Steven R Ranson
Days before the final game of this year’s basketball season was played at the 3A Nevada State Tournament in Las Vegas, former players and broadcasters reflected on the legacy of Mike McGinness, longtime KVLV Radio station manager, play-by-play sportscaster and distinguished Nevada legislator.
Everyone commented about Mike and how he didn’t have one bad story or incident to tell. Mike, who died last month after a lengthy illness, was affiliated with KVLV since the early 1970s. During his decades behind the microphone, whether at the Gummow Drive studio, courtside at a basketball game or in the press box at Bradley Field, Mike entertained the Churchill County residents and informed them of events occurring around the county or at the high school.
Mike was part of the Golden Age of radio sportscasters in Northern Nevada. Ernie Hall called the games for KELK in Elko, while Bob Stoddard could be found at a high school football or basketball game for Reno’s KBET Radio. I began to develop a love for reporting high school sports from Stoddard, and I broadcast scores of games during the regular season, at zone in those days and finally at the state tournaments at the Centennial Coliseum.
Sportscasters called the play-by-play action from South Tahoe to Carson City in western Nevada, to Winnemucca in the north and to Ely in eastern Nevada. If fans weren’t attending a game in person or listening to it on radio, then they didn’t fit into the Monday morning conversations about the previous games.
Sadly, today’s generations have missed those games called by Mike and the other golden voices of a distinguished era.
I never worked with Mike, but we shared a love of Greenwave sports after I began reporting from the sidelines in 1987 for the Lahontan Valley News. Our paths, though, crossed before then.
OUR PATHS CROSS
In my function as press office for the Nevada Army National Guard in the early 1980s, I met with both TV news directors or radio station owners to strengthen our liaison between the two worlds — military and civilian. My semiannual trips took me to Fallon and beyond where I met with Mike several times, and it also allowed me to hear the radio stations. On one of my early visits after listening to Dave Rice give a Nevada Fish and Game report, I mentioned to Mike I also prepared and recorded radio programs and wrote news articles for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. I relocated to Cheyenne in 1974 after graduating from the University of Nevada. Dave Rice also spoke at Mike’s celebration of life almost two weeks ago.
I eventually pushed away from broadcasting and became more interested as a print journalist in both the Guard and civilian life.
As fate would have it, though, my road in life landed me in Fallon in 1986 when I became reacquainted with Mike, who was a trustee on the school board. I came to Fallon to teach English and journalism, and one of the first challenges laid at my feet was introducing my journalism students to a small, fledging PBS-TV operation, FCTV. My task became very apparent. Introduce students to broadcasting and encourage them to become involve with FCTV. We did that until PBS in Reno took over the local PBS outlet and replaced it with programming coming from the University of Nevada.
THE NEW WAVE
Two current radio broadcasters who continue to bring high school sports to the Lahontan Valley are Larry Barker, the current play-by-play sportscaster, and his color man, Randy Beeghley, a former Greenwave athlete who led Fallon football to greatness in the 1970s.
“He (Mike) was doing all the sportscasting before I arrived in Fallon,” said Larry, a native of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Larry answered a KVLV ad looking for a full-time radio announcer. During the early months of 1988, Barker traveled the West and throughout Northern Nevada during the spring. Larry interviewed and Mike hired him, and over time, Larry assumed some of the sportscasting duties.
“I started May 2, 1988, on my 28th birthday,” Barker emphasized.
His first stint as a Fallon sportscaster came later that month when he announced the state AA softball tournament between Fallon and Needles, Calif. That also became my first state sports reporting tournament.
“That was the first championship I called for Fallon,” Larry recalled, who now has announced almost 20 state games.
Larry called Mike a very kind man, a very smart man.
“I have some very good memories of him,” Barker said. “We’ll miss him.”
Not only was Mike the first Voice of the Greenwave, but he also hosted programs in the morning and recorded advertising spots for a radio audience listening to the broadcasts from as far east as Austin and as far west as Reno during the daytime.
Over the years, Larry learned more about Fallon, and like Mike, he was also inducted into the Nevada Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame. The Greenwave Hall of Fame inducted Mike in 2019, and Larry’s time came a few years later.
Now, both men are waiting to be inducted into the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association Hall of Fame days as sportscasters.
Larry remembers Mike telling him in 1988 to assimilate into the small town and make the best of it. Like me, Larry has made Fallon is home.
When the Greenwave Hall of Fame inducted Mike almost six years ago, he was emotional, but we all were. I don’t remember a dry tear.
ONLY GAMES IN TOWN
Randy, who sits with Larry at the home and away games, remembers hearing Mike call the games in the 1970s. Fallon produced state championships in football, basketball and baseball during that time.
“I listened to the games at night,” Randy said. “They were the best … very exciting.”
During those close game, Randy said the sportscasts gave him the goosebumps, especially when Fallon was locked into a close game with a conference rival.
Before the girls basketball team played it first playoff game last month at the Elmo Dericco Gym, the fans remembered Mike with a moment of silence. After the game, coach Kevin Wickware, who grew up listening to Mike’s broadcasts, reflected on the local radio icon.
“I remember him calling one of my games,” Kevin recalled. “He’s always been involved with Fallon athletics.”
Ellen Townsend, who played sports in the mid-1970s for Fallon and then for the University of Nevada, Reno, also remembers those games on the radio like Beeghley.
“I’d listen to the basketball games and when the teams were in the playoffs,” Ellen told me. “We’d sit around the radio when Fallon was playing for a state championship.”
Randy and Ellen listened to the games in the spring when Mike called the action from the baseball or softball fields.
“He definitely was a Greenwave supporter,” Ellen said.
Chris Klenakis, a former Greenwave student and varsity football coach for Fallon in the late 1980s, has moved up the ladder in the collegiate ranks. He is now an assistant football coach for Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. After 30 years away from Fallon, Chris distinctly remembers Mike.
“When I was a kid, I’d listen to the basketball games,” Chris said.
In the mid-1970s, his father Tony coached the football team and took them to a handful of state championship games. Chris was familiar with Mike’s legwork of talking to the coached and asking questions about the big games.
“I also remember Mike as a great baseball announcer,” Chris said, reflecting on those games. “I remember Mike being a great, great basketball announcer. On Friday and Saturday nights, we’d listen to the basketball team when they were out of town.”
Like many people who recalled Mike’s ability to call games and remember key statistics, Chris said Mike was a positive figure on the radio for youth sports.
Likewise, I reported in Mike’s celebration of life article that a young Ken Tedford, now Fallon’s longtime mayor, served as the analyst. The team traveled everywhere in Northern Nevada to broadcast Greenwave sports to the folks back in Fallon.
Ken told more than 200 people who had gathered for Mike’s celebration of life that they liked to use some humor to keep their audience entertained as well as engaged with the sportscasts.
Ken recalled one incident.
“Mike would ask, what can we expect tonight?” Tedford said.
“They have 16 cheerleaders, and we have four,” Ken snapped back.
Today’s youth and their parents are lucky KVLV and its FM station KKTU still broadcast Greenwave sports. Slowly, that feature in rural America is disappearing. Nothing, though, has solidified a community more to its high school athletic teams than radio, which occasionally shows a flicker from its Golden Days of entertaining the people who tune in.
Mike is gone but not forgotten, and his play-by-play still resonates from the generations who followed him. May Mike’s distinct style remain with us as he signs off for a final time.
“That’s it for today, Greenwave fans. So long, good night. Until we meet again …”
Steve Ranson is editor emeritus of the Lahontan Valley News and also former sports reporter and editor for 21 years.