UConn women win
Onetime broadcaster of Huskies athletics leaving WTIC-AM after 28 years, but he’s not retiring yet
Five players score in double figures as Huskies beat DePaul, 75-52.
Joe D’Ambrosio’s gift to
UConn fans over a period of 26 years was allowing them to see and feel things that can’t actually be seen or felt through his medium.
If you listened to D’Ambrosio while staring at the dashboard or riding the WTIC-AMsignal into the open space of imagination, you watched UConn win and you watched UConn lose. You saw the seconds tick off the clock, watched the plays develop, understood the pageantry inside every packed building.
You always knew where the ball was with Joe D.
You always knew where his heart was too.
As “Voice of the Huskies” in 19922018, D’Ambrosio gave listeners every detail and every ounce of emotional investment.
For a local play-by-play announcer, that’s not only acceptable but critical.
Few, if any, have mixed precise information with pace and imagery as well as he did while becoming a generation’s colorful soundtrack for a university’s athletic rise.
This is worth appreciating now, two years after his latest UConn courtside call, as much as ever.
D’Ambrosio announced Tuesday that he has negotiated a contract buyout and will leave WTICthis week. His final day on the air will be Thursday, ending a 28-year run, the final two spent as host of the station’s morning show, “Mornings with Ray and Joe D,” alongside Ray Dunaway.
“Grateful,” said D’Ambrosio, 67. “I feel grateful that I had the opportu
nity to do what I did for as long as I did. It was a godsend. It was a blessing. I never took for granted that I had this position and was able to do those games. …
“This is not a retirement. This is just a recalibration of my career. I have no plans yet. I’m going to enjoy getting sleep in the morning and spending time with people who are special to meand I’m going to enjoy life.”
D’Ambrosio, who lost his play-by-play role in 2018 when UConn transferred its broadcast rights to iHeart Media, never held back. He is a Connecticut guy, a Hartford guy. He became a UConn guy, through and through, no apologies and none needed for the way he passionately presented himself.
As a broadcaster, he was as authentic as he was energetic. You always knew where D’Ambrosio stood, right through the end of his WTIC run.
Irked last month by a morning show caller who promoted the theory that Democrats were trying to steal the presidential election, D’Ambrosio said, “At this radio station at this time, I’m not allowed to let my opinions known. I’ve told management, when my contract is up in June, my time with WTIC will be over.”
The partnership lasted just a month-plus longer.
“It’s been interesting,” D’Ambrosio said of his final WTIC chapter. “Obviously my political leanings aren’t the same as the listeners of the radio station, and I think that’s where some of my frustration came in. And maybe I could have handled some of that a lot better than I did. But that’s over and I’m not going to look back at that.
“I think everything happens for a reason. The pandemic was incredible. We try to stay out of politics on the morning show. We have shows that do a really good job of talking about politics on the radio station.
“There was this misconception when I came out and said what I said that it had something to do with management. It never had anything to do with management. Management never told me what to say. They were fully supportive of everything I’ve done and they’ve allowed me to craft how these last couple of days are going to go.”
Parts of these last couple of shows — Wednesday and Thursday, 5:30 a.m.-9 a.m. — will be dedicated to replaying some of D’Ambrosio’s proudest on-air moments, which means we can see and feel those plays and those people through the radio once again. Some of the guests will be coaches D’Ambrosio worked with over the years, as UConn harnessed its potential in men’s basketball, women’s basketball, football and beyond.
D’Ambrosio has lived out a dream. A1971 South Catholic High graduate, he remembers listening to UConn games as a kid on WTIC through the voice of George Ehrlich. He cherished Thanksgiving editions of
The Courant and The Hartford Times that featured extensive UConn previews.
Whenhe attended his first Yankees’ game in 1962, he was most interested in finding the broadcast booth and being able to spot Mel Allen, Red Barber and Phil Rizzuto. He was hired by WTIC sports director Arnold Dean to call men’s basketball games before the 1992-93 season.
D’Ambrosio called the UConn men’s first national championship in 1999 and the three that followed. He called four championships with the women’s team too. He brought us into the minds of Jim Calhoun and Geno Auriemma, with unprecedented access to those Hall of Fame coaches and others — Kevin Ollie, Randy Edsall, Jim Penders and Mike Cavanaugh among them.
Night after night, day after day, courtside or press box, D’Ambrosio and partner Wayne Norman — who is still going strong, alongside new play-by-play voice Mike Crispino — basically told listeners to pull up a seat for a close look.
D’Ambrosio showed us Kemba Walker’s buzzer-beater in 2011. He showed us “Bird at the Buzzer,” the famous Sue Bird game-winner against Notre Dame in 2001. He showed us the Huskies closing out Notre Dame in football in 2009. He showed us George Springer’s amazing catch against South Carolina in a 2011 super regional.
“But the thing I enjoyed the most about doing the games and being around the athletes was watching them come into UConn as teenagers and leave as adults,” D’Ambrosio said. “Caron Butler ... was kind of quiet. Between his freshman and sophomore years, he was 180 degrees different. Not everybody can come in as Diana [Taurasi] did and be so gregarious as a freshman. And I point to Caron as maybe my favorite story of a kid transforming at UConn.”
Joe D turned information and observation into pictures, into art. He showed fans what UConn was becoming, one buzzer-beater and touchdown call at a time, epitomizing the growing energy of an entire state and its flagship university.
It sounded, and looked, so good.