Nov. 21 ended Clinton High Red Devil Football’s season. It also was the end of 36 years at the controls each Friday night during the gridiron season for “studio man” Thomas “TJ” Johnson at WPCC.
His voice - along with the Voice of the Red Devils Buddy Bridges and the rest of The Wolfpack, the CHS broadcast team - goes out worldwide on the web at The Large Time Network, the name that station owners Pat and Robin Patterson have given their unique blend of beach, boogie, blues and beyond. On this afternoon (Nov. 21), Johnson was studio man for Pat’s live remote at The Port Grill on Lake Greenwood, between 4 and 7 - TJ was trouble-shooting some issues that Pat was having with equipment - before switching to the pre-game show and TJ’s presentation of The Out of Town scoreboard at the half and post-game. Why would anyone spend until close to 11 at night, alone, in a small box studio on - of all things - The Radio?
“I enjoy giving something to the community,” TJ says.
“I want to make sure it’s done right. People come into Dempsey’s (pizza, TJ’s “other” job) and say, “I recognize that voice” from the scoreboard. I love to get the word out to people, and I appreciate Clinton High School.”
TJ has been at this since 1990 when Jim Warren gave him a shot at afternoon DJ and then helped with football along with the late Donnie Wilder. Later came Sandy and Rhonda Cruickshanks. “I always keep it positive,” he said. “If people want a score and they don’t have a radio or computer, they can call me.”
Pat Patterson says he can count on one hand the number of times Johnson has not been able to report for work.
“It’s never boring,” TJ says.
He also was at the controls when Patterson did a recent remote from Bailey Memorial Stadium during Presbyterian College Football’s remarkable 10-2 season.
“He talked to all the coaches and to Dee Nichols (AD). They were supposed to stop at kickoff, but people were still there dancing.”
Glitches are rare, but they do happen. Sometimes computers are balky and commercials have to be read from paper. Cellphones and mics sometimes don’t work, and the broadcast crew has to improvise. But, as said, that is rare.
Most of the time, the worldwide broadcast of Clinton High Football goes off like a well-oiled machine.
“I remember one time Sandy and Jimmy had to talk into their cell phones,” TJ says. “We had commercials on carts. Now, with computers, it’s much easier to do on a rotation.”
“Pat has “a box” he uses at remote sites, so he can control the commercials’ rotation,” TJ said.
Manning the controls, he says, “It’s just something I enjoy doing here.” When he’s trouble-shooting a problem with Pat, he can “switch to what he would play if he was here.”
TJ does have to record the times that each commercial plays in case an advertiser has co-op money for ads featuring major companies.
Before his days on the radio, TJ says, “I worked in restaurants my whole life.”
He was a popular fixture in the cafeteria of the former Bailey Manor Christian Retirement Community in Clinton, and now he is the pizza-tossing man at Dempsey’s Pizza.
“Tony (Dempsey) said, ‘I need you’,” TJ says. “They were short a pizza cook, and I had pizza experience.”
He says Dempsey’s is really good about working around his Friday night obligation. His normal day off from Dempsey’s is Wednesday.
This pizza experience comes from Ohio, in the Toledo area.
“Dad retired and moved here, and we built their house,” Johnson said. He had his own pizza shop here for a while and then got the afternoon DJ gig - he tried “color commentary” for a summer with Sandy Cruickshanks on Dixie Youth Baseball.
TJ says he found out that on-mic, in the field work was not for him. He found that in the studio, “when something would happen, I didn’t panic.”
He wants to make it to 50 years in the studio.
“I had a couple at Presbyterian Home whose grandson played, so I would give them a shout-out. They absolutely loved it. I give a shout-out to Clinton Tire - they keep us all going. Nothing grumpy - that’s not my nature.”
As a restaurant veteran and a cook himself, TJ also gives a shout-out to Sav-a-Lot in Laurens. “A lot of things there are cheaper,” he says, “and their customer service is great.”
TJ loves to talk football with The Wolfpack and talk food with the Dempsey’s crew. “They’ve all been there for me,” he says.
For Thanksgiving, TJ and his wife Pam were headed to Cincinnati. Cooking for 18 people was to happen there - “5 years ago there were only about 8 or 9 of us,” TJ says, but the family is growing.
“My brother-in-law is a retired health inspector,” he said. “I’ll be using an electric roasting pan. It cooks in about half the time as the oven.”
He gets his interest in cooking honestly. “Most of my cooking came from the Boy Scouts, (and) I spent 8 weeks with my grandmother when I was in high school. She put 20 pounds on me.”
“I love cooking.”
Pam’s birthday is early December, so the possible plans were (as of Nov. 21, when this interview happened) to spend some time at a jazz club in Cincinnati.
When he gets back, winter will be setting in. Red Devil Football will have come to an end with a respectable 9-4 season record (all of Clinton’s losses came to playoff-bound teams), and Pat will still have remotes. And there will be Mister Dependable in the studio.
