I was the statistician for Thursday Night Lights from 2009 to 2016, and in the 5th year, Chuck was the color commentator. I also remember watching him on Fox 29 San Antonio as one of the sports anchors (Ernie Zuniga and Ed Suarez were the others, and I worked with Ernie for the first four years on Thursday Night Lights and I worked a lot of games with Ed when we both worked for the Texas Sports Radio Network).
Just a quick note: Chuck and I did this interview through Zoom in July.
I am aware the format is a bit funky, and I will blame the application I used to copy the transcription. In my draft mode, it’s perfect, but not when I publish.
Where were you born?
I was born in Fort Bragg, North Carolina in 1964, but I’m a military kid. I’ve lived all over the place; North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, Wisconsin, Kansas, San Antonio a couple of times, California, and even Stuttgart, Germany when I was a little kid (kindergarten and first grade). That was a blessing. I mean, to be able to move around. Although it was hard as a kid at times, you know, you’d make friends and then you’d have to pickup and move, but you know, you really get to see and meet different people and see what places you like, what places you don’t like. People live in a certain place for a reason, right? And, it’s usually a pretty nice place to live. So, there have been very few exceptions where I didn’t like where I was at, but San Antonio always felt like home.
What brought you to San Antonio?
Military. Before my dad went to Vietnam, I have memories of swimming at the Fort Sam pool.
I came here a week before my junior year of high school (I graduated in 1982), so it was the summer of 1981. That was my exposure to San Antonio.
I went to college out of state, St. Norbert College, which is a small school. I came back and graduated from Texas State. So back in Texas, and my first job was in Laredo. So you know, I’ve just kind of kind of stayed here and my wife is from Beeville. She made it abundantly clear that she likes living in Texas, and she likes living in San Antonio best. Got a pretty good head on her shoulder. It’s kind of all worked out in weird ways!
How did you get the job at Fox 29 San Antonio?
I was working at Channel 5 KENS. Fox had just started up with Dean Acosta and Ed Suarez. They were kind of looking for a sidekick, and they put in a good word for me. I sent over my tape and resume, and got a little lucky! I can’t thank Dean and Ed enough. Both of them really made an impression on me and what the goal with me as I was new guy.
We’re going to cover everything that nobody else is covering. It’s not just going to be the Dallas Cowboys, the San Antonio Spurs, and high school football. No, we’re going to cover boys and girls basketball. We’re going to cover this. We’re going to cover tiddlywinks. We’re going to cover everything, and It was a solid and good plan of attack. I’ve taken every morsel of what those two guys wanted to achieve and made that my mission too. I feel like that’s the best way to go.
There’s a million stories out there. Everybody’s got a good one and I want to learn as I go too. I don’t just want to be known as the football or basketball guy. I got a huge thrill a few weeks ago at First Tee – Greater San Antonio, as they’re exposing kids to the game of golf for the first time. And then on the side, they’re learning how to do finances while they’re eating lunch, because Frost Bank had sent over a couple people.
I don’t feel like my life is all that fascinating. I’m really eager to hear what other people’s story is and how they got to where they’re going.
Was Dan Cook at Channel 5 KENS during your time?
Yes, he is another guy I owe a lots to. He fought a lot of battles for me. I was encouraged to kind of be out there and do crazy boy stuff. When it came time to somebody defending me because I was the stupid young kid doing crazy and wild stuff. Their viewership was older, and I don’t know that they necessarily got what I was trying to achieve on most days, but it was an interesting and great time. I was immature in a lot of ways, but Ken’s allowed me to grow up a little bit.
I got some really good advice from a guy once that I respected, and I still do what he told me: be clever and not cute. There’s a huge difference, right? If you really think about it, are you going to be the guy that puts on the clown nose and has the big shoes and dances around or are you going to try to be nuanced and how you go about trying to get human emotion out of somebody or you’re trying to get the story out of somebody. That that really resonated with me.
I saw Dan Cook at a drive through at Church’s Chicken.
Oh, that’s hilarious. It’s funny that you remember that right?
I got stories of having to hold Dan back because he took a swing at other employees. It was just like the wild wild west of sports journalism in San Antonio.
But again, what a fantastic dude. And if he liked you, there wouldn’t be anything that he wouldn’t do for you. He was a good boss. Dan wasn’t going to police me or hover over me. I am not going to babysit you. I need you to come and fill 15 minutes of my show every single day.
Those are some of the things that I like to do with my guys too that I work with now. I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff that I do, that guys that I work with are going, man, the old man doesn’t really know what he’s doing. So, it’s good to give people their own leeway and let them go figure out what it is for them that they like to do or what stories they want to tell.
What memorable games, players, and coaches stand out?
The weird thing about working at Fox San Antonio and all these years with Sinclair Broadcasting and how they’ve afforded me to do all this stuff is amazing.
We’ve covered NFL, Major League Baseball, NBA, all the high school stuff, a lot of college stuff. You look at some reporters at ESPN and, you we know that Woj does basketball and, they’ve got their baseball guys and their football guys. To think that we’ve been able to kind of go and do all these things, it is a little head scratching at times.
I’m going to an all -star game media session on Monday up in Arlington and literally Mark, that’s the last thing on my career bucket list that I will cross off because I’m not even going to probably stay for the game. I have no interest in staying for the game, but to just be around that many talented and, you know, really good personality dudes and just pick their brain and, you know, bounce some crazy stuff off them. And I mean, what a gift.
It’s hard to single out individuals, because most of the the people that you talk to you are engaging, personable, nice, and charismatic.
Charles Barkley and Sean Elliott.
Covering the Cowboys and San Antonio Spurs in their heyday.
We’ve got the chance to see the Rangers and the Astros win the World Series. We’ve covered a lot of baseball over the last decade and a half, especially the Rangers and Astros. We’ve gone to some spring trainings, but for the most part, you might, and talking about me, only might be in a major league locker room twice during the regular season, and then maybe a lot during the playoffs, you end up going on a run because the games are on Fox, we usually go. And, if you introduce yourself and handle yourself decently, they’ll give you stuff. They’re willing to stop and talk and give you a story and they know why you’re there.
I found that fascinating early on in my career as it was harder to kind of bridge from that gap from being the guy in the locker room for the first time.
It was much easier when we’re covering the Spurs every day. You go up to somebody like Sean Elliott or David Robinson. For me, more so with Sean, because Sean was always kind of my guy when I started. Hey Sean, I need something. Whatever it was, he’d give it to me. I could lean on that relationship.
Because it happens every day, it’s possible that I’ve taken a lot for granted along the way. I have been fortunate to cover four or five Super Bowls, three or four World Series, four of the five NBA Finals, although I covered the fifth one from afar.
I enjoyed going to London with the Cowboys for a week and going to the Little League World Series with the local kids from McAllister.
It’s those little things that iff you told me this 30 some odd years ago, that this was going to all happen, I would have told you, you were nuts. This is the kind of stuff that happens to people other than me. So wildly fortunate, wildly lucky. And I can’t believe nobody’s caught on to my gag yet.
How did the Thursday Night Lights TV come to play?
Ernie Zuniga, Dean Radla (now the GM of Fox 29), Wane McGarity, and Hector Ledesma did a fantastic job prior to Don and me.
I wasn’t necessarily looking to do this, but, we’ve had some configurations going on and they wanted to take Don and me. Behind the scenes, it was a manpower thing. It was also around that time when our ownership group purchases Channel Four. So, all of a sudden, we had two competing television stations that were essentially under the same umbrella and there were a lot bridges that had to be built between the people in the newsroom. A good example is you got the Yankees and the Red Sox, and now everybody is in the same room and you’re going to be competitors, but not really because the Yankees play during the day and the Red Sox play in the evenings.
Some of this was done by our General Manager, Dean Radla. It’s not a perfect scenario in some ways, but, I got to give Dean a lot of credit because the goal, I think in some way, shape or form was we can do this and you guys are going to show how this is done, and because of that, it forced Don and I to get along better and to be better friends. Also, Don’s world in the newsroom was introduced to my world.
I get a thrill, and I probably told you this when you were working with us that I didn’t think I would enjoy this as much as I have. My world with high school football was Friday night, two plays in a roster. It’s just telling every photographer that you got on the ground, just get me two big plays and bring me a roster.
This is a lot more enjoyable when I can spend 15 minutes with each coach during the week, and kind of get the lay of the land what’s going on and what kids are doing great. What are some of the challenges that they have to overcome that week, and getting to know the coaches on a more personal level has been really really cool too.
Then to watch a game from start to finish, and like most good stories there’s a beginning, a middle, and an end, and hopefully you get to in a decent way go out and help paint a picture because you know I think everybody knows that I’m not Troy Aikman. I don’t see football through the same prism that he does but, what I can do is tell stories or be anecdotal about the players that are playing on the field and try to fill in some of the gaps that way and bring some of these stories to life.
I remember being nervous at my first game with you and Don. But, immediately, both of you made me feel comfortable, and I knew this was going to work and we would be a great trifecta!
When you’re good at what you do, like you are, then it doesn’t matter. You shouldn’t have problems with anybody. Everybody should respect the fact that you’re good at what you do. Even if you were bad at what you do, somebody doesn’t get a special card. They just get to go and make people feel uncomfortable or be hard to work with.
If you played on teams growing up or you played on teams in high school or college, or even at the workplace, the goal is simple; you want to win, and you want to win as a team and you want to win the day. Then when you win, everybody gets credit and it’s fantastic.
But you’re also going to work with people and you’re going to play with people that you may not necessarily like, or I might not necessarily like. And conversely, they might not necessarily like you, but the goal remains the same.
So, the challenge is how do you get to the point where you’re functioning on a level where you’re trying to make everything better. And then if, even if you can’t, I could be better at probably trying to aid and help others.
What does Chuck do for fun?
I sure enjoy visiting with my now adult children when they come around or when I get a good chance to visit them.
I love taking a road trip whether it’s by car or by air now. I love driving my wife and kids will tell you that I am the incarnate of Clark Griswold. We’ve been over to Europe four or five times in the last five years and I mean I sure enjoyed during doing that to seeing different things seeing older things visiting with culture other cultures.
I don’t know if I want to call it what I’m doing for fun, but I’m deeply fascinated with what’s going on in the world on so many levels. I feel like the last five years or so have really opened my eyes to and there’s like a curtain being pulled back. It feels like every day there’s a new discovery. I can’t believe the establishment has been lying to me my whole life. I must be the dumbest guy in the world. I feel like I’ve got some making up to do with trying to figure out what the heck’s going on in the world.
What will Chuck’s legacy look like?
I’v been very fortunate to be able to do this as long as I have, and never once felt like I’d taken a whole lot for granted. Every day, for the most part, I’ve been happy to run in there and, see what the day’s gonna have for me.
I feel like I haven’t worked many days in my entire life every now and then. But, at some point, I’m going to have to go out and get a real job. If it’s today, tomorrow, or another 20 years from now, when the time is right, either Fox is going to let me know, or I’m going to let them know. I will tell you this, there will be no hard feelings, no matter what. It’s been a blessing to be able to do and to be able to do it this long. I can’t thank Sinclair Broadcasting and Bob Wills over at Quarter Moon for all these years allowing me to just basically go to the playground every day.
Nobody’s perfect, but I try to do things the right way and then let the chips fall. If I give my best every single day and, at the end of my contract with Fox, they go, you know what, Chuck, thank you for being here, you made it this far, but we’re going to go in another direction. I can live with myself as that’s what I signed up for.
I was the statistician for Thursday Night Lights from 2009 to 2016, and in the 5th year, Chuck was the color commentator. I also remember watching him on Fox 29 San Antonio as one of the sports anchors (Ernie Zuniga and Ed Suarez were the others, and I worked with Ernie for the first four years on Thursday Night Lights and I worked a lot of games with Ed when we both worked for the Texas Sports Radio Network).
Just a quick note: Chuck and I did this interview through Zoom in July.
Where were you born?
I was born in Fort Bragg, North Carolina in 1964, but I’m a military kid. I’ve lived all over the place; North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, Wisconsin, Kansas, San Antonio a couple of times, California, and even Stuttgart, Germany when I was a little kid (kindergarten and first grade).
That was a blessing. I mean, to be able to move around. Although it was hard as a kid at times, you know, you’d make friends and then you’d have to pickup and move, but you know, you really get to see and meet different people and see what places you like, what places you don’t like.
People live in a certain place for a reason, right? And, it’s usually a pretty nice place to live. So, there have been very few exceptions where I didn’t like where I was at, but San Antonio always felt like home.
What brought you to San Antonio?
Military. Before my dad went to Vietnam, I have memories of swimming at the Fort Sam pool.
I came here a week before my junior year of high school (I graduated in 1982), so it was the summer of 1981. That was my exposure to San Antonio.
I went to college out of state, St. Norbert College, which is a small school. I came back and graduated from Texas State. So back in Texas, and my first job was in Laredo. So you know, I’ve just kind of kind of stayed here and my wife is from Beeville. She made it abundantly clear that she likes living in Texas, and she likes living in San Antonio best. Got a pretty good head on her shoulder. It’s kind of all worked out in weird ways!
How did you get the job at Fox 29 San Antonio?
I was working at Channel 5 KENS. Fox had just started up with Dean Acosta and Ed Suarez. They were kind of looking for a sidekick, and they put in a good word for me. I sent over my tape and resume, and got a little lucky! I can’t thank Dean and Ed enough. Both of them really made an impression on me and what the goal with me as I was new guy.
We’re going to cover everything that nobody else is covering. It’s not just going to be the Dallas Cowboys, the San Antonio Spurs, and high school football. No, we’re going to cover boys and girls basketball. We’re going to cover this. We’re going to cover tiddlywinks. We’re going to cover everything, and It was a solid and good plan of attack. I’ve taken every morsel of what those two guys wanted to achieve and made that my mission too. I feel like that’s the best way to go.
There’s a million stories out there. Everybody’s got a good one and I want to learn as I go too. I don’t just want to be known as the football or basketball guy. I got a huge thrill a few weeks ago at First Tee – Greater San Antonio, as they’re exposing kids to the game of golf for the first time. And then on the side, they’re learning how to do finances while they’re eating lunch, because Frost Bank had sent over a couple people.
I don’t feel like my life is all that fascinating. I’m really eager to hear what other people’s story is and how they got to where they’re going.
Was Dan Cook at Channel 5 KENS during your time?
Yes, he is another guy I owe a lots to. He fought a lot of battles for me. I was encouraged to kind of be out there and do crazy boy stuff. When it came time to somebody defending me because I was the stupid young kid doing crazy and wild stuff. Their viewership was older, and I don’t know that they necessarily got what I was trying to achieve on most days, but it was an interesting and great time. I was immature in a lot of ways, but Ken’s allowed me to grow up a little bit.
I got some really good advice from a guy once that I respected, and I still do what he told me: be clever and not cute. There’s a huge difference, right? If you really think about it, are you going to be the guy that puts on the clown nose and has the big shoes and dances around or are you going to try to be nuanced and how you go about trying to get human emotion out of somebody or you’re trying to get the story out of somebody. That that really resonated with me.
I saw Dan Cook at a drive through at Church’s Chicken.
Oh, that’s hilarious. It’s funny that you remember that right?
I got stories of having to hold Dan back because he took a swing at other employees. It was just like the wild wild west of sports journalism in San Antonio.
But again, what a fantastic dude. And if he liked you, there wouldn’t be anything that he wouldn’t do for you. He was a good boss. Dan wasn’t going to police me or hover over me. I am not going to babysit you. I need you to come and fill 15 minutes of my show every single day.
Those are some of the things that I like to do with my guys too that I work with now. I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff that I do, that guys that I work with are going, man, the old man doesn’t really know what he’s doing. So, it’s good to give people their own leeway and let them go figure out what it is for them that they like to do or what stories they want to tell.
What memorable games, players, and coaches stand out?
The weird thing about working at Fox San Antonio and all these years with Sinclair Broadcasting and how they’ve afforded me to do all this stuff is amazing.
We’ve covered NFL, Major League Baseball, NBA, all the high school stuff, a lot of college stuff. You look at some reporters at ESPN and, you we know that Woj does basketball and, they’ve got their baseball guys and their football guys. To think that we’ve been able to kind of go and do all these things, it is a little head scratching at times.
I’m going to an all -star game media session on Monday up in Arlington and literally Mark, that’s the last thing on my career bucket list that I will cross off because I’m not even going to probably stay for the game. I have no interest in staying for the game, but to just be around that many talented and, you know, really good personality dudes and just pick their brain and, you know, bounce some crazy stuff off them. And I mean, what a gift.
It’s hard to single out individuals, because most of the the people that you talk to you are engaging, personable, nice, and charismatic.
Charles Barkley and Sean Elliott.
Covering the Cowboys and San Antonio Spurs in their heyday.
We’ve got the chance to see the Rangers and the Astros win the World Series. We’ve covered a lot of baseball over the last decade and a half, especially the Rangers and Astros. We’ve gone to some spring trainings, but for the most part, you might, and talking about me, only might be in a major league locker room twice during the regular season, and then maybe a lot during the playoffs, you end up going on a run because the games are on Fox, we usually go. And, if you introduce yourself and handle yourself decently, they’ll give you stuff. They’re willing to stop and talk and give you a story and they know why you’re there.
I found that fascinating early on in my career as it was harder to kind of bridge from that gap from being the guy in the locker room for the first time.
It was much easier when we’re covering the Spurs every day. You go up to somebody like Sean Elliott or David Robinson. For me, more so with Sean, because Sean was always kind of my guy when I started. Hey Sean, I need something. Whatever it was, he’d give it to me. I could lean on that relationship.
Because it happens every day, it’s possible that I’ve taken a lot for granted along the way. I have been fortunate to cover four or five Super Bowls, three or four World Series, four of the five NBA Finals, although I covered the fifth one from afar.
I enjoyed going to London with the Cowboys for a week and going to the Little League World Series with the local kids from McAllister.
It’s those little things that iff you told me this 30 some odd years ago, that this was going to all happen, I would have told you, you were nuts. This is the kind of stuff that happens to people other than me. So wildly fortunate, wildly lucky. And I can’t believe nobody’s caught on to my gag yet.
How did the Thursday Night Lights TV come to play?
Ernie Zuniga, Dean Radla (now the GM of Fox 29), Wane McGarity, and Hector Ledesma did a fantastic job prior to Don and me.
I wasn’t necessarily looking to do this, but, we’ve had some configurations going on and they wanted to take Don and me. Behind the scenes, it was a manpower thing. It was also around that time when our ownership group purchases Channel Four. So, all of a sudden, we had two competing television stations that were essentially under the same umbrella and there were a lot bridges that had to be built between the people in the newsroom. A good example is you got the Yankees and the Red Sox, and now everybody is in the same room and you’re going to be competitors, but not really because the Yankees play during the day and the Red Sox play in the evenings.
Some of this was done by our General Manager, Dean Radla. It’s not a perfect scenario in some ways, but, I got to give Dean a lot of credit because the goal, I think in some way, shape or form was we can do this and you guys are going to show how this is done, and because of that, it forced Don and I to get along better and to be better friends. Also, Don’s world in the newsroom was introduced to my world.
I get a thrill, and I probably told you this when you were working with us that I didn’t think I would enjoy this as much as I have. My world with high school football was Friday night, two plays in a roster. It’s just telling every photographer that you got on the ground, just get me two big plays and bring me a roster.
This is a lot more enjoyable when I can spend 15 minutes with each coach during the week, and kind of get the lay of the land what’s going on and what kids are doing great. What are some of the challenges that they have to overcome that week, and getting to know the coaches on a more personal level has been really really cool too.
Then to watch a game from start to finish, and like most good stories there’s a beginning, a middle, and an end, and hopefully you get to in a decent way go out and help paint a picture because you know I think everybody knows that I’m not Troy Aikman. I don’t see football through the same prism that he does but, what I can do is tell stories or be anecdotal about the players that are playing on the field and try to fill in some of the gaps that way and bring some of these stories to life.
I remember being nervous at my first game with you and Don. But, immediately, both of you made me feel comfortable, and I knew this was going to work and we would be a great trifecta!
When you’re good at what you do, like you are, then it doesn’t matter. You shouldn’t have problems with anybody. Everybody should respect the fact that you’re good at what you do. Even if you were bad at what you do, somebody doesn’t get a special card. They just get to go and make people feel uncomfortable or be hard to work with.
If you played on teams growing up or you played on teams in high school or college, or even at the workplace, the goal is simple; you want to win, and you want to win as a team and you want to win the day. Then when you win, everybody gets credit and it’s fantastic.
But you’re also going to work with people and you’re going to play with people that you may not necessarily like, or I might not necessarily like. And conversely, they might not necessarily like you, but the goal remains the same.
So, the challenge is how do you get to the point where you’re functioning on a level where you’re trying to make everything better. And then if, even if you can’t, I could be better at probably trying to aid and help others.
What does Chuck do for fun?
I sure enjoy visiting with my now adult children when they come around or when I get a good chance to visit them.
I love taking a road trip whether it’s by car or by air now. I love driving my wife and kids will tell you that I am the incarnate of Clark Griswold. We’ve been over to Europe four or five times in the last five years and I mean I sure enjoyed during doing that to seeing different things seeing older things visiting with culture other cultures.
I don’t know if I want to call it what I’m doing for fun, but I’m deeply fascinated with what’s going on in the world on so many levels. I feel like the last five years or so have really opened my eyes to and there’s like a curtain being pulled back. It feels like every day there’s a new discovery. I can’t believe the establishment has been lying to me my whole life. I must be the dumbest guy in the world. I feel like I’ve got some making up to do with trying to figure out what the heck’s going on in the world.
What will Chuck’s legacy look like?
I’v been very fortunate to be able to do this as long as I have, and never once felt like I’d taken a whole lot for granted. Every day, for the most part, I’ve been happy to run in there and, see what the day’s gonna have for me.
I feel like I haven’t worked many days in my entire life every now and then. But, at some point, I’m going to have to go out and get a real job. If it’s today, tomorrow, or another 20 years from now, when the time is right, either Fox is going to let me know, or I’m going to let them know. I will tell you this, there will be no hard feelings, no matter what. It’s been a blessing to be able to do and to be able to do it this long. I can’t thank Sinclair Broadcasting and Bob Wills over at Quarter Moon for all these years allowing me to just basically go to the playground every day.
Nobody’s perfect, but I try to do things the right way and then let the chips fall. If I give my best every single day and, at the end of my contract with Fox, they go, you know what, Chuck, thank you for being here, you made it this far, but we’re going to go in another direction. I can live with myself as that’s what I signed up for.