If you go back through the archives and read one of the earliest “SportsTalk Shop” blog entries that I ever wrote, I spoke at length about my admiration for The Morning Call Senior Sports Writer, Keith Groller, for a number of reasons.
One of the biggest reasons was how much I was impressed by his passion for local sports coverage—almost to, what some may believe, a fault.
A number of years ago, Keith was covering “higher end” sports as the NBA/76ers beat guy for the “Call.” He made the surprising decision to give up covering professional basketball to devote more of his working time to covering high school sports.
I was shocked by that decision back then. I myself was busy splitting my time between working part-time at a Philadelphia radio station, a New York station, a pair of sister stations in the Lehigh Valley and RCN-TV. I had the good fortune of being offered not one, but three, significant full-time opportunities in a very short timeframe—any one of which would have moved my career forward, and any of those positions would have granted me a higher “status” in this industry.
But, I committed what many at that time would have considered career suicide by passing on all three offers—and I’ve never been happier. I’ve never regretted staying in this area—especially a short time later when I was blessed to be offered my current full time position here at RCN. And I will always thank Keith for being someone who I looked up to, when contemplating that decision.
And now, as fate would have it, Keith and I will become sports talk show partners.
Premiering this Thursday at 7 pm on RCN-TV, Keith will join “RCN SportsTalk Presented by The Morning Call” as our new co-host. We’ll be joined by the strong stable of The Morning Call staff writers making regular appearances on our hour-long program. Many of the “old favorites” will return, including “the Roundtable” segment, our “Stone-Cold Locks,” trivia, prize giveaways and, of course, the opportunity to interact with us live on the program. Also, Keith will sound off on any sports issue(s) that he chooses to comment on, during his “take” segment—much the same way Joe Craig had done before him.
Speaking of Joe, he is focusing his time going forward on our weekly “Football Friday” program—dedicated to talking about his favorite subject, high school football, during the scholastic season. It will be great for me and our audience to continue to see him on RCN-TV this fall.
It goes without saying that I will miss him being a regular panelist on our show each week. Despite our on-air combativeness—one that was never faked or pre-scripted like many other shows, I thought we provided an interesting balance of opinions and styles during the first 12 years of this show’s run. We frequently disagreed on a number of issues, probably too many to even attempt to recap over time and our debates would frequently spill over after the program—so much so that many people would often ask me if we were on non-speaking terms away from the program, or if we really despised each other.
The answer is and was always “no.” I have great respect for Joe as a football coach and as an athletic director and thought he added a great deal to our program. Once more, he had a deep commitment to our local athletes and sports institutions—and that love of the local athletic programs in the RCN viewing area is something we shared and was the basis for our show’s core—one that allowed us to have strong disagreements and yet continue to have a solid working relationship.
It’s great that we are continuing to have passionate conversations about people who truly care for and respect local sports, on both our Thursday and Friday sports programs. We hope you’ll tune in to watch both shows this football season, as we continue to add to our local sports coverage and feature the outstanding athletes, teams and programs in the RCN viewing area.
