Some of you have experienced the joy that comes with achieving a personal goal. Mine was to get to a particular radio station, and I made it shortly after my 32nd birthday. It seemed to take forever, but it was worth it.
The old saying about the grass being greener on the other side of the fence implies that, once you get there, it’s really not all you had hoped it would be. That wasn’t the case with my achievement.
There’s often a honeymoon effect at a new job before reality sinks in. In my case, it was a time period that simply reaffirmed my delight at working there. One of the consummate professionals on the staff did something that seemed very small, but it was a perfect example of how great life would be working among the best in the business.
His dedication to the sport of hockey is legendary. On Monday nights, Dan would be in Canada, where he was the voice of that country’s Monday night hockey broadcasts.
There were many, many nights when we’d get a collect call at the station in the early morning hours from Dan, who would be in some small Canadian town scouting out future hockey talent. Usually these towns were so far-removed from “civilization” that Dan’s only way to find out the evening’s NHL scores was to call our newsroom.
Watching him call a hockey game was watching an artist at work. The team wisely provided Dan with a color man, because Kelly’s intensity in the broadcast booth was legendary.
In St. Louis’ old Arena, the broadcast booth provided a microphone for each man on a counter-like area. Kelly would lean forward into the mike, arms on the counter, eyes trained on the ice far below. During one game, he sneezed, thrusting his chest into the counter edge, breaking a rib. He finished the game before seeking treatment.
And we pitied the audio engineer who worked the games. Kelly’s voice was piercing and loud, but his color man’s was not. I can remember walking in the halls of the radio station past the production studios where Dan would be cutting promos. The engineer was in the booth handling the taping chores while Dan read the copy in the next room. You could actually hear Dan’s piercing baritone voice through the soundproof glass.
The small gesture that told me I had finally arrived at my professional nirvana came the second day I was on the air. One of my jobs at the station that day was to funnel phone callers through the studio so Dan, at the ballpark, could answer their questions. It was nothing difficult – simply punch up the call and say something like “You’re on the air with Dan Kelly.”
Before we went on the air, Kelly called the producer/phone screener from the ballpark to make sure he has the correct pronunciation of my name. At the top of the program, I introduced him “And now from the ballpark, here’s Dan Kelly.”
The first words out of his mouth were, “Thank you Frank Absher.” He then went on, leaving listeners with the impression that I was not only a part of the broadcast team, but that we knew each other. That very small image move on Dan’s part simply kept alive the public’s perception that we all were a big family at KMOX.
The value of an image like that for a full-service radio station cannot be calculated. I savored working with those professionals.
Discuss on the STL Media Message Board. (Registration Required)
