Joe D’Ambrosio, WTIC-AM co-host, leaving station
“It’s not a retirement. It’s just a re-calibrating of my career. I’m 67; I’m not ready to retire yet. ... When things get better, I want to travel and enjoy life.”
Joe D’Ambrosio
After initially announcing earlier this year that he’d be leaving his position as one of the WTIC-AM hosts when his contract was up in June 2021, Joe D’Ambrosio announced he’s leaving this week instead.
In a tweet Tuesday morning, D’Ambrosio said he had “negotiated a buyout” with the company. He said his last day on the station would be Thursday.
D’Ambrosio has spent decades at WTIC, most recently as morning sportscaster and co-host of the WTIC Morning Show with Ray Dunaway.
In a phone interview Tuesday, D’Ambrosio said he worked with management to reach what he called a mutual decision.
“I’m happy about it,” he said. “It’ll give me a chance to relax for a few months and figure out the next steps.”
But he said this will not be the end of his career.
“It’s not a retirement,” D’Ambrosio said. “It’s just a re-calibrating of my career. I’m 67; I’m not ready to retire yet.”
D’Ambrosio said he wants to lower his golf handicap — joking that it’s a task that may take a “long time.”
“When things get better,” he said, referring to the ongoing pandemic, “I want to travel and enjoy life.”
D’Ambrosio started working at the station in May 1992 when WTIC got the broadcast rights for the University of Connecticut sports. He served as a play-by-play sportscaster for many of the university’s sports games, including football, men’s and women’s basketball and baseball.
The station lost the rights to the UConn games
after the 2017 season, but with still a year left on his contract, D’Ambrosio said he was transitioned to the morning show with Dunaway.
“It’s been great,” he said of the morning show. “Ray is the best person to work with. He shares the microphone. We’ve had a great time together. I’m going to miss him and everyone we worked with on the morning show.”
He said he won’t miss waking up early.
In a statement Tuesday, Steve Salhany, operations manager of WTIC News Talk 1080, said D’Ambrosio spent nearly three decades giving listeners a front-row seat to some of the biggest stories in the area.
“Whether delivering dynamic play-by-play calls of UConn athletics or engaging with his audience through our morning show, his voice will always be synonymous with WTIC,” Salhany said. “Joe is the consummate professional and we wish him nothing but the best in the next chapter of his career.”
During his tenure with WTIC, among his most notable coverage opportunities was when the UConn men’s basketball team won its first national championship in 1999.
“I worked with terrific coaches, great administrators and outstanding athletes who were good people,” D’Ambrosio said.
He said one of the best parts about sportscasting was watching students come in to the school as teenagers and watching them grow over the years.
“I’ve really been lucky, I’ve been blessed,” he said.
Whether D’Ambriosio’s future includes a return to sportscasting is still unclear.
“If that happens, it’ll be great, but if not, I had the best run that I could have,” he said.
The National Sportscaster and Sportswriters Association named D’Ambrosio as Connecticut Sportscaster of the Year nine times.
News of D’Ambrosio’s upcoming departure comes roughly six months before he had originally announced he would be leaving the station.
During the morning show on Election Day, D’Ambrosio expressed frustration after a backand-forth with a caller — “Eric from Rocky Hill” — who brought up the claim that Democrats were trying to steal the election.
“Eric is one reason, Ray, that when my contract is up in June, I’m done,” D’Ambrosio told his cohost on Election Day, the Hartford Courant reported at the time.