Longtime WCCO Sports Anchor Mark Rosen announced that he’s retiring from the WCCO sports desk next year.

“It’s been spectacular,” Rosen told the TV audience near the top of the 10 p.m. broadcast. Anchor Amelia Santaniello said her longtime colleague had earned his place on the “Mount Rushmore of WCCO.”

The Star Tribune writes that Rosen plans to sign off in April following coverage of college basketball’s Final Four tournament in Minneapolis. That would be 50 years to the month since he first walked into the CBS affiliate as a high school student eager to learn the craft.

His exit could come sooner, however. Much depends on the health of his wife, Denise, who was diagnosed with a brain tumor in July.

Rosen, already the longest-tenured TV sports personality in any major U.S. market, took August off to help in her recovery from surgery, and realized that spending time with her in the evenings was more important than chasing athletes or reading scores. Even things as seemingly routine as enjoying Amy Poehler’s reality-competition series “Making It” felt precious.

“We’d be watching these shows together on the couch on a Tuesday night and I’d think, ‘Is this what it’s like? Is this what normal people do?’ ” Rosen said Friday during an interview at Brit’s Pub, across the street from the TV station. “It just felt right. Home is where my energies need to be right now. I mean, I’ve never been home at night in my whole adult life.”