Media, Printing & Graphics  August 5, 2016

Hoop and change: News host leaves KUNC to play basketball in Poland

GREELEY — A voice that has become familiar to listeners of public radio in Northern Colorado is trading 91-point-5 for 3-pointers.

Kareem Maddox, who in April became the local host of National Public Radio’s afternoon “All Things Considered” news program at Greeley-based KUNC-FM 91.5, will leave Colorado for Poland to play professional basketball there.

Kareem Maddox gets to live a dream as a local news host at KUNC-FM 91.5 in Greeley.
Photo courtesy KUNC

His last hosting appearance was July 28. He’ll travel to Poland Aug. 17, and his team — Miasto Szkla Krosno, which plays in Poland’s 17-team top professional league — will open its season in September.

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“He’s just a great guy,” said Neil Best, KUNC’s general manager. “I’m mad as hell that I lost him, but I can’t be mad at him. We wish him all the luck in the world.

“Actually, maybe we ought to let NPR know, because this is kind of a man-bites-dog story,” Best said. “KUNC continues to make history — or at least I think we are. I don’t know of anyone else who lost a newscaster to basketball in Poland.”

A California native, Maddox, 26, was a standout forward at Princeton University who as a senior led his team to the 2011 NCAA tournament and a near upset of powerful Kentucky. After two seasons of playing pro basketball in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, he returned home to Los Angeles and volunteered at NPR affiliate KCRW-FM 89.9 in Santa Monica.

Maddox grew to love radio at KCRW and, in his search for full-time work, scanned the Princeton alumni directory until he spotted Andrea Dukakis, a reporter and producer for “Colorado Matters” at Denver-based Colorado Public Radio. Dukakis, daughter of 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis, helped Maddox land his first full-time job at CPR’s flagship station, KCFR-FM 90.1. He worked as a producer there until KUNC — which in February moved its music programming to 105.5 megahertz and converted its 91.5 frequency to all news and information — gave him a chance to finally get his voice on the air.

“We had an opening for an ‘ATC’ host, and Kareem was upfront,” Best recalled. “He said, ‘I was working as a producer for CPR but my dream is to be a host.’ He said he’d like to host a call-in show of some sort. We said, ‘Let’s give him a chance.’ As I told him the other day, I figured we’d have him three to five years and then he’d go host a national show.”

But Maddox’s radio hopes never overcame his love of hoops. Earlier this summer, he played in an event in Las Vegas that was attended by scores of scouts from overseas teams. He played well, and an agent for the Polish team contacted him.

“I had kidded him about the basketball tournament in Las Vegas,” Best said. “I told him, ‘You’re not going to be scouted by the NBA summer league, are you?’ He said, ‘Oh, this is just a good weekend, fun with my friends.’ But then he came back and said, ‘I got this offer. What do I do?’

“Well, I told him, ‘I’ve been here at KUNC 44 years, and you’re in your mid-20s. Go see.”

The team’s home is in Krosno, a city of nearly 50,000 people in the extreme southeastern corner of Poland, near its borders with Slovakia and Ukraine.

Maddox said he saw it as “an opportunity to play and see how far I could go and how good I can be at basketball. It’s just the nature of basketball; you can’t wait another year and say I’m going to play now because you’re another year older.

“But hopefully I can do some radio, too, and do a podcast that’s successful” — maybe documenting his travels around Poland with the team in the style of Anthony Bourdain’s “Parts Unknown” series on CNN.

Meanwhile, back in Greeley, Best said Jackie Fortier and Brian Larson will take over the “All Things Considered” chair part time, “but we’re hoping to find a permanent host because we’re anxious to let them do the reporting they want to do.

“The application’s online at KUNC.org/jobs if anybody’s interested,” Best said.

“That station is poised to really explode,” Maddox said. “I’m leaving at a time when KUNC is about to take off and has all the potential in the world. I’ll definitely be watching to see what KUNC does.”

Dallas Heltzell can be reached at 970-232-3149, 303-630-1962 or dheltzell@bizwestmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DallasHeltzell.

GREELEY — A voice that has become familiar to listeners of public radio in Northern Colorado is trading 91-point-5 for 3-pointers.

Kareem Maddox, who in April became the local host of National Public Radio’s afternoon “All Things Considered” news program at Greeley-based KUNC-FM 91.5, will leave Colorado for Poland to play professional basketball there.

Kareem Maddox gets to live a dream as a local news host at KUNC-FM 91.5 in Greeley.
Photo courtesy KUNC

His last hosting appearance was July 28. He’ll travel to Poland Aug. 17, and his team —…

Dallas Heltzell
With BizWest since 2012 and in Colorado since 1979, Dallas worked at the Longmont Times-Call, Colorado Springs Gazette, Denver Post and Public News Service. A Missouri native and Mizzou School of Journalism grad, Dallas started as a sports writer and outdoor columnist at the St. Charles (Mo.) Banner-News, then went to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch before fleeing the heat and humidity for the Rockies. He especially loves covering our mountain communities.
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