The departure of major league hockey might make the Hartford/New Haven television market less attractive to some in the nomadic TV business, but Joe Tessitore is settling down here.
Tessitore, who came to Channel 3 last July, signed a five-year contract Thursday. He will become the station’s primary sports anchor, handling the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts during the week. Harvey Smilovitz will move to weekends.
“We just simply decided to make a change,” Channel 3 news director Steve Sabato said. “We think both Joe and Harvey are very talented people, we’re lucky to have them both.”
Tessitore, a Boston College graduate who has also worked in Dallas and Albany, said there will no longer be a sports report on the 5:30 newscast. Tessitore, who wouldn’t disclose his age, said there will be a greater commitment to projects and special sports programming, such as the series of specials on UConn women’s basketball.
“That’s what really sold me on sticking around,” Tessitore said. “The commitment that when something big happens, they want to cover it in a big way.”
The typical TV contract is three years or less, but Tessitore, whose contract was to run out in early summer, wanted a longer deal.
“I know it’s a little strange to be signing a five-year deal just as the Whalers are leaving,” he said. “This is a time of change in sports in this market, but I’ve gotten to love it here, and love the people.”
Tessitore’s first day in the new position, Thursday, was the start of May sweeps, the most important stretch for local stations.
Smilovitz, who joined the station in 1992 and eventually replaced Dave Smith as the primary sports anchor, has been on vacation the past two weeks and is scheduled to return Sunday to host “Sports Final Edition.”
Coppola’s take on Whalers
Bob Picozzi’s 20-year career at Ch. 8 will end in June, and Ch. 30 lost Beasley Reece to a station in Tampa, Fla. Now Rich Coppola of Ch. 61 is the state’s dean of TV sports.
This weekend Coppola, who has been at WTIC since 1989, will receive the Connecticut Sportscaster of the Year award from the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association for the third consecutive year. Once an East Haven High hockey player, Coppola generally took the lead in covering the Beaver Falls-Aliquippa Whalers while they were here.
“I don’t want to hear another morning radio host say, ‘Get over it,’ ” Coppola said. “If it doesn’t affect you, fine. But it affects some people. How about the kids at [the UConn Children’s Cancer Fund and the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center] who won’t be getting the money from [the Whalers’ Wives’] Casino Night? Tell them to get over it.”
The loss of major league status is the key to Coppola.
“I always believed that if you have a major league franchise in your market,” he said, “whether it was hockey, baseball, NBA or NFL, then a college team should not take precedence over it. . . . Just because a team is losing doesn’t mean there’s no story there.”
Coppola’s take on the emotional farewell at the Civic Center April 13:
“I was really proud to be from this area that day,” he said, “because of the way the fans reacted. I was thinking, where are the Whalers going to go where they could be this bad and still have so many people support them?” . . . Courant columnist Jeff Jacobs is NSSASportswriter of the Year for Connecticut.
Theismann vs. Keyshawn
Here’s hoping you were not still watching the NFL Draft at 9 p.m. Saturday. But if you were, you saw the most entertaining hour of the two days of coverage by ESPN.
The discussion turned to Jets receiver Keyshawn Johnson and his book of juvenile ramblings, “Just Give Me the Damn Ball.” Johnson appeared on camera to be interviewed by Chris Berman and Joe Theismann, but Joe T. was somehow inhabited by the spirit of Clarence Darrow. He brushed aside Berman and took over the interrogation. Theismann, who was criticized in the book, pressed Johnson on how he could accuse Jets quarterback Neil O’Donnell of milking an injury, asking:”Keyshawn, are you a doctor?”
Johnson offered a series of lame answers, and it was Theismann’s finest hour on TV — until he got a little carried away. His last four or five questions, some of which took about five minutes, were all basically the same, about whether Johnson could consider himself a “team player.” After the interview, the assembled crowd cheered and Theismann raised his arms in triumph. OK, so Mike Wallace he’s not.
Chris Mortensen, apparently joking, put Theismann on the defensive, suggesting he was not popular with his Redskins teammates. This was a reach, since Theismann never said or wrote the kind of mean- spirited things Johnson did.
Sal Paolantonio had the unenviable task of asking Jets coach Bill Parcells about the book. “I’m not going to respond,” Parcells said. “Is there any particular reason?” Paolantonio pressed. “Because I don’t want to,” Parcells concluded.
It sure beat having the draftniks drone on about cornerbacks from Southwest Missouri State. ESPN should offer a transcript by mail order, a la “Nightline.” . . . Channel 8 has hired Persefone Contos, a graduate of Conard High in West Hartford, as a sports reporter. Contos, who started April 7, had worked for Bristol-based Patrick Media Productions.Her work appeared on ESPN2 and The Sports Network in Toronto. . . . NBC won 12 sports Emmys Wednesday, 10 for its Olympics coverage. ESPN won seven, one for its promotions for “SportsCenter” and the NCAA Tournament (featuring Robert Goulet). . . . Cavaliers coach Mike Fratello will work for NBC as a studio analyst the first three weekends of the NBA playoffs.
