Mike Runge loves variety. He has worked as a stockbroker, general manager of the Salt Lake Golden Eagles, public address announcer for most sports in town, skywatch traffic reporter, on-air sidekick for KALL Radio's Tom Barberi and seller of vacuum cleaners, cars, insurance, advertising, motorcycles, mortgages and travel.
Oh, and for the past eight years he's been the lead sports anchor for the 9 o'clock news at Fox 13."I just enjoy work, and it's always been hard for me to do just one thing," says the 60-year-old sportscaster.
Runge grew up in Evanston, Ill., but moved to Klamath Falls, Ore., during his junior year in high school. With high school over, he spent two years at Shasta College in Redding, Calif., where he was a stereotypical jock, playing baseball, basketball and tennis.
"In fact, I was going to be a professional ball player," Runge said. "But I'm 6-foot even. I was not only short, I was slow." While playing in Evanston, he was judged the shortest player in the suburban league.
"We had satin uniforms, and we had a drill to run around the court and touch the rim. Those were the days before the slam dunk." Runge attended Sacramento State, where he played basketball under the legendary Ev Shelton, who became famous as the long-term coach at the University of Wyoming. Runge's athletic pursuits were interrupted when he fell in love and got married. When his marriage ended in divorce, he served in the Army, then resumed his elementary education studies at Sacramento. "Can you imagine me a kindergarten teacher?"
In the 1960s, Runge transferred to the University of Utah where he completed his degree in marketing. Then he accepted a job in Los Angeles where he spent a whopping two smoggy days. He returned to Utah, where he has been ever since -- except for six months in Boise in the early 1970s. Today, he says he really should have gone to work for the local chamber of commerce "because I really like living here."
In the late '60s, Runge dated Mary Murphy, business manager for the Salt Lake Golden Eagles, who soon became his wife. He was a stockbroker then, but the Golden Eagles asked him to do the public announcing of their games, which he started in 1971. Soon he was announcing 200 or more nights a year baseball, basketball, soccer and volleyball. During one game, his wife was sitting next to Benny Williams, general manager of KALL Radio, who listened to Runge over the speaker system and decided he had a radio job for him.
"I started going up in a plane doing skywatch to describe morning and afternoon traffic. The chemistry was good between Tom Barberi and me, so they brought me inside and I became a sidekick. I did that for 20 years."
"That was rough, because I didn't get any sleep. I was here at Fox until about 11, then I had to get up at 4:30 in the morning. I just didn't have a life. It was fun, though. I always enjoyed working with Tom. He's a funny guy."
Runge continues some public address announcing, as well, for U. football and basketball games on the weekends. But his offer to be the sports guy at Fox 13 was a fluke. When the station was preparing to open, he stopped by to meet the news director. Out of the blue, the news director invited him to do sports. Runge was surprised but intrigued.
Now eight years into the job, he is at home and satisfied to be himself, whatever the competition. "I'm sure the journalism majors would freak if they saw what I'm doing, but, script or not, if I see something on the videotape that strikes my fancy, I comment on it. It's a casual attitude. I would never demean the athletes because it's their occupation, but for those of us who watch , it's entertainment. So it should be fun. I'm as bad as everybody else. When the Jazz lose, I don't feel good the next day, but the reality is life goes on."
Runge says the consultants who advise on-air talent gave him up when they discovered there was no hope of changing him.
"There was a sports guy years ago who couldn't describe anyone making a basket without saying, 'Peanut butter and jam!' Well, that's cute the first time. When you describe a home run as a round-tripper, you know, it gets old. When you use those cliches, you bore a lot of people and you lose the marginal sports fans. I want a broader base. I try not to say the same thing too often."
Fox 13 gives Runge double the time the sports guys get on the other channels, because it does an hourlong 9 p.m. newscast. So he tries "to put 10 pounds of sports in a five-pound bag," a cliche phrase of his own. "I talk faster. I'm afraid I'll miss things." He hangs loose. He warns the TelePrompTer operator to slow down or stop when he goes off on a tangent. Above all, he wants it to seem comfortable, not contrived.
People matter most to Runge, who enjoys his association with athletes and coaches. "I've thought about writing a sports column sometime." He has enjoyed spending time with such prominent sports figures as Arnold Palmer, Luther Ellis and Karl Malone and finds them "some of the nicest human beings you'd ever meet. "
Runge knows he is a different type of sportscaster than those on the competing channels. "We're in a different day and age. Most people my age used to be dead in this business, but times have changed. I relate to what I'm doing, so I try to inject enthusiasm into it. It sounds funny, but I don't even like to talk about retirement."
But he's not so much a sports nut that he can't do or talk about anything else. He likes traveling to Europe, is impressed with Paris and London and enjoys Shakespearean plays. At home he likes golf, but he also loves the symphony, the ballet and the theater -- although his evening work schedule makes it hard for him to attend regularly. His wife has two children by a first marriage and he has a daughter by his first marriage, as well as two grandchildren in California.
Runge enjoys reading, but almost never about sports. He recently finished "Cold Mountain," and is currently reading a biography of Benjamin Franklin. He also enjoys digging in the soil.
But that doesn't mean he is thinking of giving up his sports desk at Fox anytime soon.
"I'd rather work than play golf."