Hanford Dixon (born December 25, 1958) is a former professional

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

cornerback A cornerback (CB) is a member of the defensive backfield or secondary in gridiron football. Cornerbacks cover receivers most of the time, but also blitz and defend against such offensive running plays as sweeps and reverses. They create tur ...

who played his entire career (1981–1989) for the

Cleveland Browns The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. Named after original coach and co-founder Paul Brown, they compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference ( ...

of the NFL. Dixon made the

Pro Bowl The National Football League All-Star Game (1939–1942), Pro Bowl (1951–2022), or Pro Bowl Games (starting in 2023) is an annual event held by the National Football League (NFL) featuring the league's star players. The format has changed thro ...

three times, in 1986, 1987 and 1988. He was drafted by the Browns out of the

University of Southern Mississippi The University of Southern Mississippi (Southern Miss or USM) is a public research university with its main campus located in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award bachelor's, ma ...

with the 22nd pick in the first round of the 1981

NFL Draft The National Football League Draft, also called the NFL Draft or (officially) the Player Selection Meeting, is an annual event which serves as the league's most common source of player recruitment. Each team is given a position in the drafting o ...

. He also is credited with naming the Cleveland Browns "

Dawg Pound The Dawg Pound is the name of the bleacher section behind the east end zone in FirstEnergy Stadium, the home field of the Cleveland Browns, a National Football League (NFL) franchise based in Cleveland, Ohio. Formation According to Hanford Dixon, ...

," the section of the stadium known for their antics during Browns home games at the old Municipal Stadium inspired by Dixon's "barking" to teammates, especially fellow cornerback

Frank Minnifield Frank LyDale Minnifield (born January 1, 1960) is an American former professional American football, football player who was a defensive back for the Cleveland Browns in the National Football League (NFL) from 1984 to 1992. High school career M ...

. Dixon and Minnifield were selected by NFL.com as the No 2 "Best Cornerback Tandem of All-Time." Dixon has been honored many times by his alma mater including being inducted into the M-Club Alumni Association Sports Hall of Fame in 1988 and being named to the school's Football Team of the Century. He became the seventh football member of the school's Legends Club joining Reggie Collier,

Brett Favre Brett Lorenzo Favre ( ; born October 10, 1969) is an American former football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 20 seasons, primarily with the Green Bay Packers. Favre had 321 consecutive starts from 1992 to 20 ...

, Ray Guy, Derrick Nix, Sammy Winder and Fred Cook. On October 29, 2017, Dixon attended the 4th London International Series Game in London, U.K. Dixon remains a visible presence on the football front in

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

, as he is a football analyst for

WOIO WOIO (channel 19) is a television station licensed to Shaker Heights, Ohio, United States, serving the Cleveland area as an affiliate of CBS. It is owned by Gray Television alongside low-power Telemundo affiliate WTCL-LD (channel 6) and Lo ...

-TV 19 (

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

) in Cleveland, and the color analyst for the high school football game of the week on

FS Ohio Bally Sports Ohio is an American regional sports network owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group and is operated as an affiliate of Bally Sports. The channel broadcasts regional coverage of sports events in the state of Ohio, with a focus on professio ...

. He has a podcast with former Browns QB

Bernie Kosar Bernard Joseph Kosar Jr. (born November 25, 1963) is a former American football quarterback who played collegiately at the University of Miami where he led the team to a national championship in 1983. He subsequently played professionally in ...

called "The Bernie Kosar Show with Handford Dixon" on the BIGPLAY Network. Dixon was the head coach of the

Lingerie Football League The Extreme Football League (X League) is an American women's semi-professional tackle football league. The league was originally founded in 2009 as the Lingerie Football League (LFL), and later rebranded as the Legends Football League in 2013. ...

's Cleveland Crush.

Personal life

Dixon is married and has two sons Kyle and Hanford Jr, and two daughters Merci and Hanna.

References

External links

*
Hanford Dixon's Real Estate Business Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dixon, Hanford American Conference Pro Bowl players American football cornerbacks American radio sports announcers American television sports announcers Cleveland Browns players Sportspeople from Mobile, Alabama Players of American football from Alabama Southern Miss Golden Eagles football players 1958 births Living people