Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN/WGR 550) - For more than 33 years in Western New York, Howard Simon has been a voice of reason in the Buffalo sports landscape.
Whether it'd be Buffalo Bills football, Buffalo Sabres hockey, local college sports or even high school sports, you've probably heard from Simon on the radio or television.
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For the last 18-plus years, Simon made his home at WGR Sports Radio 550 riding alongside co-host Jeremy White during the morning drive hours from 6-10 a.m. EST. Howard and Jeremy became staples for Western New York sports fans, being the first voices many people would wake up to while enjoying their morning cup of coffee.
However, all good things must come to an end eventually. After an illustrious 18-year run with WGR, Simon will sign off the airwaves one last time and call it a career.
"There's no one answer. It's just the right time for a number of things," said Simon on his decision to retire from his role at WGR. "Where my life is, where my work life has been, how much the work life requires on a day-to-day basis to do this job. Just a number of things came together, and I think it kind of has felt like time for about a year or two, to be quite honest. But the way things are lining up, I just thought this is the right time to step away."
"He's leaving on his own terms, he wants to just sleep more, be a fan, not have sports consume his life so much, or at least consumed them as a hobby instead of as a job. So yeah, I'm happy for him," said White of his fellow co-host's decision to retire. "It's obviously been a great career. He had a great career before we started together 18 years ago. Everybody knew who he was the day he walked in, and 18 years later, it's been a great run."
After being born in Brooklyn and growing up on Long Island, Simon ended up spending his college days at Buffalo State College. After he graduated as part of the Class of 1984, Simon would leave the region to work elsewhere in the radio business, before eventually making his return to Western New York in 1989 and taking a sports job at WJJL Radio in Niagara Falls.
"I always loved it here. I had such a fun time," Simon said. "I was in a good-sized city, I had two major professional sports teams to talk about - this was after the Braves had left. I liked the city, I liked the teams, I liked everything about Western New York. In fact, if I could have convinced somebody to hire me in Buffalo out of college, I wouldn't have left, I wouldn't have gone anywhere else. But I needed to go get experience, so I worked a couple other cities."
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Simon's love for sports broadcasting started at a young age with his dad directing telecasts in New York for the MLB's Mets, NHL's Rangers and the NBA's Knicks. It was being around the famous venues such as Shea Stadium and Madison Square Garden, and getting a chance to meet coaches, managers, players and other broadcasters that fueled his passion.
"I didn't necessarily want to do a sports talk show, because growing up, quite honestly, there weren't any. There was no all-sports radio station back then. But I knew I wanted to be involved in sports, and I wanted to be in broadcasting," Simon said. "Really from age 9 or 10, it's the only career I've ever even thought about."
During his days in Buffalo, as he tried to establish himself in the business, Simon says he often looked to the likes of John Murphy - current Bills play-by-play broadcaster - and Stan Barron for inspiration during their days talking sports on WBEN. He eventually got an opportunity to talk sports years later on WBEN, and also became a well-known figure on the Empire Sports Network and WNSA.
Then in 2004, as Empire Sports and WNSA were shutdown or sold following the Adelphia Communications fallout, Simon was in need of a new job when WGR came calling, offering him a new morning show hosting job with White.
"I had no other jobs, I didn't know what else to do. I wasn't relocating," Simon said. "So basically, I was still on the air at 'NSA selling my own show. I really didn't want to do that. I have no desire to be a salesperson, it would be tough to do a show and be out there trying to drum up business. I have to sell, or I can't get paid. I had no employer. So I did that, but I realized this is not a long-term solution. What do I do? And again, I didn't want to leave town.
"Knock on wood, just so happens, management was making a change in the morning show at 'GR, they knew I had contacted people, they knew that I was interested if anything opened up. They decided to make a change, they talked to me about the job, I accepted the job, and they paired me with Jeremy. And the rest, as they say, is history."
At the young age of 25, at the time, White knew about Simon because of his past work at Empire Sports Network, but never had a chance to formally introduce or talk with him in any way. White says he remembers that first day he met Simon back in November of 2004.
"One day, our program director, Andy Roth, at the time, called me - I was working evenings at that time, afternoons into the evenings - and said, 'Don't come in today. You're not working tonight,'" he said. "I was really scared like, 'Uh, why?!' And he said, 'You're starting tomorrow with Howard Simon.' And then they brought us in, introduced us and said, 'Get after it tomorrow. Go for it.'"
From there, the two formulated some chemistry, and one of the longest-tenured sports talk shows would take off.
"Howard is super easy to work with. He's very nice, he's very organized, he's committed. He's a pro, in terms of all the stuff that people don't really realize has to go into a show about reading stuff on time and doing this or remembering that," White said. "We don't exactly hit our breaks on time, but we get everything in that's important. That's always really important to get all the stuff, and you kind of have to be like an air traffic controller when you're in that spot. He's really good at that, and also welcoming listeners in. I think people always appreciate people on the air that are real, that live and die with the teams."
In all the years Simon worked in Buffalo sports broadcasting, he acknowledges he's never worked with anybody as long as he did with White. He jokes he's only been with my wife longer than he has been been together with White, and it worked out extremely well.
"It's been really cool. It's amazing," Simon said. "He's extremely talented. I've said this before, and I mean this - I don't mean this as a knock in Buffalo - Jeremy is big market talent. This is not a big market, this is I don't even know, it's [mid-major] market. He's talented enough to be in New York, Boston, L.A., Chicago or the network. He's that good. So to work with someone like that, and to see that talent firsthand has been really phenomenal. He's a great guy to work with too, and he's made my job so much easier."
In many other sports markets across the country, it is not too common to see stations having the same co-hosts being able to stick with each other for several years consecutively. At WGR, Howard and Jeremy were able to work together and thrive for more than 18 years. It is quite a significant achievement in Buffalo, especially when the station has two separate pairs of co-hosts to reach 18-plus years on the air.
"A lot of that was Bills drought, and the Sabres have had some dark times too. So it's not even like it's all been easy," White said. "We've had NHL lockouts, where you've got to host a talk show from, what, after the Super Bowl to July with no local sporting event. That's not easy, and we got through that. But once you get through an NHL lockout like that, you think like, 'Well, you can make it through anything.' ... Around here, people care about sports so much. We're also a station and a show that doesn't exclude anybody from coming in. It's not a boys club or anything like that. It's just come on in, hang out, and join us if you can, give us a call. But everybody's welcome, and we're all here for the same reason: For the community and for the sports aspect of it."
Although Simon was never able to experience that winning moment for either the Bills or Sabres in Buffalo, he says there are plenty of memories to take away from the years spent taking to the microphone every morning on WGR.
While there are the random or weekly sketches that will stick with Simon for years, it was also the people he came across working several years in the mornings at Audacy Buffalo. This included Jeremy, past producers (including myself), current producer Joe DiBiase, as well as the folks from WBEN - Randy Bushover, Susan Rose, Brian Mazurowski, John Zach, Joe Beamer - Kiss 98.5 - 'Wease', Janet Snyder and Nicholas Picholas - and Rob Lucas from Star 102.5.
However, what Simon may miss the most is his daily interactions with listeners of the station.
"I'll miss the communication that we have, because I think listeners - if you're doing this long enough - listeners and a talk show host almost become a family together, as well. They feel like you're part of their family, because they hear you every day. So I'll miss that back-and-forth and communication with the public," Simon said. "If it was a bad loss the day before, maybe they'll help me out, pick my spirits up on the show. Or if it was a great win, 'Man, I can't wait to get on the air tomorrow, get all the calls and start talking to people about such a great win.' I'll miss that.
"I hope that people had fun listening to our show. That we were a daily part of their lives, and they always looked forward to 10 minutes, half hour, hour, whatever, on-demand. I would love that. 'Boy, love listening to you and Jeremy everyday. You always made me smile.'"
From all of us at Audacy Buffalo, we wish you the happiest of retirement, Howard! Congrats on an incredible career!
