Having been in radio since working as a disc jockey his junior year in high school, Thornton always had a special appreciation of sports on the air.

He was doing play-by-play announcing of Sheffield High School sports by his freshman year at the University of North Alabama.

Thornton graduated from UNA in 1980 with a double major in business management and radio/television broadcasting, and worked for WVNA.

Throughout the years, he continued live sports broadcasts and became the voice of his high school alma mater, Bradshaw High School.

During those years, he heard from a great deal of sports fans in the area, and noticed the popularity that WVNA's AM station had when it started airing the WJOX weekday broadcasts of a popular Birmingham sports-talk show hosted by Herb Winches and Ben Cook.

Thornton decided to take the chance. In 2002, he purchased WYTK 93.9 FM in Florence and started the Shoals' first local all-sports radio station, The Score.

“It was kind of a shot to put sports talk on FM at the time, and now it's pretty common to do that,” Thornton said.

The risk paid off. The station continues to thrive today, as evident by a recent ranking of sports-talk shows throughout the nation.

The ranking by Cision Navigator, which follows various trends in the media market, looks at the potential market share of every region in the country that has a sports-talk station.

It then looks at the Arbitron ratings for those markets, compared to how much of the market listens to the station.

The findings: The Score ranks 10th nationally in that ranking, according to the Cision Top 10.

Thornton admits he is surprised by the ranking.

“That's a pretty big deal, especially in a station in a market our size,” he said.

Many other stations in the Top 10 are in major media markets in the Northeast. Others range from locations including Nashville, Oklahoma City, Okla., and Seattle. WJOX also made the ranking, finishing fifth.

Thornton said he felt good about his station's chances when he took over.

“Even when working at WVNA, I thought at that point that a sports format would go, because we had sports programming on the AM station over there,” he said. “We were able to sell it pretty well because it's such a sports-crazy area and state.

“I talked to Herb Winches before I did it. He didn't hesitate a bit. He said absolutely it would work. We picked up his show right off the bat, and that helped us get some credibility from the beginning. We had ESPN programming, too, which also helped.”

Winches' show no longer exists, and today a popular show hosted by Paul Finebaum fills much of WYTK's afternoon slot. A locally created “Boomo Bugg Show,” with hosts Harold Bugg and Brett Beaird, fills the noon-2 p.m. slot, and popular national programs “Mike and Mike in the Morning” and “The Tim Brando Show” fill up much of the mornings.

The station also airs various ESPN game broadcasts.

In addition, the station airs UNA basketball games, Atlanta Braves baseball, Florence Falcons sports and is part of the Crimson Tide Sports Network.

“It's really added to our resume having UNA basketball and other UNA programming, and Harold and Brett do a good job covering local sports, UNA, Alabama and Auburn,” Thornton said.

Thornton is pleased with the station's situation, and plans to continue bringing sports to the Shoals airwaves for a long time.

“There's not a whole lot of changes I would make to it,” he said. “You know the saying, ‘If it ain't broke, don't fix it.' ”