9 sports journalists headed into Cincinnati Journalism Hall of Fame

They were the faces of Cincinnati television sports for a generation of local viewers: Dennis Janson, Ken Broo, John Popovich and George Vogel.

And they’ll be inducted together into the Greater Cincinnati Society of Professional Journalism Hall of Fame at a Sept. 16 dinner in the Bally Sports Club at Great American Ball Park.

A total of nine local sports journalists — from print, broadcast and new media — will be honored in the largest induction class since the Hall of Fame was established in 1990.

Also to be inducted are former ESPN SportsCenter anchor Game Day Communications founder Betsy Ross; “The Morning Line” online blogger and former newspaper columnist Paul Daugherty; Bengals Radio Network host Wayne “Box” Miller; WKRC-TV executive sports producer Kevin Barnett; and the late Enquirer baseball beat writer John Fay.

The ceremony will be held in conjunction with the chapter’s 2024 Excellence In Journalism contest awards presentation. Tickets for the dinner and programs are $75 each.

Here are the nine honorees:

JOHN POPOVICH: “Popo,” as everyone calls him, set the gold standard for sports storytelling during his 40 years at WCPO-TV (1979-2019). He oversaw daily sports coverage, created the Sunday night Sports Of All Sorts magazine show (as a live, one-hour program) in 1980, and for nearly 30 years, was half of the city’s best sports TV team with Denny Janson.

Popovich took over the main sports anchor chair when Dennis Janson retired in 2013.

DENNIS JANSON: The Price Hill native and 1968 Elder High School graduate bounced around with a number of jobs at WSAI-AM, WKRC-AM and Dayton’s WONE-AM and Channel 2 before quitting the business to manage the Chapter 13 bar in Mount Adams. That’s what he was doing in 1977 when WKRC-TV needed someone to help ABC edit film of the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire in May 1977, which killed 165 people.

Soon he was doing sports for WKRC-TV’s popular Nick Clooney-Ira Joe Fisher team. He jumped to WCPO-TV in 1984 and anchored sports until retiring in 2013.

BETSY ROSS: The 1968 Connersville High School graduate made her Cincinnati TV debut as a WCPO-TV news reporter in 1981, after working in South Bend, Ind. Her love of sports prompted her to volunteer for Channel 9 sports assignments. After a stop in Indianapolis, she moved to New York to anchor SportsChannel America’s nightly sportscast. She returned to Cincinnati to anchor at WLW-TV for six years, then made the big leap to ESPN in 1997 to anchor for ESPN News and SportsCenter.

Ross came back to Cincinnati again in 2000 to create Game Day Communications. She also has worked part-time as a WXIX-TV sports anchor; written a book in 2010, “Playing Ball with the Boys: The Rise of Women in Men’s Sports”; and done public address announcing for University of Cincinnati women’s basketball, soccer and lacrosse.

WAYNE “BOX” MILLER:  Lifelong Bengals fan Wayne “Box” Miller got his dream job in 2018, when named host of the Bengals’ Countdown To Kickoff pregame show, half-time show and post shows on the Bengals Radio Network, which he juggles around his job as St. Xavier High School’s director of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Courtesy Wayne “Box” Miller

The 1973 Woodward High School graduate started as a print salesman for the Cincinnati Enquirer, New York Times, Family Circle and Golf Digest in the late 1970s until joining new WIZF-FM (The WIZ) in the mid-1980s. Miller, who got the nickname “Box” as a kid growing up in Avondale, started a sports marketing firm in 1988, but retuned to radio in 2000-08 when WDBZ-AM (1230 The Buzz) was launched. He’s also appeared on WLWT-TV’s Sports Rock Sunday night show.

KEVIN BARNETT: First hired by WKRC-TV sports anchor Ken Broo in 1991, Kevin Barnett has served as executive sports anchor assisting sportscasters Broo, Brad Johansen, Ken Anderson, Walt Maher and Gary Miller.

Barnett created the “Friday Night Final” extended high school sports highlights show, the Sunday night Sports Authority show and Bengals Nation weekly program taped before a live audience (which won a Bronze Telly Award this year).

The former St. Bernard/Elmwood Place high school sports star has produced Channel 12’s coverage of Reds Opening Day; Bengals preseason, playoff and Super Bowl specials; Luke Fickell’s UC coach show; a FC Cincinnati preseason special; and Jim Beam Turfway Park specials.

PAUL DAUGHERTY: By his count “Doc,” as he’s known, has written more than 10,000 columns — many of those for the Cincinnati Post (1987-1994) and Cincinnati Enquirer (1994-2022). The Maryland high school graduate wrote for the Virginian-Pilot, Dallas Times-Herald and Newsday before coming to Cincinnati.

Although never shy at giving his opinion, which continues with his “The Morning Line” blog, Daugherty also liked to tell personal stories about his annual trips to North Carolina with his son Kelly, “the ‘Kid Down The Hall,’ ” and his 2015 book “An Uncomplicated Life,” about his daughter Jillian, who was born with Down syndrome.

KEN BROO: Ken Broo holds the distinction of anchoring sports for three TV stations in town — WLWT, WKRC-TV and WCPO-TV — in a broadcasting career which continues on WLW-AM as his retirement from local television in 2018.

After graduating from Ohio University in 1974, Broo worked at radio stations in Wilmington, Ohio, and New Castle, Pa., before coming to Cincinnati’s WSAI-AM in 1976 to do sports with morning host Jim Scott. He did TV in Tulsa and Tampa before returning here to do his “Boos & Bravos” as sports anchor for WLWT-TV’s top-rated news anchors Jerry Springer and Norma Rashid. He jumped to WKRC-TV in 1990 to anchor sports and do Bengals radio play-by-play until 1996.

He spent four years at WUSA-TV in Washington, D.C., before returning to WLWT-TV in 2000. He joined WCPO-TV when Janson retired in 2013 and worked with Popovich until retiring from TV in 2018. Broo continues to host WLW-AM’s Sunday Morning Sports Talk and fill in for Bill Cunningham and Scott Sloan.

JOHN FAY: In his career spanning six decades at the Enquirer, most of John Fay’s stories were as the paper’s baseball beat writer while traveling with the Reds. Fay also was one of the rotating baseball writers who regularly chatted with Marty Brennaman during games on the Reds radio network.

Fay was a gifted, versatile writer who also wrote about the Cincinnati Bengals; UC, Xavier and Miami sports; high schools games; Olympic participants; the Thanksgiving Day race and many other events.

Fay left the paper for a couple years about 10 years ago and joined WCPO-TV, where he wrote for the station’s website and hosted a podcast, then returned to the Enquirer. Fay died in August 2023, at age 66.

GEORGE VOGEL: The 1975 Georgetown High School graduate was an important part in launching WLWT-TV’s high school and weekend sports coverage in 1987 with Thom Brennaman. He started at Channel 5 as a newsroom assignment editor in 1982 straight out of the University of Cincinnati. He worked with Channel 5 sportscasters Steve Physioc, Zip Rzeppa, Bill Brown, Todd Donoho, Tom Varrato, Steve Shapiro, Greg Hoard, Brandon Saho and Broo.

In 1990, when Brennaman and Broo quit, he was main sports anchor until Hoard was hired and Broo returned. He resumed the main gig when Broo left in 2013.

You can read profiles of each nominee here written by Tom McKee, retired WCPO-TV reporter and long-time Cincinnati SPJ board member, on the chapter’s website.

Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. for the event. The Excellence In Journalism Awards presentations starts at 6 p.m., followed by a buffet dinner at 7 p.m. The induction ceremony begins at 8 p.m.

Tickets for the dinner and programs are $75 apiece. Reservations can be made here.

Sponsorship opportunities are available by contacting McKee at tmckee9@yahoo.com or (513) 608-1782.