I received an email from WRGB newscaster Liz Bishop a few weeks ago.
Apparently Liz found one of my old blog posts and wanted to talk to me.
It’s actually THIS one. It’s an article I originally wrote for Rugby magazine in 1993, and reblogged it in 2011. It’s about the arrival of the South African national rugby team (the Springboks), who played a game at Bleecker Stadium in Albany – in the middle of raging and vocal protests about South Africa’s endorsement of state-sponsored apartheid.
She contacted me, asking if I would be interested in participating in an interview regarding the event. Seems WRGB still had filmed footage of the 1981 game (as well as a second contest held in Glenville a few days later), and were using it for a retrospective piece – part of their “WRGB 6 Rewind” documentary series.
Sure. I agreed. Why not?
I arrived at WRGB’s Balltown Road studios, Liz Bishop welcomed me into the building, and I talked – on camera – about the rugby game, the political upheavals at the time, and all that it encompassed. The interview is scheduled to air tonight during WRGB’s newscasts, so if you’re able to tune in, definitely give it a watch. And if it does show up on YouTube, I’ll link it to the blog.
A personal note. As we walked through the WRGB corridors to the back parking lot, we walked through a large studio space. I looked up at one of the walls – there was an old Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Association heart-shaped illuminated sign. I remember that sign – the more light bulbs lit on the sign, the more money donated to the cause.
And then it came to me. This was the same area of the station where, 40 years ago, my high school whomped three other high schools on WRGB’s show Answers Please. “I think we were set up over here,” I said, pointing in the general direction.
“You’re right,” she said to me. “And over here” – she pointed to the other side of the studio space – “we had two bowling lanes set up for our TV Tournament Time broadcasts.”
Damn. Flashback city.
Anyway … please consider watching tonight’s WRGB retrospective of their coverage of the 1981 South African Springboks rugby game and the political unrest it caused in the area.
And hopefully your TV set won’t melt when my face shows up on the screen. ๐
Chuck The Writer 
OK. I’ve been avoiding Channel 6 pretty much since Sinclair started its paw on local news. But I was AT that protest. It was the only time I actually talked with Pete Seeger. Do you happen to know in which half hour?
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Would greatly appreciate the link. WRGB recently disappeared from my over-the-air station lineup after their tower tweak.
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try re-scan your tv. We have to do that sometimes
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Thanks, but done and done and…
Wrote to WRGB and their engineer replied w/ maps showing the new signal path to my front door. Seems there’s now too much real estate in the way, and I’m simply out of luck. Fortunately, I can pull in a Utica station (go figure) for network programming.
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Cool. I remember when Springbok hit town. – but more interested in the tour of the studio! I was thinking about Dick Wood’s passing and how there’s so much history the three local network affiliates have in the area, but seldom any acknowledgement of their old anchors unless they die or an old show unless someone associate with it dies. I’d like to see them dedicate a portion of their websites to some of that.
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gurso1- someone should write a definitive history of Capital District TV, from the great experiment of Channel 6, one of a half dozen stations that broadcast the 1947 World Series, to all of those network affiliate switches in the 1970s and early ’80s.
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Great idea gurso1, and / or an annual broadcast trip down Memory Lane. I’m sure they could fill at least a half hour.
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I got on Channel 6 once, back in 1978. However, it was just a side view. I’ve been to the studio, back when they did TV Tournament Time tapings on Friday nights, and a friend took part one night.
And, no, your TV won’t melt when you appear, Chuck. I’m not exactly a matinee idol, either, but I finally let my readers see what I look like the other day………
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Could be worse; you could be on channel 1. (100 points if you get this.)
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VERY cool! When I was living a different life than this one, (a life that never imagined me living here! )I visited WRGB, in 1986. There is a ton of broadcasting history in that place.
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