By Dan Beeson
Presscott Daily Courier
Jan. 1, 1997
Bob Kemp still considers his 1979 move to Prescott the best decision of his life. Unless, that is, it was his 1988 decision to leave.
Either way, the former Prescott Courier sports writer and sports editor isn't complaining about the way things turned out.
Not a chance. He's too busy tuning up for his daily chats with Bill from Birmingham, Pete from Palm Beach and Sam from San Francisco.
That's what he does from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. Central Time five days a week from his Chicago perch as a sports talk show host for the nationally syndicated One-on-One Sports Radio Network.
Aired daily by more than 300 affiliates, One-on-One joins a burgeoning class of electronic outlets available to the rabid sports fan who wants to talk ... and talk ... and
Click.
Kemp remembers dates as well as he remembers batting averages.
"I started working at the Courier Aug. 1, 1979 and left Jan. 15, 1988," he recalls. "It gave me a great opportunity in a lot of different ways. The sports editor at the time, Steve Carr, taught me a lot of things and gave me the freedom to write about a variety of different topics that ranged from local sports to national and about everything in-between.
"You don't get that kind of opportunity at a bigger paper. And I really learned a lot about game-planning and strategies from the local coaches like Bill Gahn, Chuck Hiatt and Rich Chainhalt. My plan right now is to retire in Prescott."
Kemp's work was mainly in the form of writing while at the Courier. But he's also had to mesh the other two "Rs" to form the picture of a bespectacled 40-year-old sitting behind a microphone and spinning sportsspeak with an insatiable nation of sports lovers.
Read: As in digesting countless newspapers on a daily basis. As in pounding the internet to the point of calling his daily habit "completely out of control."
Arithmetic: As in talking numbers. Lots of numbers. Scores ... Averages ... Point spreads ... Ahh, the morning spread, kind of reminds one of ... Las Vegas.
Click.
Aug. 1, 1991. Bob Kemp has been working in Las Vegas's sports handicapping business for a few years now. Even hooked up with the nation's foremost sports handicapper, Jim Feist, along the way.
Then on Aug. 1 he was telephoned by Vegas sports talk show host Larry Ness, who worked out of galley's Casino for what at that time was known as The Sports Entertainment Network.
Ness invited Kemp on the show as a guest to give a region-by-region preview of the upcoming college football season. The preview was to be spread over three days of shows. But as things turned out, Kemp never left, instead working at Ness's side for more than a year before getting his own show on the same network.
TSEN was eventually bought out by a Chicago-based group which promptly changed the name to One-on-One Sports Radio Network. For a time, One-on-One ran its operation from both Las Vegas and Chicago before finding it too difficult and eventually shifted its entire operation to the Windy City.
Click.
Aug. 12, 1994. Kemp lands down in Chicago the same day that his favorite sport-baseball-begins a strike that would wipe out the World Series for the first time in 90 years.
"I step off the plane, it's raining big-time and the baseball strike had just begun," he recalls. "I was in a real good mood."
But it didn't take long for things to get better.
Since taking up residency in the Chicago area Kemp has built up a network of contacts from around the country, usually in the form of newspaper beat writers who cover major college and professional teams.
"I can't stand listening to interviews from coaches or athletes, because they don't tell you diddly," Kemp says.
"Getting the contacts was difficult at first. But since we've gotten bigger and I've become more established, I've been able to build a network of contacts, which is something you have to have in this business."
Something that Kemp can do without is the rah-rah fan who always seems to find a home in your left ear while throwing back a beer and hot dog at the ol' ballpark.
In fact, dealing with the Roto Rooter isn't something Kemp can do without ... it's something he simply won't tolerate.
"If a Jacksonville Jaguars fan calls me and says, 'go Jags,' they'll last about as long as it just took me to tell you that," Kemp says. "Now, if they tell me, 'I think the Jags will win this weekend because ...' and give me a reason other than the fact that they have a Jags T-shirt on at the time, then we've got a good conversation.
"I'll leave the rah-rah stuff for local talk. As much as the local hosts don't want to admit it, most of them are homers to begin with. Either that or they're completely the opposite and want to slam everybody."
Which elicits sports talk's version of nature vs. nurture: Should the host conduct the symphony, or should he be the show?
Kemp does have a "Hero and Zero" selection each week, but saves the bombast for other hosts, instead choosing to bounce off the whims of his callers.
"Every host has his own style," says Kemp, who grew up in Columbus, Ohio and went to college at the University of Arizona.
"We do have some hosts who would fall into that 'personality' class, and if it's effective, go with it. But I consider myself more of a straight sportstalk guy.
"Because of the proliferation of resources available to people nowadays, a lot of the callers are very well-versed, which makes it easy to have a good conversation."
While Kemp is now cashing in on the sports talk craze that sweeps a nation, his main tie to Prescott is in the form of another craze that started about 20 years ago-rotisserie baseball.
It was 1980 when Courier editor Charlie Watters read an article in Inside Sports magazine about rotisserie leagues, and passed the concept on to several Courier employees, including Kemp.
"He was just looking for eight or nine people," Kemp remembers.
Seventeen years later, the "Choo Choo Coleman Fantasy Baseball League" is still going strong, as is Kemp's affinity for Prescott, which he still visits at least once a year.
"I love Chicago," Kemp says. "For a person who makes his living in sports, a town doesn't get any better. But I think I appreciate Prescott more now than I ever have.
"Especially when I'm stuck in a traffic jam on my way to work."
Copyright 1997 Presscott Daily Courier