Sportscaster Bill O'Mara Forced to Retire.. at 90!

KLKI’s Bill O’Mara going off the air

by Josh Lintereur
Skagit Valley Herald
July 14, 2007 - 07:17 AM

ANACORTES — Throughout his 70-year career in radio and television, Bill O’Mara has been in love with a profession that hasn’t always loved him back.

In 1945, he found out he’d lost his job working at a Tacoma radio station while standing in the receiving line at his own wedding.

“Here’s your check O’Mara, you’re done,” his station manager said after handing him his severance pay.

That one hurt.

Six other times during his career, O’Mara has been working for a station that has changed ownership.

Each time, he’s lost his job.

As it turns out, the seventh time is not the charm.

Earlier this week, the iconic 90-year-old O’Mara, who’s spent the last 22 years as a sportscaster for KLKI-AM 1340, learned that the station’s new owners were laying him off.

His last day will be July 31.

San Juan Communications, which purchased the station late last month, declined to comment on why O’Mara wouldn’t be retained.

At the time of the sale, company owners Robert and Jennifer Uteda had said that no personnel changes were planned for the immediate future.

“We have nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for Bill O’Mara. He is a living legend, a consummate professional and a true gentleman,” the Utedas said in a statement released Thursday. “We wish him only the best and look forward to hearing about his new endeavors.”

O’Mara said the Utedas didn’t tell him why he was being let go. But knowing full well that job security in the radio business is flimsy at best, O’Mara wasn’t surprised when he learned his fate.

“Sometimes you get kept; sometimes you don’t,” he said. “It’s the nature of the business. It’s nothing personal. They own the station, and they have the right.”

In Skagit County, O’Mara has become somewhat of a local celebrity while covering high school sports.

On the air, he’s instantly recognizable for his slightly-raspy voice that’s just a notch below the deep baritone the industry favors.

O’Mara started at KLKI in 1985, when he was 68, an age when many would have retired.

He’s appeared on the station’s morning show and done play-by-play for high school sports pretty much ever since.

Even at 90 years old, questions about retirement have a way of momentarily silencing the otherwise lively and talkative O’Mara.

“What the hell would I retire to?” he said after a long pause during an interview Thursday. “When you get down to it, I have no concept of retirement.”

As long as he’s healthy, O’Mara won’t walk away, because he adores broadcasting.

“It’s like being in love,” he said.

O’Mara has an almost encyclopedic memory of the games he’s covered, what the weather was like and who the players were.

O’Mara still rises nearly every day at 2 a.m. and reads several newspapers so he’s up to date on what’s going on in the sports world.

Radio has become such an integral part of his life that he lives at the radio station.

Literally.

Partly because radio pays so little and he’d be stretched to afford an apartment, and partly because O’Mara is more at home at the studio anyway, he’s slept at the KLKI studio since he arrived there in 1985.

When his job ends this month, he’ll move in with his son who lives in Lynnwood.

No matter what happens, the resilient O’Mara has always bounced back.

After being fired on his wedding day in 1945, he landed an audition during his honeymoon in California. He was one of 150 who auditioned that day, and he got the job.

His career has taken him to stations in just about every region of the United States.

He got his start in Minnesota in 1937 on a radio show called “Jack Armstrong: All American Boy,” He played the villain and was paid $3 per show.

In 1947, he started working in television announcing Seattle Rainiers games at KING 5 TV in Seattle, where he later became the station’s sports director.

Sometimes he’s left his job by choice, other times not. Yet he’s always found work again.

But this time, it’s a little more scary. He is, after all, 90 years old. And he hasn’t had to dust off his resume in 22 years.

His daughter, Leslie Kaye, who lives in the Seattle area, worries that her father’s age will make finding a new job difficult. Most troublesome to Kaye is what will happen when her dad is no longer on the air.

“He loves what he does,” she said. “I worry that without the work, that’s what could kill him.”

Though he’s disappointed that his time at KLKI will soon be over, O’Mara is keeping his head up.

He’s taken so much satisfaction in his job, that he doesn’t carry a single ounce of bitterness toward a business that hasn’t always extended the same loyalty to him as he brings to it.

“I’m lucky as hell. You know the speech Lou Gehrig gave?” O’Mara said, referring to the legendary baseball player’s famous speech where he proclaimed that “he was the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”

“That’s me, without the tears,” O’Mara said.

By the end of the month, O’Mara will hit the job market once again.

“I’ve had the best life. Why should I complain,” he said. “All I can think of is where will I land next. Until they say no, there’s always a possibility there’s a spot for me.”

• Josh Lintereur can be reached at 360-416-2141 or at jlintereur@skagitvalleyherald.com.