Colorful Atlanta sports radio, TV host Beau Bock dies at age 82
Beau Bock, an Atlanta sports TV and radio fixture for decades with an unapologetically brash persona, died from heart failure last week, his younger daughter Grace said. He was 82.
Bock, whose real name was Wally Maher, did sports commentary on Top 40 radio and local TV news in the 1970s and ’80s, then shepherded the arrival of sports talk radio in Atlanta on both 680/The Fan and 790/The Zone in the 1990s. He immodestly dubbed himself the “dean of Atlanta sports.”
‘He was boisterous, controversial and fearless,” said Yetta Levitt, a former co-host of “The Gary McKee Morning Show” on 94Q/WQXI who worked with Bock in the 1980s. “But he was really just a giant teddy bear. If he liked you, he’d give you a nickname. Mine was Yutes.”
Bock had no qualms about criticizing sacred local sports figures like Hall of Fame Atlanta Braves manager Bobby Cox or legendary University of Georgia coach Vince Dooley.
He firmly believed he could offer more colorful takes on sports topics than anybody else in town. In 1984, in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article, he called sports coverage at local TV and radio stations “disgraceful, pure vanilla. Goosey!” He derisively described the AJC as “the fishwrapper.”
“You had to be solid in your beliefs to go after institutions in town and still survive and be marketable,” said “Hometeam” Brandon Leak, a current Fan host who worked with Bock in the 2000s. “He had fans who didn’t agree with him but respected his side of the argument.”
As a result, Bock often clashed with bosses who found his bull in a china shop approach problematic, said A.J. Cannon, who worked with Bock at both The Fan and The Zone. Yet Cannon admired Bock’s deep-seated need to stick to his guns.
“We were on a commercial break once and I was doubting myself,” Cannon recalled. “Beau shut me down. He said, ‘Hey, you’re A.J. Cannon! Never deviate from what you think if you think it’s right, no matter what anyone else says!’”
Bock was raised in the Bronx with Irish parents, not far from Yankee Stadium, where he landed his first job selling hot chocolate as a teen. “He looked like a brawler, 100% Irish,” his daughter Grace said.
He entered The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina after high school but got kicked out after a year because he was too rebellious, Grace said. He transferred to the University of Miami, where he picked up rugby and his nickname Beau Bock, a play on the lyrics of the 1964 Shirley Ellis novelty song “The Name Game” and his high school nickname “the Rock.” (He’d eventually use Beau Bock as his radio and TV name because it sounded better than Wally Maher, according to Donna Drake, who married him in 1978.)
In his 20s, Bock sold ads at The New York Herald-Tribune, then became a salesman at Technicolor Co., which moved him to Atlanta to head the regional office in 1973. He soon co-founded the rugby club the Atlanta Old White, which still exists 53 years later.
“As captain, he was our bold leader,” said Armand Vari, who joined the club in 1976. “He had this bravado. He could charge you up verbally and on the field. Our goal was to outpower, outrun, outplay and outhustle everyone else.”
Even as a sales guy, Bock loved talking sports but told the AJC in 1984 it took four years to find a job in radio. “I jumped up and down on desks trying to get hired until I was blue in the face,” he said.
He first offered his commentary to multiple radio stations, dubbing it the Southeastern Sports Radio Network. Then in 1978, top 40 station Z93 put him on air doing daily sports commentary.
By late 1979, he moved to top-rated pop station WQXI/94Q, building his reputation at a time when Atlanta consumers had far fewer media options. For a time, he published his own free weekly newspaper, “Beau Bock’s Sports” and almost joined a new 24/7 news cable network called CNN, but the deal fell apart.
“He was a big deal back then,” said J.J. Jackson, an afternoon host at WQXI. “He was also a compendium of opposites. He could be so nice but then go on air and be incredibly caustic.”
His radio work led to TV commentary on the local news in the 1980s, first with CBS affiliate Channel 5, then WSB’s Channel 2 and Channel 69. On WSB, he’d fly every week on the helicopter to a local high school and give the offensive lineman of the week a facetiously named Beau Bock Block of Granite award.
Bock joined the city’s first 24/7 sports talk station 680/The Fan with Cannon and Steak Shapiro in 1993. After their show was booted, he teamed with Shapiro and Andrew Saltzman to launch rival sports talk station 790/The Zone in 1997. Bock wrote the business plan while Shapiro and Saltzman raised the funds.
“790/The Zone would not have happened without Beau Bock,” Saltzman said. “Beau was integral in helping frame what sports talk could be in Atlanta.”
The Zone took off and became a profitable enterprise for many years, a last vestige of AM radio’s popularity.
While at The Zone, Bock welcomed newcomers like Leak, who began as an intern in 2000. Leak got to hang out with Bock for two weeks, visiting college campuses in the Southeast in advance of the football season.
Leak to this day treasures Bock’s advice when doing sports talk: “Be straightforward. Be conversational. He told me that when you have an opinion, make sure you have an informed opinion. Make sure your opinion is your own.”
Bock was always there with a joke, too, Leak said: “He didn’t like the pants I was wearing one day so he pulled out $2 and said, ‘Here. Go get yourself a shirt to match what you spent on your pants!’”
Mike Bell, who joined The Zone a year after it launched and is now on 92.9/The Game, recalled auditioning for the station and bonding with Bock over their shared Catholicism, their New York roots and mutual dislike of Bobby Cox.
“I learned so much from him,” Bell said. “He’d do these wacky man-on-the-street skits outside Falcons headquarters. He’d have these funny turns of phrases like calling someone a ‘real romper stomper.’”
Bell didn’t have family in town and was broke, so “for years, Beau would invite me to Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was like a home for wayward lost orphans.”
Bock had a falling out with Saltzman and Shapiro, who eventually bought him out.
“To Beau’s detriment, he kind of held grudges,” Bell said. “But deep down, he had a good heart.”
His tumultuous work history didn’t diminish his love for his two daughters, his ex-wife Drake said. “He just loved being a father,” she said. “He would take them to Falcons practices and picnics with the rugby team. He was also a good husband. We had our differences and divorced. But I considered him a dear friend until the end.”
His daughter Grace said, “He was our biggest fans. He coached me in soccer and basketball. He coached to win and I felt pressure but it was always good pressure. He was just so unconditional with his love. He said, ‘I love you’ 20 times a day. If I got him a Diet Coke, he would just say, ‘I love you, peanut.’”
After The Zone, Bock did a podcast with Hans Heiserer for a decade and wrote a daily sports blog.
“He did not like growing old,” Heiserer said. “But when I asked him what type of funeral he’d like, he would go into great detail. He had it all thought out. He wanted some sort of Viking send-off on a river on top of a bunch of AJCs. He wanted a gospel choir.”
In his final years, he stayed close to his buddies at the Old White rugby club. Vari met Bock for lunch at O’Reilly’s Public House in Sandy Springs every other month to reminisce and keep Bock apprised of the rugby club’s successes.
“He was thrilled when they won a national championship last year,” he said, noting that Bock came to Atlanta City Hall when the club received a proclamation from city council.
Bock is survived by his life partner Mary Ann Mehre; the mother of his children, Donna Drake; his daughters, Page Genco and Grace Maher; and three granddaughters.
A funeral service is scheduled at Holy Spirit Catholic Church, 4465 Northside Dr NW, Atlanta, in Atlanta at 11 a.m., Saturday, May 2.
About the Author
Rodney Ho writes about entertainment for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution including TV, radio, film, comedy and all things in between. A native New Yorker, he has covered education at The Virginian-Pilot, small business for The Wall Street Journal and a host of beats at the AJC over 20-plus years. He loves tennis, pop culture & seeing live events.
