Rick Gonzales

      I grew up with a guy who had amazing potential. I guess a lot of people have this story about friends in their lives. My story involves great humor from 1977. I became mixed up with Rick Gonzales in Junior high and we have been lifelong friends. Family if you will. Rick is a great athlete, he’s intelligent, and has an amazing sense of humor. He was a good looking guy, and all the girls loved him. He had it all. The bad thing about all this talent and potential, Rick knew it. He could be cocky sometimes. It was always in a funny way but still, he let you know he could do it if he wanted to. However, Rick never wanted to, he was a loser. He got offers from universities for football scholarships and turned them down. He just never wanted to do anything. He wouldn’t get a job even though every time he went for a job interview, he got hired because the interviewer had an instant connection with the congenial guy. He would work for a few weeks and either quit or get fired. He would then, as he told me, have to take some time off to relax and recuperate from the trauma of losing a job. That time off could be anywhere from six months to over a year. He lived with his mother who supported him, or he found women with good jobs who were willing to support him.

      Since he didn’t have a job and wasn’t going to school, I talked him into going to San Antonio Junior College to take some courses. He agreed and we signed up. He was interested in radio and television classes. After several weeks I saw him on campus, and he told me he was on the school radio station doing the sports broadcast. I was shocked. San Antonio College had a radio station broadcasting all over the city. The ratings on the show were high. He was on the air with a lot of people listening. I was impressed. I should’ve known it wouldn’t last long.

      A week or so later I saw him and he said, “Hey Joe, you want to come sit with me while I broadcast the sports?”

      “Yeah, that sounds great. Are we going right now?”

      “Yep. Follow me.”

      We walked into the broadcast building and went to the studio. There were all kinds of equipment. It was impressive. We walked over to the teletype, and he began pulling all the scores from the NBA off the machine from the night before. Above the floor level studio was the production room. It was about six feet above the broadcast studio. There was a student up there working the radio program on the air at the time.

      Rick said, “See that guy up there? He hates my guts. I went out with his girlfriend a few weeks ago and we spent the night together.” Rick laughed as he said, “I think he wants to kill me.”

      Rick put together several other sports stories and assembled them all in a folder to broadcast on air. We went to a desk in the studio where he would broadcast and went over the material. Everything was in place and ready to go.

      Rick said, “Let’s go get a coke and hang out for a few minutes and it should be about time.”

      We went to the coke machine and stood there for a minute. I told him, “I tell ya, I’m impressed. You are really doing something here.”

      He was now cocky Rick, “Yeah well, I think I got a future in this business. They get calls at the station wanting to hear more of the sports broadcaster Rick Gonzales.”

      “I can see that. You definitely have the personality and the voice.”

      We talked for a few more minutes and went back to the studio. We settled in at the desk and Rick was ready. A commercial was playing and when it finished, he was on the air. Rick’s nemesis was up in the production booth and began a countdown. He went, “Three, two, one, you’re on.”

      Rick was supposed to start off with a San Antonio Spurs story before he read the NBA scores. As he lifted the front page for the Spurs story he said, “The Spurs had a great night last night.”

      He suddenly hesitated. The story wasn’t there. He stopped talking and there was dead air. Dead air is a huge no no in radio. Rick still wasn’t talking and with bug eyes was frantically lifting page after page of the folder looking for the story. He decided to move on to the NBA scores, but he couldn’t find them. I’m sitting there not knowing what to do. I stand up and start looking over his shoulder trying to help him. We’re both frantic. He starts throwing pages in the air looking for some semblance of the broadcast he put together. We’re both on the floor desperately sifting through the papers he's thrown looking for something to broadcast. Nothing.

      Rick looks up at the production booth and makes the motion with his hand across his throat meaning cut too commercial. The guy is just standing there looking down at us with his arms crossed smiling shaking his head no. We both suddenly stopped and knew what was going on. The prick finally did cut too commercial, but it was too late. Rick’s career was over. It was obvious the guy sabotaged Rick because of his tryst with the guy’s girlfriend. Rick quit college shortly after that incident. The incident was not a defining point in his life. He was never going to do anything and to this day he still hasn’t. Thinking back, it was one of the most hilarious moments in my life though.