Scott Alan marks broadcasting milestone

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent writer

It’s a milestone that’s difficult to achieve, but a Van Wert man known to many has managed to do so.

Alan Lautzenheiser, better known as Scott Alan on radio station WERT 1220AM/104.3FM, is beginning his 50th year in broadcasting, which includes spending the last three decades as “The Voice of the Van Wert Cougars” on football and basketball broadcasts.

The man behind the microphone got his start while in high school in 1970, working weekends as a studio engineer for high school games and working split shifts on Sundays at WERT. He’d also help set up equipment for broadcasts of high school football and basketball games.

“In those days all the games were done by Marti (a portable transmitter), so we’d climb up on the roofs and figure out how many sections of masts we’d have to put the antenna on to be able to get back to the station,” Lautzenheiser explained.

He stayed as a disc jockey for some time, working in Toledo, Florida, and Georgia before working his way back north and doing all-night telephone talk at WIMA in Lima, then entered the field of sports broadcasting.

“I kind of lobbied to get into it while I was at WIMA and they sent me to a Wapakoneta girls’ basketball game in Cridersville with an old cassette recorder and a microphone and said ‘call the game’, which I did and I started doing games for WIMA,” Lautzenheiser said.

After leaving WIMA, Lautzenheiser went to another radio station, finished his degree, went into teaching, then entered another area of broadcasting – television.

“When I started my first year of teaching I got a call from John Quatman, who was the head of the cable company in Lima, and they were going to start a unique idea of doing high school sports on a tape-delayed basis,” Lautzenheiser said. “When he called me I thought it was a joke, but he said he got my name through a friend of mine. They paired me with Mike Schepp and we started doing games as the Lima Area Sports Network.”

Not long after that, in 1980, the opportunity arose for Lautzenheiser to return to WERT and continue his sports broadcasting career closer to home. He juggled broadcasting with teaching, coaching girls’ basketball at Lincolnview and later, assistant principal and principal duties.

When asked about memorable moments over the years, Lautzenheiser said one of the most cherished ones was working with his young son, Scott.

“After I’d been here a few years, the owner of the station decided that they weren’t going to pay for a color commentator and I needed someone to do stats,” Lautzenheiser recalled. “My oldest son was in sixth grade then, so I paid him to come and keep some of the stats at games and over the years he became a color man. He did that until he graduated from high school and went off to college.”

“That very first year (1987) that Scott was doing games with me was the year the state tournament was at UD Arena and both Van Wert and Wayne Trace were down at state,” Lautzenheiser continued. “That was memorable because it was the first year with my son doing games with me (and) we took two of our area teams down to the state tournament. They both lost in the semifinals, but it was exciting to be able to share that with my son.”

Lautzenheiser also mentioned Lincolnview’s run to the Division IV state basketball finals during the 1995-1996 and 1996-1997 seasons as very memorable.

“The team of Brandon Pardon, Wes Dudgeon, and Chad Pollock — I had taught all those kids in sixth grade — and to have been their former teacher and be sitting at St. John Arena two years in a row in the state finals was particularly meaningful for me,” Lautzenheiser said. “I remember Brandon most mornings when I was taking attendance spinning a basketball on his finger and I remember the day I went back and took the basketball from him, went back up, and put it behind my desk, and when I looked back up he had taken the globe from the back of the room and was spinning the globe on his finger.”

Lautzenheiser retired from education eight years ago, a full-time career that included three years as assistant principal at Wayne Trace Junior/Senior High School and 15 years as principal at Grover Hill Elementary School, but he stays busy by broadcasting games and serving as a stadium usher at Ohio Stadium. He also hosts a local sports talk show, SportsRap, between 8-9 a.m. each Saturday on WERT.

He noted that promoting the kids remains the most enjoyable part of his lengthy broadcasting career.

“Bob Priest, who’s the principal at Van Wert, Mark Bagley, who’s the new superintendent, Trent Temple, who’s the athletic director — I called their games when they were athletes playing for Van Wert and now, having the opportunity to call games with their kids playing at all the schools, that’s the most rewarding part.”