Personality Profiles 0197

"I’ve dreamed of being in radio ever since I was a little kid"*

Personality Profile

An interview with Ed Coffey, morning man at WTPA, 93.5 fm The Rock Station.

By Scot Giambalvo

After a grueling five-hour interview, MODE finally got Ed Coffey to admit that he had dreamed of being in radio all his life*. Actually, Ed kept insisting that winding up in radio was accidental, and his first love and career choice after college was pro hockey. Imagine that. Yet this coming March will mark Ed’s 9th year with WTPA, Harrisburg’s Rock Station. But alas, Ed’s radio career before WTPA was a sordid rollercoaster between radio stations from which he quit, and stations from which he was fired. Ed’s trail before Harrisburg winds back through Baltimore, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Rochester, and right to Brockport, NY, where he began his radio career at the college station in 1972.

As a strapping young college graduate, Ed shot off straight to the mid-west where he played pro hockey for the sum total of two years before he decided to head back east. Ed went back to Brockport, tended bar for a while and looked for hockey work, but none could be found. Remembering his childhood dream of being in radio*, Ed went back to the local radio station and got a job. Ed’s unique style (self- admitted incompetence) was recognized by a Program Director from a Rochester radio station as truly creative, and off Ed went to play DJ in the big city.

The years that followed were an adventure for Ed. Although he couldn’t recall if he’d been fired from more jobs than he quit, all in all life was good. Then, there came an offer from a little station, in a little town in Pennsylvania… WTPA. Ed and his wife, Polly, agreed that moving to Harrisburg and taking up with WTPA was the smartest thing they ever did. Even though he was moving from a "major" market to a "medium" market, Ed knew that Harrisburg was a good career move. Nine years later, (remember Ed’s average radio station career was no more than two years) Ed is "still going" strong.

MODE asked Ed about his philosophy on radio. Ed told us: "I will never lose respect for people because of the radio stations they choose to listen to. Though, I have lost respect for some of the people who work in the industry. Working in radio is not a particularly hard job, yet there are radio personalities that have just gotten lazy. When you’re on the air, you’re talking to each individual listener. It’s important to be thought provoking, to be real. DJ’s that safely read their liner cards may never get fired, but they’ll probably never get anywhere either." We finally knocked Ed off his soapbox long enough to ask him about his relationships around the station. "My morning crew is like family," he told us. "They’re never afraid to point out a personality flaw! Jen does the news, Jim does the producing, and Jo (the intern) does whatever we tell her to.* But seriously, WTPA gives me an amazing amount of latitude. They let me be creative. They let me be an artist. It’s a great station to work for."

So, as the "Fa King" himself raised his cup of "Dickens’s Cider", (the official WTPA Morning Show beverage,) he had this to say: "Get that camera out of my face*, I don’t like being stalked by you reporter types*, I hate Paparazzi*, and I’m sure everything you write in your little article will be totally misquoted." Thanks for the vote of confidence Ed.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: If you’re wondering what the asterisks are for, we’ve taken the time to clearly mark each of Ed’s misquotes. See Ed, we didn’t make up the WHOLE thing, only SOME of it!