After 45 years at WAVY, Bruce Rader steps down as sports director

For much of his 19-year NFL career, Hall of Famer Bruce Smith notoriously bristled at requests from the media.

But he always had time for one reporter.

Anytime Smith saw veteran WAVY-TV sports anchor Bruce Rader approach his locker, beat writers and TV reporters covering the Buffalo Bills and, later, the then-Washington Redskins on a daily basis, stood amazed at the surly Smith’s open-arms welcome.

But Rader had something the others couldn’t possibly have: a relationship that spanned Smith’s entire adult life.

“He was my connection and my conduit to Norfolk and to the Hampton Roads area,” Smith said this week at a party in Rader’s honor at Chartway Arena. “And I could have the ability to be able to connect with my parents while I was away from home.

“He was one that I built a relationship and I was able to trust, that would tell the story accurately, not ad-lib.”

Rader, the gregarious, effusive and impossibly well-connected WAVY institution, signed off for the last time Thursday after 45 years at the station. He did do a sports segment; rather, he bid a brief, but heartfelt farewell to viewers who have watched him for a generation.

He had planned to write the speech after returning from Duke’s basketball game at Virginia on Wednesday night.

“I’m just going to sit there and I’m going to say goodbye,” Rader said. “I think they’re going to give me about three minutes, and I don’t know what I’m going to say. It’s probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever agreed to in my life, to go on live TV and say goodbye. I could do it for an hour, but I’ll just do the best I can.”

It’s among the toughest assignments of Rader’s storied career, which has included Super Bowls, World Series, Olympics, championship fights and countless high school sporting events of all varieties.

The stories are endless.

Rader attended every fight of Norfolk native and boxing champion Pernell “Sweet Pea” Whitaker’s professional career, from Scope Arena and Atlantic City to Madison Square Garden and Madrid.

At the insistence of Whitaker’s camp, believing it was good luck, Rader once bumped famed ring announcer Michael Buffer from the microphone on HBO. Buffer didn’t like it, and he threatened to quit if Rader ever introduced fighters again.

“I almost had a rumble,” Rader said, invoking Buffer’s famous catchphrase. “And so that was the end of my ring announcing.”

Since 1979, Rader has enthusiastically come into homes in Hampton Roads, reporting on events both major and obscure.

Brian Parsons, a Newport News-born WAVY sports producer and fill-in anchor for the past 25 years, grew up watching Rader before matriculating to Old Dominion.

“So I’ve known Bruce on TV my entire life, literally,” Parsons said. “So to work with him for 25 years has been pretty special because he’s shown me so much. And he’s so well connected in the area. Because of him, I’ve been able to see things and do things that I don’t think would’ve been possible without him.”

In addition to legendary athletes, Rader counts among his friends business giants, politicians, law enforcement officers and college presidents.

His co-workers, many of whom gave impassioned speeches at this week’s party, know Rader as a larger-than-life rock.

WAVY meteorologist Don Slater, who has worked with Rader for nearly 41 years, said Rader pointed out that the pair had recently done their final 6 p.m. broadcast together.

For Slater, who is nearing retirement, it was a preview of the end.

“It was just one of those where we just stood and hugged, and a little tear in my eye about it,” Slater said. “So yeah, it’s already different.”

Rader was working for an ABC affiliate in Washington, D.C., when he took his first job in Norfolk for $150 a week at age 22. A media column in The Virginian-Pilot announcing his hire opined that, with his strange voice, mustache and too-long hair, he’d never make it.

Rader still has the clipping.

All these years later, he’s established himself as the region’s go-to TV source for local sports while, at the urging of late mentor Peter Decker Jr., using his celebrity to help to raise millions of dollars for charity.

His on-air presence, Parsons said, will be missed.

“It’s a big void,” Parsons said. “It’s a void in Hampton Roads, not just WAVY — in Hampton Roads media. He’s an icon. Forty-five years in one place is pretty unheard of.”

Smith, a former Virginia Tech star defensive end who retired from the NFL in 2004 and became a first-ballot Hall of Famer, met Rader while playing at Booker T. Washington High and keeps in touch with him to this day.

Tellingly, when Smith walked into Rader’s party at Chartway, the two embraced.

“He built relationships that stood the test of time,” Smith said. “And all of the other stuff is great, but the love that we have in our hearts for Bruce Rader is just a testament to the man that he is.”

When Rader turns in his final TV segment Thursday after all those events and trips and high school football games and charity golf tournaments, it could get emotional.

Summing up a career in three minutes is no small task, even for a man who’s talked three minutes at a time for nearly half a decade.

“I don’t know what it’s going to be like,” Rader said.

“It’s been a hell of a run.”

David Hall, david.hall@pilotonline.com