South Florida sportscasting pioneer Bernie Rosen dies at 93
Bernie Rosen, the longtime former WTVJ sports director who successfully pushed for the creation of the first regular sportscast in South Florida television history and later hired the first woman to anchor local sports reports in a U.S. TV market, died of natural causes on Tuesday night at Aventura Hospital. He was 93.
“Bernie Rosen was a difference maker in sports television,” Fox and former WTVJ sportscaster Chris Myers said Wednesday. “He took local sports television and the people in it to great heights. He had a passion and skill to bring sports to people and find the best people he could to do it.”
Rosen joined WTVJ as an intern in 1949 — initially sweeping floors — while attending the University of Miami with legendary local broadcasters Ralph Renick and weatherman Bob Weaver, and became the station’s sports director in 1960, a role he served until 1985.
But six months after he retired, station management called and implored him to return. Rosen resumed working three days a week — chasing stories and mentoring the station’s on-air talent — as sports assignment editor until 2013. He never appeared on air.
“He was the godfather of local sports,” longtime WTVJ cameraman Ross Noble said Wednesday. “He never got beat on a story. In his heyday he literally knew everybody in town. If you were a sports figure and came into town, he knew where you were and he would send people out. You would get a call in the morning and he said, ‘So and so is staying in Sonesta Beach Hotel, room 204, go get some sound from him.’ ”
Former ESPN and WTVJ sportscaster Roy Firestone, in a video for NBC-6, called Rosen the “Vince Lombardi, the Don Shula of sports here.”
During the 1970s, Rosen missed six months because of a benign tumor behind his inner ear. “Other than that the man never missed a day of work,” Noble said.
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After joining WTVJ, Rosen convinced station owner Mitchell Wolfson to launch the market’s first regular sports report on the evening newscasts.
In 1969, Rosen hired Jane Chastain, the first woman in the nation to anchor sports on a local newscast.
Rosen also mentored dozens of sportscasters, including longtime former sports anchors Tony Segreto and Joe Rose, and several who went on to network jobs — Myers with ESPN and now Fox, and Firestone, Suzy Kolber, Karie Ross and Hank Goldberg with ESPN.
“I was 21 when I was hired [at WTVJ] and he was always listening and observing and advising,” Myers, who worked at WTVJ from 1980 to 1983, said by phone.
”He would scold you and correct you in kind of a fatherly way, but he would give you opportunities and reward you. He wanted to make sure you understand an FIU soccer game was just as important as an NFL playoff game as far as doing the sportscast.
“His critiques — he was good at that. You knew that he cared about the product. But you also knew he cared about you. He emphasized people are watching you as well as the sports so make sure you give them your best. We wouldn’t have been where we are without having a guy like that to give us a chance and help us make the best of our chance.”
Per NBC-6, Rosen was honored with the Golden Circle Award presented by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for more than 50 years of service. Weaver was WTVJ’s only other alumnus to receive that recognition.
Rosen, in an NBC-6 video filmed in recent years, called himself a “little Jewish kid from the Bronx in New York who made it.”
Rosen is survived by sons Randy and Rick. Tacy, his wife of 55 years, died in 2009.
Randy Rosen said there will not be a funeral due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the family eventually will hold a celebration of life event when it is safe. Randy Rosen encouraged a donation to a youth sports organization in lieu of flowers.
This story was originally published December 9, 2020 at 11:38 AM.
