In the Spotlight Broadcaster Chuck Clark retires after 49 years of connecting people to live local sports

May 10—Chuck Sturiale, known for nearly 50 years by his on-air name of Chuck Clark, has retired from broadcasting sports, spinning records and interviewing people for Renda Broadcasting in Indiana County.

Clark, who will be 68 years old in June, went to broadcasting school in 1972 in Wilkinsburg, where Pittsburgh Steelers play-by-play broadcaster Bill Hillgrove was one of his instructors.

His first professional job was in 1973 at the age of 19 in Sutton, West Virginia, but his goal was to work in radio for his hometown of Indiana. In 1975, Clark started covering Indiana sports for Renda.

"Now, through the years, I've probably been through every high school gym and football stadium in Indiana and Cambria counties," he said.

A typical day at work included wearing many hats for Renda's two AM stations and two FM stations.

"I would go in in the morning and do a couple of newscasts on the company's Homer City station, 1160 WCCS," he said. "Then I would voice-track a four-hour country program, which was on our FM station, WLCY. Then, I would record commercials and do a live half-hour noon news block on our AM station, WDAD.

"Then, I would record newscasts that would run in the afternoon on both WCCS and WDAD, and in between all that I'd put the obituaries together and record weather forecasts and any other commercials that needed to be done for the day."

Since Clark's childhood years, sports and music were his passion. His work ethic came from following sports.

"Those guys were out on the field every day," he said. "I was a big fan of sports teams growing up, and I listened not only to sportscasters, but guys who did music shows, and I just liked to talk to people, basically."

His father's work ethic also rubbed off on him.

"My dad was working every day," he said. "He was a carpenter who worked all over the area."

Now that he's retired, he said he plans to spend time with his five grandchildren, and there are two more on the way.

"So if I give each kid a day of the week, then that pretty much takes up the whole week," he said.

He also likes golf, and he and his wife, Wendy, would like to do a little bit of the traveling that they haven't been able to do for the past 50 years.

He remembers generations of players he's interviewed over the years: "I'd be talking about players on the field, and I had their parents. I saw their dad play football or their mother play basketball.

"A number of championship games. I was able to do two state high school basketball championship games in the same day. That was in 2010 — Northern Cambria girls played the first game in the morning, and then the Indiana girls played for a state championship later in the afternoon at the Bryce Jordan Center."

In Indiana, Jack Benedict and Ray Goss were the sportscasters who influenced Clark's career.

"I always enjoyed listening to them," he said.

He also was inspired by Pittsburgh broadcasters.

"Bill Hillgrove was one of my instructors in broadcasting school," he said. "He was just starting out at the time, and he was our sports instructor."

While his instructors helped sharpen his skills, he had a natural talent for the radio: "Even in high school, kids were scared to death of standing up in front of the class and giving a speech, but it really didn't bother me at all."

And he and his friends played sports all year long on the streets they lived on and listened to all sorts of sports games on the radio, including national broadcasts.

"At that time you could pick up Chicago games and Detroit Tiger games and listen to those guys," he said.

But the radio industry has changed dramatically. It's only gotten less local.

"It's not as local as it used to be," Clark said. "When I started you always had a live person on the air. Now you can voice-track shows, and a lot of stations are running off of satellite for their programming, or it's programming they've already recorded ahead of time. I think it takes the local feel out of radio."

That change played a part in his decision to retire.

"I've done just about everything I could do, and after a while, if you just don't sit down and pick a date, you'll keep working and realize 'Geez, I'm 80 years old and I'm still working'," he said. "I've had a lot of fun. It's gone pretty fast, even though it's been 50 years."

Renda's vice president and regional manager, Mark Bertig, worked with Clark for more than 20 years. He described Clark as a dependable man with a lunch-pail mentality.

"Chuck was extremely versatile," Bertig said, "and he had a passion for sports. That was one of his initial lures to broadcasting. But Chuck could deliver news, handle production, be the morning man, midday guy — he's done a bit of everything, and he always did it well."

And in the studio, Clark led more with his actions than his voice, he said.

"Through his actions, he was a good leader," Bertig said. "Young people can learn a lot about work ethic from him. We are going to miss him."

Aside from his work ethic, Clark also believes strongly in being kind to people, he said. He carried that mentality when he interviewed both the winning team and the losing team.

"Treating them the way you would want to be treated and just taking time to listen when people talk to you is very important," he said. "Everybody has an interesting story and everybody can do something well, and there's a lot of people that do a lot of things better than I do."