Columbia SC Radio: Longtime Sports Anchor Bob Shields In Hospice

A longtime sports anchor for WLTX-TV19 is receiving hospice care after an 18-month long battle with cancer.

Bob Shields

Bob Shields, 58, who was the station’s sports director for 30 years, had been receiving chemotherapy and radiation since a diagnosis of a cancerous tumor behind his eye, but doctors recently took him off treatment and returned him to his home, according to a longtime friend of Shields.

“Physically he’s not, obviously, doing fantastic. Basically, the doctors have told him that there’s nothing else they can do,” said Benji Norton, a long time friend of Shields’ who hosted a radio show with him from 2007 to 2016 called Early Game.

Despite Shields’ physical state, his mind is still healthy, Norton told The State.

“His mind is sharp as a tack. I was really surprised by that,” Norton said. “He was singing songs and all the lyrics were right, we were messing around with that, bringing up sports things — things you would have to think a little bit to remember.”

Shortly after graduating from the University of South Carolina in 1981, he started working at WLTX. Two years later, he was promoted to sports director, said WLTX general manager and president Rich O’Dell.

“Bob is one of the most loved people who have worked here at WLTX. Not just here, but in the community,” O’Dell said.

Shields is a decorated reporter, who won the South Carolina Broadcasting Association’s award for Sportscaster of the Year three years in a row, 1995-1997. A 2009 article from The State referred to him as a “local sports history guru.” He left WLTX in May 2010 citing personal and professional reasons.