Ed Regan
Class of 1973–1977
Robin Andreoli
Served: 1973–1977
Positions: Sportscaster; News Programming
Shows: 60’s Music Shows
I attended the University of New Haven from 1970 to 1974 and was fortunate enough to be part of the planning and construction of the original WNHU station on the third floor of the Student Center.
We worked with Dick Gelgauda as the station manager, Vince Berlutti as the technical lead and many others who helped bring the station to life. I remember spending several months working on the station itself. We knocked down a cinderblock wall between the studio room and what would become the record library, built a false floor with small rubber pieces underneath it to reduce vibrations and created a series of “canals” for running cables between the rooms and the transmitter.
One of the biggest events was installing the giant tower atop one of the columns on the Student Center and installing WNHU’s first transmitter. I also remember the thermometer outside the main studio window and the hard-and-fast rule that it could never be “69 degrees.” It had to be either 68 or 70. Ask Dick why that rule was made.
Sportscasting
I was one of the few people who became involved with sportscasting at WNHU. We did football games, including broadcasts of UNH’s club football team in the 1970s. Joe Cieplak, Kevin Meehan and I formed a three-person broadcast team.
The football field was near the original North Campus gym, long before the beautiful blue field stadium that is there today. We would set up our “broadcast booth” on top of a small storage building on the hillside. We also traveled to some road games.
I remember one trip to Manchester, New Hampshire, when I accidentally locked my keys in the car about an hour before gametime, along with all of our broadcast equipment. We struggled to get into the car and finally managed to get in about 15 minutes before the game. We got connected less than five minutes before the game started.
I also seem to remember Cieplak climbing a telephone pole at one road location to get us connected back to the station.
Joe and I also did UNH hockey games, mostly from the West Haven High School hockey rink. There was no press box there either, so we built a special table that extended over two rows of seats.
One game that stands out happened during Tony Salzo’s famous record-setting continuous broadcast. He snuck up to North Campus during the first period of the hockey game to take a shower.
Podcasts Before They Were Called Podcasts
Another favorite part of my time at WNHU was producing features with Mary Maton, who joined the WNHU team in September 1973.
Soon after she arrived, we traveled to the University of Hartford for a meet-and-greet with a new performer named Florence Warner. She had just released her first album, and Mary and I interviewed her and put together a feature that, looking back today, might be called a podcast.
A week later, we headed to Mystic, Connecticut, the day before the opening of the new state aquarium. We put together interviews and sound effects for another feature.
We also did a feature on the New Haven Green where we interviewed Jackie Robinson, who had broken Major League Baseball’s color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. He was then in his 60s and happened to be in Connecticut for an event.
I really enjoyed doing those features with Mary during her first couple of months at WNHU. Eventually, I took a part-time job with the engineering firm Wilbur Smith Associates in New Haven. I ended up staying with that firm for 47 years before retiring a few years ago.
I continued doing sports and Saturday morning “60’s” music shows at WNHU, but I no longer had time to continue producing features with Mary. I remember that she would eventually go on to do news on Channel 30. She later married and, unfortunately, passed away at a fairly young age. We miss her.
Paper Plate Awards
At the end of our first year on the air, Dick held a party for the WNHU team and presented a series of “paper plate awards.”
There were awards for many different things, but to my surprise, I received the “Most Likely To Succeed in Broadcasting” paper plate.
It was a great honor, even though I never made that prediction come true in broadcasting. I continued doing shows and some sports for a few years after graduation before leaving for Penn State and graduate school.
Looking Back
It was quite an experience being part of the beginning years of WNHU.
What is perhaps most amazing to me is that many of the people from that original WNHU group still get together at least once a year at the home of Bob Russo, one of the station’s early “Tech Titans” who went on to work for decades at Channel 8 and later spent another decade at ESPN.
Those gatherings bring back so many memories with people including Dick Gelgauda, Wayne Gamach, Pete Sotere, Jack Hearn, Tony Salzo, Don Fertman, Vince Berlutti and many others.
I have one more memory: One time I remember saying it was 69 degrees outside.
Please don’t tell Dick.