking crap about my friends on camera. We would make it really funny.”.

Farragut eventually offered a TV production class, and Lozano signed up. “It was like a light bulb went on,” he said.

That origin story connects to the larger one he carries with him: the immigrant drive that brought him to the United States. and the working-class neighborhoods that became home. Lozano was born in León, Guanajuato, Mexico, in a family of 10—three brothers and four sisters. His father, Juan, arrived in America first. Héctor came when he was 11.

The family first lived in Pilsen, then Little Village. Lozano can name the nearby intersection for each home: Cermak and California, Cermak and Wood, 22nd and California, 30th and Christiana. The first house had one floor and an attic, which Juan turned into the boys’ living space.

“We didn’t have everything,” Lozano said, “but we never lacked something.”

Juan worked as a color matcher in Color Communications Inc.’s factory, producing samples. He also instilled in Héctor a love for soccer, taking him and his brothers to Douglass Park on weekends. Later, Héctor joined his father at the factory while attending Columbia College, where he studied broadcasting.

Lozano said he liked the job but didn’t like how little it paid. “I really liked the job, but it didn’t pay much,” he said. “And I had other aspirations.”

His broadcasting career began in radio at WIND, which was Spanish at the time. After WIND gained the rights to an international soccer game at Soldier Field. management realized it didn’t have anyone who had done play-by-play. Lozano, who was a part-timer, raised his hand. “Never mind that he hadn’t done it since high school. ” he later pulled it off with aplomb—something he kept quiet. all he needed to show was that he had called a soccer game before.

That push led to more opportunities. Lozano called the Bulls’ 1992-93 and 1993-94 seasons with Héctor Molina. He was on the mic for John Paxson’s shot that won the 1993 NBA Finals and for Hue Hollins’ infamous foul call on Scottie Pippen during a 1994 playoff series against the Knicks.

In one moment that has stayed with him, he described the chaos after a Game 5 victory at Madison Square Garden. “Getting fricking beer on my head at Madison Square Garden,” Lozano said of Knicks fans’ celebration after the Game 5 victory. “We didn’t have a booth; we didn’t sit courtside. We were in a corner. And then they were just … popcorn and beer.”.

He moved to TV in 1995, when WGBO became an affiliate of Univision and launched a news department led by Jackie Gallardo, who was looking for a lead sports anchor. The timing, he said, couldn’t have been better because WIND had just let him go amid staff cuts.

Radio stayed in the picture. In 2015, the Bears moved their Spanish-language broadcasts to Univision radio affiliate WRTO, and Lozano was on the call. In 2016, the Blackhawks began airing games on the station, and Lozano called them. In 2017, the Fire returned to WRTO, and Lozano called them, too.

“At one point in the year, maybe four, five months, I would not have a day off,” Lozano said. “But it was a blast doing all those sports.”

Staff cuts eventually found him again. In 2021, Univision cut every sports department in the country after the pandemic. Lozano was let go, but he quickly found a new home. Telemundo had been inquiring about his interest in moving for a couple of years. After being let go, Lozano called then-NBC 5/Telemundo Chicago (WSNS) president David Doebler. He was still interested.

“My brother says, ‘You must have a horseshoe or a rabbit’s foot up your butt,’” Lozano said. “I said, ‘Yeah. You get the opportunity, but then you have to take advantage of the opportunity.’”

Kevin Cross, president of NBC 5/Telemundo Chicago, said Lozano’s longevity matters in a way that goes beyond sports. “He’s coming into people’s living rooms for 31 years,” Cross said. “That builds a connection that you can see when he’s out and about. That’s the key when it comes to local television: How do you connect with your audience?”.

Lozano’s own sense of belonging is tied to where he grew up. “I grew up in Pilsen and Little Village,” he said. “You don’t get more Mexican than that.”

Even now, the tournament’s scale is what looms first. Telemundo (WSNS-Channel 44) will air 92 games live. The national Telemundo Deportes team will have crews in all 16 host cities, plus studio shows in Mexico City, Miami and New York, providing pregame, halftime and postgame coverage.

For viewers in Chicago, the anchor-reporter duo of Héctor Lozano and Raúl Delgado, along with the “Noticiero Telemundo Chicago” crew, will keep viewers apprised of World Cup happenings. Lozano also will share his “100 Datos de Mundial” (“100 Facts about the World Cup”).

Each weekday at 5 a.m., “Noticiero Telemundo Chicago: Primera Edición” anchor Mariana Reyes and meteorologist Doctora Juliet Perdigón will provide the latest news and weather.

The through-line in Lozano’s career is simple: he has repeatedly turned what could have been a pause into momentum. The World Cup. with 104 games and three or four a day in the early group stage. is the kind of assignment that exposes how much stamina matters. When he talked about making an effort to keep up, it didn’t sound like a slogan. It sounded like a promise he knows he’ll be tested on—then again, he’s been tested before.

Héctor Lozano Telemundo Chicago World Cup coverage NBC 5/Telemundo Chicago Noticiero Telemundo Chicago WRTO Univision Chicago sports anchor