By Sally Vanderhoof
Sentinel Special Correspondent
This Saturday, as high school football season kicks off around Connecticut, a familiar voice will return to the airwaves. For those wanting to hear about the exploits of the Greenwich High School Cardinals, it will feel just right.
Rob Adams is back.
Adams, who holds the title of Sports Director at WGCH (as well as Broadcasting Manager at the Greenwich Sentinel), will begin his 15th season calling Cardinals football as Big Red takes on Westhill in Stamford. Overall, it’s been nearly 20 years for the Mahopac, NY resident as the “voice of Greenwich sports.”
“It’s good to be back,” Adams says, during a break from hosting his talk show, Greenwich Sentinel Doubleheader. “I love being on the air, talking sports. Working with Paul (Silverfarb, the Editor of the Sentinel) is still a blast. Greenwich has been good to me, as well as my son, Sean.”
It feels like the 47 year-old was meant to do this, as Adams has been interested in broadcasting since he was young. Raised on the sounds of AM radio, including WABC out of New York City, he learned the timing and humor of the disc jockeys. Yet it was sports that fueled him.
“I was around 15 or so when I knew I had zero chance of being a ballplayer,” he says. “I thought I might like to talk about sports, and it felt like my boyhood idols were going into broadcasting. So there was Bobby Murcer retiring to go into the booth, and I was hooked.”
He studied the professionals, such as retiring broadcasting legend Vin Scully.
“His sense of timing and his ability to tell stories, is unlike anything anyone has ever done,” he adds.
He first used those DJ skills on WMJV-FM in Patterson, NY before coming to Connecticut, first on WREF in Ridgefield. When WREF was sold, he found his way down to WGCH and has been there ever since. At first, Adams did it all – engineering, playing church services, hosting a trading post program – but he eventually found his way into sports, calling Cardinals baseball, hockey, and basketball, before ascending to the lead football role in 2000.
“To this day, I’ll do just about anything,” he says. “I’ve been teaching at Connecticut School of Broadcasting, and in the Wilton school district, and I tell the students the same thing: do anything. They need an election reporter? Do it. Fill in on the news? Go for it.”
He described the Cardinals, as well as the Brunswick Bruins until the end of the 2013 season, when he was instrumental in creating HAN Radio (now HAN Network), a website that broadcasts FCIAC games.
“I wanted to see what else I could bring to a newspaper company, such as HAN,” he says. “I’m thrilled for their success.”
Creating radio and, eventually, video broadcasters among newspaper writers led a colleague to start a hashtag: #Robcasting. Adams still uses that on Twitter.
While he enjoys the banter and free-form of the radio show, it’s play-by-play that has long been his passion, and it’s a passion he loves to pay forward. He will soon call the play-by-play of his 1000th game that spans minor league baseball, college basketball, the Bridgeport Sound Tigers and, of course, high school sports.
“Rob cares about those around him and is always willing to give a helping hand, whether in be physically helping out or providing support and advice,” says Shawn Sailer, Sports Editor of the Sacred Heart Spectrum and an occasional WGCH co-host. “Professionally, Rob is a well-versed and prepared broadcaster. Rob is dedicated to his craft, always trying to put out the best broadcast possible. He is aways looking to teach and share his broadcasting knowledge.”
It’s that preparation that can be misleading.
“I don’t show up with reams of notes,” Adams says. “I used to, but now I have a computer and a notebook, as well as my brain. My father long lamented that he wanted me to study harder in school, as opposed to the 1977 Yankees starting lineup.”
Jake Zimmer, who worked with Adams at the HAN Network, echoes Sailer.
“Rob Adams has been an absolute inspiration to me,” Zimmer says. “I had never called a basketball game before, but even when I had little faith in myself to make a positive contribution to the broadcast, Rob encouraged me throughout the entire game, and gave me the confidence to be comfortable with my own knowledge.
“He has, in my opinion, the epitome of a radio voice, and is such an engaging and energetic play-by-play announcer. I attribute my success in the broadcasting field totally to Rob.”
To that end, Zimmer, currently the Production Director at WJMF Radio in Providence, RI, as well as a sophomore at Bryant University, will “provide analysis on some of the most-viewed events in the NCAA,” he says, for NECFrontRow.com.
Adams says he’s been blessed to work with a variety of partners, and is proud to call them friends. At WGCH, he’s been joined by John Spang, Sean Kilkelly, Chris Erway, and Chris Kaelin, among too many others to count. This season, Adams says he hopes listeners will hear the voices of Kilkelly, Erway, and Kaelin, as well as Kevin Coleman, former Sound Tigers “voice” Phil Giubileo.
“Chris Erway, who has been part of the crew for about eight years now, will do eight Cardinals games with me,” he says. “We’re still working out the schedules of Kato (Kaelin) and others.”
Adams and Erway were the lead team on the final two FCIAC Championship football games.
As he did in his previous gig, Adams is creating a web-based radio station as a co-production of WGCH and the Greenwich Sentinel that he says will focus on Greenwich.
“The FCIAC has great coverage,” he says. I’m not here to create competition. I’m here to get more games on the air – radio or internet. Sacred Heart and Greenwich Academy don’t get their games broadcast, and I think that’s a shame. Plus I love covering Brunswick sports. They’ve always been good to me, and I’m excited to work with them.”
Around town, people are happy to hear that voice. John Marinelli, head football coach at Greenwich High School, was a recent guest on Greenwich Sentinel Doubleheader.
“Congrats on being back in Greenwich,” Marinelli said. “(It’s) where you belong.”
His first broadcast on WGCH is when the Cardinals play at Westhill this Saturday. All Greenwich games will all be heard on 1490 AM, as well as online at wgch.com. However, due to a contractual agreement with the FCIAC, a few games will be heard on radio only, including Saturday, Sep 17 against Trinity Catholic.
