Los Angeles Radio Sports Anchor Shares Career Insights
For my money, Randy Kerdoon is one of the more unique persons you’ll ever meet. If you follow his tweets (https://twitter.com/#!/knxrandykerdoon), you’ll see he’s got a great sense of humor, which can be misleading.
He’s so light-hearted at times – he doesn’t appear to take life too seriously – you’d be pleasantly surprised to learn that he’s a deep thinker with terrific analytical skills.
His career? He has a rich background in broadcasting. As an award-winner many times over, Mr. Kerdoon does the weekday sports twice an hour from 5 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the CBS-owned KNX 1070 Newsradio in Los Angeles.
He grew up in southern California. Later, to the north, he graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
He’s worked at KNX since 2004. Before then, he did weekend sports on the Fox TV station in Los Angeles.
He was once the play-by-play voice of the Salt Lake Golden Eagle Hockey squad and the Salt Lake Trappers baseball team. He’s in the team picture at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown after the Trappers won a record 29 consecutive games in 1987.
He was also the football announcer for Weber State on television, and did pre-game shows for the Utah Jazz basketball team. He returned to California and worked at a small valley radio station before getting a sports gig at KFWB radio.
Before he got into sportscasting, I worked with him at two Salt Lake City radio stations, KSL and KDYL, in the 1980s. That was before I became a business-performance consultant and Biz Coach. (Full disclosure: I was also once a freelance contributor to KNX.)
After connecting with him on Facebook, I e-mailed him a list of interview questions.
Here’s an excerpt of his answers:
Q: What’s your family situation now?
A: Single Dad….one teen aged daughter.
Q: Why did broadcasting appeal to you?
A: It looked like fun, and challenging, something that combined things I was interested in….storytelling, action and creativity.
Q: What are your favorite experiences in broadcasting?
A: Play-by-play of several minor league teams including Salt Lake Trappers and their 29 game win streak in 1987; doing TV in LA.
Q: How did you make the transition from radio to TV and back to radio?
A: I did some TV work in Salt Lake City, and local cable in LA, and noticed the weekend guy at Fox was working 14 straight days, prompting me to talk to their news director and got a tryout for anchor, which led to me getting the weekend job. Eight+ years later when my contract was not renewed…family matters led me back to radio where the hours were more family friendly.
Q: How do you evaluate risk taking for your career? (I recall you weren’t afraid to take a risk at KSL.)
A: You always have to go past your comfort zone, and be true to who you are….when going for jobs or just challenging yourself, and learn to play softball and start a team….I believe that background landed me the morning job at KFWB, altho’ I never did play for their team.
Q: What advice would you give a young person hoping for a broadcasting career?
A: It’s a different beast now than when I was just starting, but the bottom line remains the same. If you want it enough and are willing to work hard enough (sometimes for little or no pay) at the beginning….and are willing to relocate….then you will likely have a good shot at this!!
Q: In hindsight, what, if anything, would you do differently?
A: I’ve often thought of getting an agent, but heard so much from my LA brethren about them not being trustworthy, I balked. Got my LA TV job without one…
Q: What else would you like to add?
A: Love what you do….and network…a lot. Contrary to what you hear…it IS a who-you-know business….
From the Coach’s Corner,here are helpful career and business tips from Chris Roberts, UCLA’s longtime broadcaster.
“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
-Michael Jordan
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Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.
Helpful Career, Biz Tips from UCLA’s Longtime Broadcaster
Decision-makers at the Pac-12 probably consider it a birthright to promote the conference as the “conference of champions.” Yes, some school programs are better known than others, but all the athletic programs have reasons to be proud.
The same is true off the field. Broadcasters in the Pac-12 conference are also champions.
Consider the depth of respect the longtime UCLA play-by-play announcer, Chris Roberts, pays to his peers in the Northwest:
“Bob Rondeau, with more than 20 years as the voice of the Huskies, is unquestionably one of the best and most recognizable voices in the Pacific Northwest while Bob Robertson with his 40 years calling WSU football is the dean of Pac-10 play-by-play men in the conference,” said Chris Roberts, the voice of the UCLA Bruins. “They are both solid announcers and very good broadcast friends of mine.”
Such positive comments are vintage Chris. He’s been calling UCLA’s football and basketball games for two decades on UCLA’s network. The flagship station is KLAC in Los Angeles. His employer is multi-media rights-holder is ISP Sports. ISP is also the rights holder for dozens of major college athletic programs.
Chris hasn’t changed since I worked with him at a southern California radio station.
We had monster ratings at KFXM, a rock n’ roll radio station in the Riverside-San Bernardino region, one of the nation’s top 30 markets. KFXM and its sister station, KDUO, had an astronomical 55 percent share of the listening audience. Chris was KFXM’s noon to 3 p.m. jock and I was the newscaster on both stations in morning and afternoon drive-time.
As he does now, Chris wore an enthusiastic smile, and he was analytical as the station’s music director. He had a knack for picking the right music for KFXM listeners. The playlist included artists from the Rolling Stones to the Supremes. But I’ll always remember overhearing him in the hallway explaining why the night-time ratings were so good; he successfully anticipated that Motown tunes would especially appeal to KFXM’s night-time listener demographic.
Chris and I agree that KFXM was a dynamic, fun experience. The now-defunct station served as a springboard for other successful broadcasters.
For me, there were eye-opener incidents, such as when I spotted a pre-Rolling Stones star – former artist Freddie “Boom Boom” Cannon – sitting in the lobby waiting to pitch Chris songs from Buddah Records. Cannon had stopped recording for a while after a string of hits that had been influenced by Chuck Berry.
It suggested to me that life was tough and it was necessary to adapt in order to earn a living.
Our careers took different paths:
Chris worked at top Los Angeles radio stations before being hired for his current gig.
My career took me to different markets at various TV and radio stations before I attended the UCLA Executive MBA Program and segued to a career in business. Insights gained at KFXM helped me as a journalist and as a radio station programmer in achieving high ratings in different formats; from all news to adult contemporary.
Chris and his wife, Ann, have a son, David, and a daughter, Nichole. Nichole teaches Spanish in public schools. On game days, David serves as the UCLA spotter and locker-room coordinator. During the week, he runs his own firm, Direct-Hire Staffing Services in Newport Beach, California.
Chris and I sat down for breakfast at a Bellevue, Wash., restaurant.
Including tips for young broadcasters and businesspeople, here are his edited comments:
Q: How does it feel doing play-by-play for a top university on KLAC, a Clear Channel radio station in the nation’s No.2 market?
A: As time goes on, there isn’t a day I don’t wake up appreciating and recognizing I’m one of the luckiest guys in America. I never take it for granted.
Q: What is your broadcasting philosophy?
A: It’s real simple – be professional in every aspect of the job. I once did Long Beach State football. George Allen gave me an important lesson about small things like providing pencils in the press room. He said you have to take care of every minute detail. If you don’t, then you’ll let other things slide.
(Allen, as a Pro Football Hall of Fame coach, never had a losing season. He had the NFL’s third-best won-lost record behind Vince Lombardi and John Madden, respectively.)
Q: In addition to your sports career, you have a real estate broker’s license, and obtained it when you were on-on-the-air at our powerhouse radio station. Why?
A: I was influenced by KFXM owner Howard Tullis at a young age. He taught me valuable lessons after I asked him for advice. He told me that when I got my first paycheck, to make the first payment to my savings account. Then he told me to save my money and he insisted that I save as much as possible.
Soon, I had saved up about $5,000. I really didn’t know what I was doing. I bought a four-unit complex for $44,000 with a $4,400 down payment and the owner carried a second. I sold it two years later for $88,000.
Q: Why and how did you get into sports broadcasting?
A: I played three sports in high school. In college, I studied at Cal Poly Pomona. While at KFXM, I started doing the high school game of the week on a cable channel, Teleprompter, which was owned by Jack Kent Cooke. (Cooke also owned the Washington Redskins and Los Angeles Lakers.)
Q: What counsel would you give a young broadcaster?
A: I enjoy helping young people. I ask them if they’re willing to work for low wages and go out to the desert for their first job. Then I tell them they can work their way up by making audition tapes and applying to stations in larger markets.
I remind them to stay optimistic and don’t get disappointed by only one person’s opinion. You have to put it aside. Don’t get caught up in that negativity.
Q: What’s your career advice for a young businessperson?
A: The first thing you’ve got to do is don’t live beyond your means. Avoid credit card debt and ask yourself if you really want to buy that big car or television. Debt is a killer.
I believe the Golden Rule is very important: do unto others as you want to be treated. Another philosophy of mine is to be grateful for opportunities.
Q: Hobbies?
A: I play golf early every Sunday morning with my longtime friends.
Q: Ron Fairly surprisingly announced his retirement from the Seattle Mariner broadcasts at the age of 68. How long do you intend to broadcast games?
A: That’s a surprise. Fairly is really good and at the top of his game. I intend to keep working as long as possible. It’s a lot of fun. They’ll have to drag me away.
Finally, in case you’re wondering, the UCLA announcer’s favorite music: Tunes by Chicago.
From the Coach’s Corner, lessons in sports are analogous to lessons in business:
A sports team will often lose because of a lack of effort, poor strategy, failure to adapt, and mistakes on offense and defense.
Music retailer, Tower Records, was an international powerhouse when I worked with Chris Roberts. But it became a non-player after a federal bankruptcy judge has approved the sale of the company to Great American Group for $134.3 million in 2006. Great American liquidated Tower Records and 3,000 people lost their jobs. Basically, it’s now an online music store.
The demise of Tower Records was caused by several reasons:
- The company’s name was out-of-date. By way of comparison, consumers now know Kentucky Fried Chicken as KFC.
- Tower Records didn’t adapt its business model. Founder Russ Solomon failed to understand the viability of the Internet. He was widely quoted as dismissing it as both a threat and opportunity.
- Pricing points drew criticism from shoppers.
- The stores weren’t inviting.
- Many consumers complained about the lack of customer service.
So, you might want to consider these questions:
- How is your company perceived?
- How will you succeed like a championship sports team?
For strategic-planning tips, here are numerous business-coaching columns on planning.
“Failing to plan is planning to fail.”
-Alan Lakein
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Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.