Stay Tuned : Kerdoon Toils at Ovscure KWNK in hopes of Landing High-Profile Broadcasting Job

Another in a series by KWNK sportscaster Randy Kerdoon on problems Chick Hearn doesn’t face: It’s late in the basketball game. You suddenly realize that you’ve been calling old Deadeye Jones by the wrong name. You could spend the next 5 minutes explaining to your listeners that a careless coach gave you erroneous numbers, but there’s no time, so you do a little creative sportscasting.

“There’s 3:20 left in the fourth quarter,” you announce over the airwaves, “and Deadeye Jones gets off the bench and makes an appearance at point guard.”

Hearn doesn’t have that problem because he has an army of PR men and statisticians covering his flank and making life easy. Kerdoon is a one-man show when he does play-by-play for KWNK-AM, a small, 1,000-watt station that calls itself K-wink and covers the Valley area. His assignment these days is high school basketball, where reporting conditions are primitive and information is sketchy--and sometimes wrong.

“Covering high school basketball is unique and it’s almost impossible to be always accurate,” says Kerdoon, who graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where he was known as the “King of B. S.”

Another problem Chick Hearn doesn’t face: he’s not competing against Chick Hearn. Kerdoon is trying to funnel through a system that is crowded at the top. Unless you are an ex-jock or are willing to throw foam bricks at a camera to get attention, breaking into big-time sports announcing is “a one-in-a-million shot,” says Kerdoon, who wants to work in television.

It’s also a long, tough road. In 12 years of sportscasting, Kerdoon has worked for dozens of little stations--from KIOQ in Bishop, Calif., to KOH in Reno--and has put about 200,000 miles on a beat-up 1968 Chevrolet. He held some jobs barely long enough to warm up his vocal cords. The longest he stayed in one place was 4 years in Salt Lake City, where he worked at one time or another for 11 radio and TV stations.

“I have a cousin who jokes that I can’t hold a job,” says Kerdoon, who grew up in West Hills. But sportscasting is a lot like pro sports: You start in the minors and work your way to the majors if you have talent and persistence and luck. “If you’re looking for stability,” Kerdoon says, “don’t be a sportscaster.”

At 33, Kerdoon is at a crossroads in his career. Even though he had valuable experience in Salt Lake City--radio play-by-play on minor league hockey and baseball and a TV show with a college basketball coach--he knew he wasn’t getting anywhere. He also realized that he had to be in Los Angeles to make the right connections. So last November, when his parents told him that KWNK had moved just a few blocks from their house, Kerdoon decided to return to the Valley.

“I’ve come here seeking a dream,” he says. “I know I can work in L. A.”

Another problem that Chick Hearn doesn’t face: Kerdoon has to sleep in his father’s office at his parents’ West Hills home. “Camping out with the folks” is how he puts it. Which is better on the wallet than the ego. “I hate to admit I’m living at my folks’,” he says.

Kerdoon left Salt Lake City last November and immediately landed the position of sports director at KWNK.

It’s a part-time job that takes up most of his time. He works the morning shift five days a week, doing sports spots about once an hour from 5 to 11 a.m. In the early afternoon he prepares for that day’s game coverage and tries to set up guests for his irregularly scheduled “Sportsbeat,” a phone-in show.

“Sportsbeat,” which went on the air Jan. 1, runs only when Kerdoon isn’t broadcasting high school basketball games. It hasn’t developed a following yet, he says, “but until we start getting quality calls, I’m hoping to get quality guests.” UCLA basketball player Don MacLean has been on the show, but Kerdoon has had no luck lining up big-name celebrities.

“Sparky Anderson’s a local guy (Thousand Oaks) and I called the Tigers to get him,” Kerdoon says, “but they said, ‘We’ll tell Sparky, but don’t hold your breath.’ ”

He can’t. Without a color analyst to give him relief, Kerdoon needs all the wind he can muster to broadcast a high school basketball game. He recently went back to his alma mater, El Camino Real High, to cover the Conquistadores’ game against Taft. Arriving 2 hours early to talk to the coaches and squeeze their memory for anecdotes and information, Kerdoon set up a table near the official scorer and plugged his tape recorder into a 60-foot extension cord--the broadcast would be taped and go on the air 3 hours later.

“This is the “L. A. City Game of the Week” on 67 K-wink,” Kerdoon said to open the show, his broadcast voice slightly deeper and more resonant than his normal voice. “The Conquistadores got the tip-off and are going from left to right on your radio dial,” which no doubt confused listeners with vertical or circular dials.

Doing high school basketball play-by-play takes mental dexterity and exceptional eye-mouth coordination. Unlike the slow, breezy pace of baseball, basketball is fast and furious, providing little opportunity for anything but basic play-by-play, which doesn’t allow Kerdoon to show off what he calls his “bizarre sense of humor.”

With machine-gun delivery, Kerdoon spews a seamless barrage of chatter. He keeps his own statistics, explaining their significance in the context of the game, ignoring screaming fans and coaches while still following the ebb and flow of the action. He does this without dead air time, while speaking in complete sentences, and without uttering a single “uh.”

Another problem Chick Hearn doesn’t face: Kerdoon’s tape ran out right before the halftime buzzer, cutting him off in mid-adjective. But he simply flipped the tape over and re-created the action that he’d missed. “You got to improvise in this job,” he says.

At halftime, Kerdoon shut off the tape recorder, removed his headset and totaled up the first-half statistics. He had no time to relax. About 5 curious boys, attracted by the KWNK banner draped in front of the table, looked over Kerdoon’s shoulder. “A cult following,” he joked, motioning to the boys. But the boys were amazed that a radio station was actually in their gym. A boy wearing pukka shells told him, “I didn’t know anyone did games on radio.”

Indeed, KWNK is the only station doing it--and it’s too new to have made an impact. But Kerdoon recalls a time when high school basketball games were a big deal in the Valley. “KGIL used to be the Valley station when I was growing up,” he says. “Stan Brown did the ‘High School Game of the Week.’ I remember how excited everyone was to have their school’s game on radio.”

KWNK is trying to resurrect that excitement with expanded high school coverage. Until recently, the station’s geographic base was eastern Ventura County. But last October, it moved the studio to the Fallbrook Mall in West Hills and declared itself the “Tri-Valley station”--which includes the San Fernando, Simi and Conejo valleys. Its transmitter is still located in Simi Valley; plans are afoot to raise the wattage to 5,000 to gain a broader range. Right now, the station can be heard as far away as Manhattan Beach during the day, but at night it turns to static in North Hollywood.

The affable Kerdoon, whose boyish face tops a 6-foot, 3-inch frame, is trying to amplify his career, too. “I listen to my tapes from 10 years ago,” he says, “and I’m a heckuva lot better.” But Kerdoon realizes he’s no “Twinkie”--the name Linda Ellerbee gave to TV’s pretty faces. He’s got to make it on personality.

“I have to be different from the next guy,” he says.

To be different on a Salt Lake City TV show, he once put a lamp shade on an actor and introduced him as the opposing team’s coach.

Although Kerdoon hasn’t been asked to do “Monday Night Football,” he is proud of his achievements. “I got two rings in six months,” he says. “Some guys go for years without getting one.”

One ring is for doing the play-by-play for the Salt Lake City Golden Eagles, who won the International Hockey League title in 1987. The other is for announcing games of the Salt Lake City Trappers, a Rookie League team that won 29 consecutive games last year, a professional baseball record.

Kerdoon spends his spare time sending out audiotapes and videotapes to stations all over the country. “My chances are zero in a million if I don’t,” he says. He once taped rejection letters on his “Reject Wall”--but stopped when the total reached 33.

“Sometimes it gets tiring.” he says about the grind.

Kerdoon doesn’t think of quitting--”When I sink my teeth into something, I don’t let go so fast”--but the fire doesn’t burn as brightly as it once did.

“I was gung-ho when I got out of college,” he says. “You did things then to improve yourself and because it was fun. Twelve years later, it’s still fun, but your priorities change. You don’t want to give as much of yourself without something in return. That’s not cynical. It’s realistic.”