Gary Radnich wrapping up KRON career

That man was Gary Radnich, the longtime sports anchor for KRON in San Francisco, who announced Tuesday that he would retire from the TV station at the end of summer.

I didn’t know it at the time, but Radnich had only been back in the Bay Area for a few years and he quickly became one of the best local sports anchors. Add in his nearly three decades with radio station KNBR and Radnich is arguably the best-known sports media personality in the Bay Area.

And while his sports wrapups at the end of the 11 p.m. newscast were mostly straight-laced and by the book, it wasn’t until he teamed with KNBR in 1992, “the 50,000-watt blowtorch,” that Radnich really came into his own as a media personality.

The fact he stayed with KRON even after it lost its NBC affiliation in 2001 shows how much Radnich enjoyed being home. A native of San Jose, Radnich went on to become a star basketball player at Del Mar and Branham high schools. He played on scholarship at BYU before transferring and finishing his college career at UNLV before getting into broadcasting.

Despite being the San Francisco Giants’ station since 1979 and a ratings juggernaut with their talk shows, there was a time KNBR was not a 24-hour sports-talk radio station. I worked for a big-time Bay Area general contractor as a parts driver during summers when off from college and I spent a lot of time listening to the radio. One summer, I had only an AM radio in the truck, so I used to listen to, get this, the Rush Limbaugh Show and then a cooking show to get to the sports talk, which didn’t start until noon.

That’s when I really took notice of Radnich. I was used to die-hard sports talk as a wanna-be sports writer, but Radnich provided a much less serious approach to sports, realizing that who the San Francisco 49ers drafted, in the grand scheme of things, didn’t really matter. His humor and enjoyment of what he does on the radio comes through clearly, like you could almost see the twinkle and wink through the radio as an acknowledgment of him knowing what he was doing and was just trying to be entertaining.

Many have grown tired of Radnich’s schtick, especially on the radio. But when it came time to do the highlights on KRON, he was right there, as solid as anyone in getting viewers the results and highlights.

For me, Radnich is a Bay Area sports institution and until KRON lost its NBC relationship, was my go-to sports roundup before the internet really took over. But he’ll still be with KNBR for the foreseeable future, bringing his unique brand of humor and opinions to the world of sports.

Love him or hate him, you have a reaction when you listen to him and that is the ultimate respect you can give.

Nathan Mollat can be reached by email: nathan@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: 344-5200 ext. 117. You can follow him on Twitter @CheckkThissOutt.