Dori says goodbye to mentor Bill O’Mara – 1917-2009

Bill O’Mara — 1917 – 2009

Friday afternoon, after my show, I went to the hospice ward at Stevens Hospital to say goodbye to a man who had as much influence on my life as any person alive.

In one final act of defiance against the cancer and pneumonia, Bill O’Mara flashed me a huge smile. His great voice had been silenced, but he reached up with both of his hands and grabbed mine. We sat, I talked, and we held hands for 45 minutes.

Those hands of his gripped hockey sticks as he played competitively well into his 70’s. They swung golf clubs as he strolled courses after his 90th birthday.

And those hands held countless microphones. My goodness, did they hold microphones.

Bill O’Mara started his radio career in the Midwest in 1939. In the late 40’s, he came west and was the first sports director at KING-5 television. At KING, O’Mara did play-by-play for Seattle Rainiers games – but he became synonymous with Seattle’s first “major league” sport – the hydro races. O’Mara called the Seafair races from 1951-1959 for KING-5.

After his KING-5 days, O’Mara did television and radio in San Diego, then he came back to the Northwest to work at radio stations in Bellevue, then Everett. As recently as two years ago, at age 90, O’Mara was still working. He was at KLKI Radio in Anacortes – still doing high school football and basketball play-by-play. The oldest working sportscaster in the country.

In 1979, God decided to send this strange, toupee-wearing, tough-talking, grizzled angel into my life. He was a broadcast-lifer working at KWYZ “Radio 123” in Everett. I was a 17 year old kid who had no direction in my life.

I had graduated high school and started college a couple years earlier at age 15. But, no one in my family had ever gone to college – and I had pretty much decided that I was going to quit school and make working in a warehouse my career of choice.

On a whim, I enrolled in a broadcasting school. One day, O’Mara came to speak to my class. For some reason, he liked me. And he offered me an internship with his Everett radio station – with one condition: after my two years at Shoreline Community College, O’Mara insisted that I enroll at the University of Washington and get my college degree.

And so I did. But not without considerable help from O’Mara. I got into the U – and was working full time to pay my tuition. But after a couple quarters of college there, I had the unpleasant task of having to tell O’Mara that I was going to have to take a quarter off. I was out of money – and my family couldn’t help me at all financially – so I was going to have to work for a few months to save tuition money.

I was a dirt-poor 18 year old kid. O’Mara was a dirt-poor 62 year old man. At the time, he didn’t even have a home to call his own. He slept at KWYZ Radio. Broadcasting wasn’t just his career, it was truly his life.

At 11:30 one night, his “Radio 123” logoed Renault Le Car came rolling up to my parents house. O’Mara pounded on the door and said he didn’t want me to take a quarter off from college. He peeled off six one-hundred dollar bills – UW tuition at the time – and tried to give them to me. I didn’t think O’Mara had a pot to pee in – how he had $600 cash is beyond me. I tried to say no. But, anyone who knew O’Mara knows how futile it was to say no to the man.

And so I stayed in school. Which led to me meeting the woman who is now my wife. Which led to the family that is now the center of my universe.

O’Mara also insisted that I meet the grand dame of Seattle broadcasting – Dorothy Bullitt. Which led to my KING-5 internship. Which led to my televison producing job that I had for eight years. Which led to the radio show I got at KING 1090 – which led to my my KIRO talk show when KIRO purchased KING Radio.

In other words, other than my faith, the two most important elements of my life – my family and career – can be very directly traced to O’Mara.

I thought about all of that as Bill and I held hands Friday evening. I thanked him for my life. I don’t know if he heard or understood.

Bill O’Mara, father, hydro-hall-of-fame broadcaster, hockey player, golfer, mentor and friend to many, died Saturday at 12:15am. He lives on in the lives of everyone he touched. He will very much be missed.

Listen to Dori’s interview with Bill O’Mara report