Houston Radio: Sports Voice John O'Reilly Dead At 72

Veteran broadcaster John O’Reilly, a staple of Houston sports talk radio for decades and a former member of the Oilers’ radio broadcast team, died Friday at a local hospital after an extended battle with throat cancer.

He was 72, according to The Houston Chronicle.

O’Reilly worked in sports media for more 30 years, including almost two decades in Houston at KTRH 740 AM, KSEV 700 AM and KPRC 950 AM. He served two stints on the Oilers’ radio team between 1983-85 and 1989-91.

He also was a longtime ABC Radio Network voice and part of the team that helped launch WFAN 660 AM, the nation’s first all-sports radio station, in New York in 1988.

A native of Chicago, O’Reilly earned a master’s degree in speech broadcast communications from the University of Michigan. He began his career as director of promotions for the Cincinnati Reds from 1968-69 and as director of promotions and sales for the Oakland A’s in 1969-70.

After leaving the A’s, he worked as sports director at KGO-TV in San Francisco and as an anchor at WNBC in New York and WMAQ in Chicago. Turning to radio, he hosted ABC Radio’s World of Sports on the American Information Network and hosted the network’s coverage of the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics.

He arrived in  Houston in 1983 to work for KTRH, delivering sportscasts and commentaries and eventually becoming the station’s sports director and host of the nightly “SportsBeat” talk show.

In 1988-89, he moonlighted as a weekend anchor on WFAN in New York.