Watchdog

Warner on changing his name to Ken for six months at his first radio job, in 1961:

“The [boss] says, ‘Warner isn’t going to make it, nobody down here is named Warner.’ Pikeville, Kentucky, was only 5,000 people. So he says, ‘Come back tomorrow with some names.’

“So I came back with, ‘I always liked the name Robin, like Robin Roberts, or Jay, J-A-Y.’ He says, ‘Robin? That’s a girl’s name.’ I said, ‘No, Robin Roberts is a pitcher.’ He says, ‘Jay? Is that the letter J?’ I said, ‘No!’

“He said, ‘What about Bill or Joe?’ I said, ‘There’s nothing wrong with Bill or Joe, but if your name is Warner, which is quite an uncommon name, you’re giving me two of the most common names in the language.’ So I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘What about Ken?’ He said, ‘That’s it!’

“So for half a year I was Ken Wolf. I used to walk down the street in Pikeville and when you work in a small station everybody knows you. People would yell, ‘Hey, Ken, hey, Ken!’ and I’d keep on walking. It didn’t register. Then I went to WEPM, Martinsburg, West Virginia, and I said, ‘Can I use my real name?’ And they said, ‘Sure.’’

Warner on his next career move:

“Then I came to a station in Silver Spring, Md., an AM/FM station. It was there that I got a call from WTOP, which was a huge 50,000-watt station, and they said, ‘Do you want to come in for an audition?’ I failed three auditions as a newsman and the fourth one they said OK and they hired me.

“Sunday mornings we had a 15-minute newscast, from 5 a.m. to 2 p.m., and it was supposed to be 10 minutes of news, two minutes of weather, one minute of traffic and two minutes of sports. Well, as the weeks went on I increased the sports to 10 minutes, with three minutes of news, one minute of weather and traffic. It made me wonder if any executive at the station ever listened Sunday morning. Maybe they did and liked it. No one ever said anything

“Then they called me and said, ‘We’re going to start something revolutionary.’ You have to understand this is 1965. ‘We’re going to introduce what’s called talk radio where people will call you up on the phone and talk to you. Do you think you could handle that doing sports?’ I said, ‘Absolutely, sure.’ There was only one other station in the country doing it, and I think this is where they got the idea, and it was Bill Mazer at WNBC. In September 1965 I went on the air, and it was called ‘Sports Call.’ And even when I was on television in Washington I still did the ‘Sports Call’ show until 1976.’’

Warner on WTOP boss Larry Israel putting him on TV as well as radio after four years:

“He said, 'I’ve been listening to you on the radio; I like that show.’ He said, ‘What would you think about keeping the show but also going on television?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. I never thought about television.’ He said, ‘Now, you’re going to get criticized, because I hear what you say. You’re very controversial, you criticize the teams and people are going to call up.’

“But he said, ‘I don’t want you to change. That’s what I want you to do on television.”