A Time For Reflection

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In the never ending cauldron of sports activity ranging from the playing of games to the off-field stories that grab our attention, there is always time for reflection.

This is one of those times.

It’s been four years since my retirement and after over 50 years of being in the center of things, I’m going to pull back and tell the story of how I got my very first on-air job.

Everyone has to start somewhere and it wasn’t a slam dunk when it happened for me.

The Westinghouse Broadcasting Company, or Group W as it was known, owned various radio and TV stations throughout the country. The television outlets were affiliated with one of the three networks at the time: CBS, NBC and ABC.  In many of the cities, Group W owned both radio and TV stations. For example, they ran a radio outlet in New York, WINS, Chicago WIND, Los Angeles, KFWB, and radio and television stations in Boston, WBZ and WBZ-TV, Pittsburgh, KDKA and KDKA-TV , and Philadelphia, KYW and KYW-TV.

They had recruited me to be trained for an eventual management post, which was nice, but not what I really wanted.

When WINS became only the second all-news radio station in the country, I was working as a copy boy which was terrific for learning the news business. I learned how the wire services worked, meaning the Associated Press and United Press International, and how they sent out the stories from the US and around the world.

When KYW in Philadelphia also made the decision to become all-news I saw an opening.

I asked my bosses if I could seek an announcing opportunity there and they thankfully agreed.

So, I took off one morning on an Amtrak ride from Penn Station to the station in Center City of my hometown, Philadelphia. I was 22 at the time, fresh from less than a year out of serving my Army Reserve basic training and post training at Fort Dix, New Jersey.

It was a train trip to the unknown for a young hopeful.  Was I nervous?  What do you think?

I took a cab to the station and checked in with the receptionist. Soon I was led to the News Director’s office. His name was Ron Mires, and I couldn’t believe this man, with a world of news experience in broadcasting would take the time to see whether this kid with no commercial on-air experience was worthy of being hired for a new format that was set to be launched in a couple of months.

Philadelphia was the fourth largest market in the nation at the time, and usually someone in my shoes would be starting in a very small market and put in the years to earn a spot in a major city.

So I was fortunate to get my first chance in a major market.

For my audition, I was asked to go into the newsroom and write a 30-minute newscast involving local, national, and world news off the same AP and UPI wires I worked with in New York which I delivered to the various newscasters preparing their own broadcasts.

Only now I was the one going to read it in a private recording. The kicker was, I only had 45 minutes to prepare my script and they told me that off-duty announcers would be talking to me asking questions to distract me in an effort to emulate the noise and atmosphere of a working newsroom. Not easy.

When the 45 minutes elapsed, I went into a studio and recorded what I had written.

When it was over, I thought that was it. But there was more.

I was then instructed to take a tape recorder and visit the iconic Liberty Bell in the city and do a report on why visitors all over flocked to Philadelphia to see this historic landmark.  I returned to the station and prepared what is known as a wrap-around: a report I voiced around voice clips of the best of those describing their impressions of seeing the famed Liberty Bell in person.

When it was all over, having my audition heard by the man who ran the department, I finally met with Ron Mires in his office. It was early evening and I’ll never forget his telling me that he liked what I had done and offered me one of the two all-night newscasting positions. That meant I would work from 10:30pm until 6:30am six nights a week. I would be paid $215 per week. Would I accept?

I couldn’t wait to say yes. Later in my career I would recite those conditions to would-be hopefuls and you would be amazed at how many would have rejected them, saying “no way I would work those hours at that salary”. Keep in mind we’re talking 1965, so the pay was not that terrible, but not that great either. But who cares if you’re getting a foot in the door in a prominent city?  The pay wasn’t important in the least bit.

That’s how I got my first on-air job. It was radio news, reading a 30-minute newscast during the night, six nights a week. I would sleep most of the day, get to work after a late dinner, and finish at dawn, have breakfast on my walk home. I loved it.

My television break was more bizarre.

One night sitting in the newsroom at around 9:30pm, getting ready to prepare my first newscast at midnight, there was a call from the television newsroom downstairs. KYW-TV was launching a new format called Eyewitness News which many readers may remember from years past. They were in the midst of rehearsals for the presentation still weeks away which formed their 6pm and 11pm nightly news shows from the actual newsroom with all the activity and buzz in the background instead of the more traditional studio look with the anchor people sitting behind a desk.

The regular weathercaster was out of town on this particular night and they needed a ‘body” to do a make-believe weather report as part of the show.

Someone asked me to go and fill in.

I did a made-up weather report for three minutes using a map and basically using the terms weathermen use without knowing anything I was talking about.

They thanked me and that was that.

However a year later, the program manager called the radio newsroom and asked who that guy was filling in doing the weather for that long ago rehearsal.

It seems they were now looking for a sportscaster for weekend news . Former football star Irv Cross, who had the role, was traded from the Eagles to the Rams and there was an opening. The program manager, Win Baker remembered what I had done and asked me to audition. Imagine… an entire year later.

I did, won the job, and had a new career.

I followed Win to Pittsburgh and then Boston and the rest, including a move to play-by-play is, as they say, history.

It was 60 years ago when all these events took place.

I am, and always have been grateful for the way it all turned out.

But the many twists and turns still amazes me.

I no longer think about how and why it came to be.

All I do is look skyward and say thank you.