DATE: Tuesday, October 21, 1997             TAG: 9710210429

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Tom Robinson

                                            LENGTH:   70 lines

THE SCORE'S JOHNNY D. BETS IT ALL ON VEGAS GIG

Back when John DeCandido was having pizzas delivered to his Virginia Wesleyan basketball coach Terry Butterfield - during practice - the young wise guy from New York had no idea where his sense of humor would lead him, aside from Butterfield's doghouse.

Still, figured ``Johnny D.,'' sports radio WGH-AM's wake-up voice for the past year, life's too short to be so serious.

``I've always said Terry is a football guy trapped inside a basketball coach,'' said DeCandido, a '94 Wesleyan graduate. ``He needs to lighten up.''

Actually, Butterfield had mixed feelings upon learning that his ex-wild child is taking his act to sports radio's major leagues. The big goof - Johnny D. is 6-foot-6 - leaves in a few days for Las Vegas, where he'll begin work for the SportsFan Radio Network.

``John is the Grateful Dead type, and I was not the Grateful Dead type,'' Butterfield says. ``I'm going to miss him, though. His personality is infectious. And now I don't think we'll ever hear Virginia Wesleyan mentioned on that station again.''

SportsFan is nationally syndicated - it features Pete Rose's daily show - and is heard on more than 500 stations, including WGH for much of each day. And it represents a remarkably quick rise for a kid who was a lowly nights-and-weekends board operator at WGH just three years ago.

``It's a (bold) move, packing up and moving across the country,'' says DeCandido, who recently became engaged to Virginia Wesleyan student Jennifer Campioli. His fiance, though, told him to not even think about staying here just for her.

``If that was the reason I didn't take the job,'' DeCandido says, ``she said she'd dump me.''

No dumping required. DeCandido was ready and eager to trade his local starring role for an entry-level production post in the big time, one that comes with no assurance that he'll ever lean into the business end of a microphone again. Or at least for quite a while.

``That's left up to the job he does here,'' says SportsFan program director Charlie Barker.

``I've got people who four years ago were associate producers and through hard work and paying their dues are now talk-show hosts. They proved to me that they deserved an opportunity, just like any other business.''

To start, then, DeCandido will help produce a couple of programs, including the morning ``Clubhouse'' show. What follows could be filing on-air news and scores updates, substituting for absent hosts or earning his own show.

``I'd be a fool not to take it,'' says the Bronx-born DeCandido, who rabidly followed the Yankees, Rangers, Knicks and St. John's basketball from his family's home in the Hudson Valley.

``The most important thing is the growth. It's like going to school. In a year and a half or two years, I'll see where I am.''

He'll be nowhere if, in two years, he isn't more of a sports nut than he already is. In his business, especially on a national scope, broad knowledge and quick opinions are essential, not to mention the ability to entertain an audience. The ruder the better, it seems, but DeCandido says his is a mix of styles.

``You've got your loud, obnoxious guys, your sarcastic guys, your happy boys,'' says DeCandido, a leisure recreation studies graduate who's yet to take his first communications course. ``I think I'm a little bit of everything. I try to inform people, tell them something new and keep the humor.

``You've got to be charismatic, and you've got to be a little wild.''

On that point, even Terry B. has to agree. Johnny D.'s a natural. ILLUSTRATION: VICKI CRONIS/The Virginian-Pilot

``I'd be a fool not to take it,'' John DeCandido says of his

SportsFan Radio Network job. ``In a year and a half or two years,

I'll see where I am.''

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