George Guido: Remembering Bob Tatrn

By: HSSN Staff
Tuesday, July 24, 2018 | 8:30 PM

It’s hard to say goodbye to a friend.

Over the next several days, a considerable number of people will be bidding farewell to local broadcast icon Bob Tatrn.

Tatrn died Monday at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh.

While Tatrn fulfilled many broadcasting duties, he’s best known for covering high school football, basketball and baseball with his long-time air partner, Joe Falsetti.

His absence will really become evident Aug. 24, when Burrell plays Valley in the Alle-Kiski football opener. Tatrn had broadcast each of the previous 38 Valley-Burrell games.

“Friday nights just won’t be the same anymore with Bob and Joe both gone,” said Mike Pavlik, long-time colleague of Tatrn who now broadcasts Highlands events.

I started working with Tatrn in 1973, doing the pregame, halftime and postgame shows for former New Kensington broadcast outlets WKPA Radio and Westmoreland Cable Channel 3.

In those early days, just getting the games on the air was as challenging as broadcasting the games themselves.

For several years, Springdale played its home football games at Tarentum’s Dreshar Stadium. We had to climb a utility pole on the side of Dreshar closest to the Allegheny River and do the games from a gondola halfway up the pole.

At the original Richland High stadium along Bakerstown Road, athletic director Ozzie Santacroce would set us up in the bed of the school district dump truck. Then you hoped it wouldn’t rain.

When Kiski Area principal William Miller was the WPIAL baseball chairman, a number of playoff games were held there. With no electrical outlets at the field, we had to lay at least 100 feet of extension cord to an elderly couple’s house to get on the air.

When the football layout at Springdale’s Veterans Field was perpendicular to the present grid, Tatrn and Falsetti would broadcast a game from the top of the ticket booth.

For many years, tape-delayed, same-night presentations of high school games were an A-K Valley staple.

It was common for fans and players to run home and watch the games they just watched or in which they just participated.

Tatrn’s son, Rob Jr., helped on the production end. Rob recalled a Valley PIAA basketball playoff game in 1979 where the Vikings manhandled defending state champion Schenley at IUP.

“Billy Varner and (Ron) Mack McNabb were brought up for postgame interviews, and I could tell it was such a thrill for those guys,” the younger Tatrn said. “I can still remember the twinkle in Mack’s eye.”

After Falsetti’s death, Tatrn did most games solo, concentrating on Valley, Burrell and St. Joseph home games.

More recently, I was co-host with Tatrn others on Comcast Channel 190’s “Sportsline Trivia” call-in show.

Tatrn would often call me a few days before the show to see if certain trivia questions would stump the audience.

Tatrn had been chairman of the Alle-Kiski Valley Sports Hall of Fame committee over the past six years and was its co-founder. After being part of 48 consecutive induction banquets, Tatrn missed this May’s event because of illness.

The committee plans to induct Tatrn posthumously next year.

A 1958 East Deer graduate, he was inducted into the Deer Lakes Hall of Fame in 2017.

Deer Lakes football update

Speaking of Deer Lakes, the school district has called a special meeting for Monday to hire a football coach and to fill other vacancies.

Steve Sciullo left in May to take a full-time position at neighboring Hampton.

Returning assistant coaches have been conducting offseason workouts. There is a chance the new coach will come from the staff of assistants.

After playing in the Allegheny Football Conference for 47 of its 49 previous seasons, Deer Lakes will be a member of the Class 3A Big East for the next two seasons.

George Guido is a Valley News Dispatch scholastic sports correspondent. His column appears Wednesdays.