It’s 8:45 a.m. on a recent Saturday morning, and things are starting to pick up in one of the studios of the KTSU 90.9 FM building that sits on the edge of the Texas Southern University campus.
Devan Wade is running through all of the checks, and slowly but surely, Kevin Allen aka The Silver Fox and Radio Hall of Famer and pioneer Ralph Cooper trickle in just ahead of their 9 a.m. airtime.
Just like that, the KTSU Sports Talk Show has hit the airwaves. Buckle up for the fastest sports hour in radio and be ready for an unhinged sports conversation that segways effortlessly from the Texas Southern – Prairie View basketball rivalry to the latest on the Texans, Astros, Rockets and really any topic dealing with sports.
“It’s sort of a barbershop conversation for the city of Houston,” said Wade, who is the founder of the show. “We talk about everything from Texas Southern to the pros and national sports stories. It’s a catch-all where we talk about anything and everything.”
Devan Wade
This is exactly what Wade envisioned when the long-time sports journalist first pitched the idea of doing a sports talk radio show to KTSU. Wade recognized there was a void in the Houston market regarding Black voices discussing local and national sports and he offered a solution to filling it.
Over the years, the voices and opinions have changed on Houston’s longest continuously running Black sports radio talk show but the mission of being a place where the listening audience can tune in to conversations they connect with has remained the same.
“When you have a sports talk show that has been around this many years consistently on the air and hosted by three African American men, to me that is something that is missing in our community,” said KTSU general manager Ernest Walker. “When we talk about sports there are a lot of African Americans who dominate in sports and we need to be telling and talking about it from our point of view no matter whether is national sports, pro sports or college sports.”
KTSU Sports Talk Show
Where: KTSU 90.9 FM
When: Saturdays 9 a.m. to 10 a.m.
Hosts: Devan Wade, Ralph Cooper and Kevin “The Silver Fox” Allen
The latest version of the show, which includes Wade, Cooper and The Silver Fox, has been on air together for a little over four years. The trio exudes chemistry as they go unscripted for an hour and often features Cooper and Allen intensely debating sports topics while Wade, who is the host, plays referee.
On this recent Saturday morning, the subject was the upcoming TSU – Prairie View regular-season finale basketball game. Cooper, who is a virtual sports historian having broken many racial barriers in sports media during his 50-plus years in the market, went way back to all of the TSU players he remembers watching as a kid when the Tigers played at the Fairchild Building (now the TSU Museum).
Ralph Cooper
Cooper, who stands up the entire show, starts rattling off all of the great TSU players he had watched since he was a kid in the 1950s and 1960s.
The Silver Fox interrupts mid-sentence, “They said you saw Moses play.”
“I can’t remember that one,” Cooper shoots back.
And it continues from there. In all honestly, Cooper seems to be having a great time mixing it up with the guys he calls inspirations.
Cooper, who is a true pioneer as a sports journalist, still does his own show during the week over at KCOH, but jumped at the invitation to come join The Silver Fox and Wade.
“Getting a chance to work with him was a lift and an inspiration,” said Cooper, who pointed to Allen. “When you’ve been around and worked with other people, you enjoy working with people who look like you. That’s one of the joys of doing this program with them.”
The love and admiration are definitely returned.
“Growing up, watching Ralph and some of the things that he has done in the past and all of the information and knowledge that he has and my passion for sports, I look up to him,” The Silver Fox said. “It’s fun for us. But we have some knockdown, drag-outs sometimes, too. But we respect each other and respect each other’s inputs and thoughts.
“I appreciate Devan bringing me on some years ago, giving me an opportunity in this profession, and being alongside of Ralph is awesome,” said Allen.
Kevin “The Silver Fox” Allen
But the fun doesn’t stop there, it continues as the board lights up with calls from their regulars and a few folks who happened to be listening in. Some have questions about what the Texans might do in free agency or if the Rockets made a mistake with Ime Udoka.
Then there are the callers who just want to get their own sports opinions out there, like the caller who went on and on about the Dallas Cowboys, who weren’t even a part of the discussion that morning.
“They become a part of the show in a major way,” Wade said. “A lot of these callers don’t have the opportunity to get on the airwaves anywhere else. That’s important that we are here.”
It all just works together. The chemistry between the three and the connection with their listeners is something you just don’t find on the air in this market.
“I think that’s what makes it really unique,” Walker said. “You have these guys who really love sports but are having a really great conversation about it and debating about it too. Some of them are Cowboys fans, and some of them are not.
“It’s a combination of different things that make that blend of KTSU Sports Talk so unique in itself.”
Cooper has teamed up with others to do sports talk radio over the years, but he really feels like KTSU has caught lightning in a bottle. And in many ways, he feels like he has, too.
“They may have been a little apprehensive when I first came in here, thinking I was going to take things over, which I kind of do,” said Cooper, as Wade and The Silver Fox both laughed in the background. “But it is his (Wade) program, and like I told him before, he can check me anytime he wants to.
“Without Devan Wade, I probably wouldn’t be here. And then getting the desert (Allen) …”
