{"id":134388,"date":"2020-08-25T22:48:37","date_gmt":"2020-08-26T03:48:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=134388"},"modified":"2020-08-26T23:27:57","modified_gmt":"2020-08-27T04:27:57","slug":"voice-of-vw-cougars-marks-50th-year-in-broadcasting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2020\/08\/25\/voice-of-vw-cougars-marks-50th-year-in-broadcasting\/","title":{"rendered":"Scott Alan marks broadcasting milestone"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong>independent writer<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a milestone that\u2019s difficult to achieve, but a Van Wert man known to many has managed to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u201cThe Voice of the Van Wert Cougars\u201d on football and basketball broadcasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Alan “Scott Alan” Lautzenheiser does his morning Saturday sports show at WERT Radio. Scott Truxell\/Van Wert independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019d also help set up equipment for broadcasts of high school football and basketball games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn those days all the games were done by Marti (a portable transmitter), so we\u2019d climb up on the roofs and figure out how many sections of masts we\u2019d have to put the antenna on to be able to get back to the station,\u201d Lautzenheiser explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI kind of lobbied to get into it while I was at WIMA and they sent me to a Wapakoneta girls\u2019 basketball game in Cridersville with an old cassette recorder and a microphone and said \u2018call the game\u2019, which I did and I started doing games for WIMA,\u201d Lautzenheiser said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After leaving WIMA, Lautzenheiser went to another radio station, finished his degree, went into teaching, then entered another area of broadcasting \u2013 television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen 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,\u201d Lautzenheiser said. \u201cWhen 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019 basketball at Lincolnview and later, assistant principal and principal duties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u201cAfter I\u2019d been here a few years, the owner of the station decided that they weren\u2019t going to pay for a color commentator and I needed someone to do stats,\u201d Lautzenheiser recalled. \u201cMy 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lautzenheiser also mentioned Lincolnview\u2019s run to the Division IV state basketball finals during the 1995-1996 and 1996-1997 seasons as very memorable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe team of Brandon Pardon, Wes Dudgeon, and Chad Pollock \u2014 I had taught all those kids in sixth grade \u2014 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,\u201d Lautzenheiser said. \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He noted that promoting the kids remains the most enjoyable part of his lengthy broadcasting career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBob Priest, who\u2019s the principal at Van Wert, Mark Bagley, who\u2019s the new superintendent, Trent Temple, who\u2019s the athletic director \u2014 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\u2019s the most rewarding part.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent writer It\u2019s a milestone that\u2019s 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 \u201cThe Voice of the Van […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-02 00:54:51","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134388\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}