Courtesy Utica Observer Dispatch

(August 18, 2009) Lee Hamilton, a Long Island native and graduate of Ohio University, began his radio career in Utica at WIBX before going on to do play-by-play of big league hockey, major college football and the NFL, as well as host a nationally recognized sports talk show. His mother is from a large family in Whitesboro – three generations still live in the area — and he returns every July for reunions. He was an intern at WIBX in 1968, then worked full time in Utica from 1970 through 1975. He now is the host of a national baseball talk show on XM-175-Home Plate Channel, will do NFL Game of the Week for the new Compass Media Network and is a freelance columnist for SDNN.com.

Question: Why radio?

Answer: I came from a journalism-sports family. I went to college to be a sportswriter but became hooked on talk radio. I always wanted to do play-by-play of games.

Q: How did you develop WIBX’s Sportswatch, one of the earliest sports talk radio shows around?

A: I developed Sportswatch as the station turned from adult music to news-talk-sports in 1968. I had always listened to talk radio growing up. The initial Sportswatch program was on Saturday mornings. It covered Comets hockey, Yankees and Mets baseball, the Syracuse Orange, Colgate, UC and the NFL. We also did Hamilton College football. The program took off, with great listener response, then became a nightly show in the 1970s when the station carried Yankees and Mets baseball.

Q: What were the top thrills in your career?

A: My biggest thrill in sports broadcasting was doing my first hockey broadcast from the historic Gondola at Maple Leaf Gardens for the World Hockey Association Cleveland Crusaders. Some of the other big moments were broadcasting a Rose Bowl game, the Arizona State-Michigan game and the San Diego Chargers-49ers Super Bowl game in 1995.

Q: Who are the most interesting characters you’ve dealt with? The most difficult?

A: The greatest interview I ever did was with Arthur Ashe, the tennis legend, who was dying of AIDS at the time. I interviewed Mickey Mantle, Duke Snider, Sal Maglie, Willie Mays, Robin Roberts and many of the heroes of my baseball boyhood. I interviewed boxing legend Marvin Hagler, who talked about growing up in the projects in New Jersey. I interviewed Vin Scully. The toughest time I had in broadcasting was covering the Marshall University plane crash — I knew five players on the plane — and covering the death of Yankees legend Thurman Munson, a friend, in a plane crash. I had a tragic interview with Indy 500 driver Scott Brayton, who died the next day on the track in practice. Going on the air after the 9/11 incident and letting listeners grieve. Interviews I wish I could have done: Jackie Robinson and FDR.

Q: What’s the funniest thing that ever happened on the air?

A: The funniest thing was broadcasting a Chargers game on the road during an earthquake. The stadium shook, electricity went out.

I did play-by-play into a phone when our lines went down, not knowing it was dead.

The most dangerous incident was nearly getting electrocuted plugging in my equipment for a Comets-Long Island Ducks game in Commack Arena.

The most dreadful broadcast was any time we went to Syracuse to play the Blazers, knowing we would lose the game and the fights.

The wildest moment was broadcasting a Comets-Johnstown Jets game when the Carlson brothers came over the glass into the stands.

The worst moment was having to broadcast a Chargers-Redskins game from an open booth on the roof of RFK Stadium in Washington in a raging blizzard. Got frostbite and pneumonia.

The dumbest moment was during the 49ers Super Bowl blowout of Chargers. I watched Steve Young throw six TD passes and said: “If I wasn’t the Voice of the Chargers, I think I’d enjoy this game. This is the best NFL offense I have ever seen.” That comment wound up all over NFL Films.

The saddest moment was doing the last Cleveland Crusaders game prior to the NHL-WHA merger and knowing we were all going to get fired because Cleveland was not part of it.

The scariest moment was when old EHL brawler John Brophy came looking for me for something I had written in the game program.

The biggest rush was doing my first talk show from historic Dodgertown at Vero Beach, and also broadcasting the Hall of Fame Game at Doubleday Field in Cooperstown.

My proudest moment is remembering the public drive to “Save the Comets” hockey team, and I’m also proud of all the very special play-by-play guys who came through WIBX: Bill O’Donnell (Orioles), Tim Roye (Golden State Warriors), Jim Jackson (Philadelphia Flyers), Mike Haynes (Colorado Avalanche), and of getting voted talk show host of the year seven times by the California Broadcasters Association.

Q: Some other memories?

A: Watching lightning strikes hit the WKTV towers on Smith Hill, fall colors in the Adirondacks, getting up at 3 a.m. in snowstorms to go to WIBX to anchor the morning news block, drinking Utica Club beer, reading about the original Utica Blue Sox team, watching my son Scott win a medal in the California State High School wrestling championships (finishing fifth out of 532 in his weight class), watching my other son Kelly play a solo in the wind symphony in college, Utica family reunions, canoeing on Fourth Lake at our cottage in Inlet.

Q: Where is the industry headed? It seems to be shrinking on the local level around the nation.

A: I hope the radio industry is headed back to local ownership away from the corporate ownership, which has cost so many their jobs. I believe local talk radio can survive. I hope newspapers survive, too.

Q: If you had to choose another career, what would it have been?

A: I wanted to be a columnist, but I really wish I could have been a major league pitcher.

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