I Am Really Glad I Chose The Right Quincy
Forty-three years ago today I worked my first day on the air in Quincy. How that came to be is a little bizarre. I call it destiny! After a four-year tenure in Kansas City at what is now KCFX Radio (formerly KIEE Radio) I agreed to take an on-air and play-by-play position with WTAD here in Quincy. I never even applied for the position.
By chance Gary Schmedding, the Operations Director of WTAD, was in Kansas City and heard me on the air and out of the blue offered me the position. That offer only came after Mel and El Tappe of Quincy decided they didn’t want to continue to do play by play at WTAD which opened up a spot for me.
This all occurred after I had returned from a vacation in the Boston area. After being offered the job, I thought I was headed right back there to Quincy, Massachusetts. For some 24 hours I was considering a move back to the east coast. It wasn’t until 24 hours later that I realized the offer was to Quincy, Illinois, a place I never knew existed, and not Quincy, Massachusetts. The rest is history.
So was it destiny that I came here or not? I think so. I say that because one week after I arrived in Quincy I was introduced to Sherrill Hanks, the Quincy College head basketball coach of the team I would be doing play-by-play for in a few months. The minute a saw him and heard his distinctive voice, I remembered seeing him on Kansas City television months earlier during the Hawk's N.A.I.A. Basketball Tournament visit. Little did I know then that we would eventually work together.
A side light to that story is that the interviewer on KCMO-TV was sportscaster Jack Harry (aka...Jack Hollembeak). I found out from Coach Hanks that Jack was from Quincy as well which explains why Coach Hanks was there in the first place.
Another reason to think Quincy was my destiny was after I met Gene Hutter in Quincy. We were introduced to each other and after he found out I came here from the Kansas City area he told me his son Jeffrey worked at WDAF-TV in Kansas City. Some 8 years earlier (1970) it was Jeffrey Hutter who, between Arrowhead and Royals Stadiums, interviewed me as a sports fan for what I thought about the then new Truman Sports Complex. What are the odds of that happening?
The bottom line is, destiny or not, I know I came to the right Quincy 43 years ago today. In a strange way, I almost wish my last broadcast day would have been today instead of this Thursday so I could say I ended my 47-year broadcast career on the same day…May 25th. Now, that would have been bizarre!