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Farewell Don Kaull, a True Keaney Blue URI Ram

Rhode Island’s sports media fraternity has lost a respected voice

By Michael Szostak

Don Kaull was more than a high school and college basketball star. More than a successful insurance executive. More than the color guy on URI basketball broadcasts for 35 years.

Don Kaull was also Santa Claus. That’s right. Santa Claus. And Shane Donaldson has proof.

“As a matter of fact, somewhere I have a photo of Don dressed as Santa Claus and me on his lap at two years old,” Donaldson, now a grown-up associate athletics director at the University of Rhode Island, recalled in an email.

“Don was Santa Claus to the children of Newport County. Literally. He would dress as Santa and ride on the Newport fire trucks, going through neighborhoods and waving to the children everywhere.”

Aquidneck Island old-timers will remember Kaull playing for Rogers High School long before he was riding those fire trucks and waving to neighborhood kids. He finished as the school’s career scoring leader. URI old-timers will remember him as a three-year stalwart and a captain on coach Ernie Calverly’s Rams of the mid-1960s. Ram fans since the late 1980s will remember Kaull’s sharp analysis of URI basketball games from Keaney Gym, the Ryan Center, and every other arena the Rams visited in their quest for hoops glory. His declining health limited his work in 2021-22, and he retired officially before this season.

Kaull had a relaxed approach to explaining what Jim Norman and, later, Steve McDonald described on the court. He was easy on the ears, and it was clear that his commentary was about the game and the players, not the voice behind the microphone.

Kaull was one of the most genial fellows one could hope to meet. Upon his death, many admirers paid tribute with words like kind, caring, and generous.

“Don had a way of making everyone feel like they mattered,” Donaldson wrote. Kaull sent notes and called folks to compliment a job Broadcaster Don Kaull with his wife, Caroline Kaull

Photo courtesy of Shane Donaldson/URI

well done. Last season, when Kaull could not attend games, Donaldson pinch hit.

“When Don was unable to do the games on the radio, it was a bit surreal to fill in for him,” Donaldson said. “Having grown up listening to Don and Steve, I felt immense pressure to even serve as a stop-gap. But throughout the season Don would either call or text and offer words of support pretty much every game. That meant the world to me… hearing from him after a game is something I will treasure forever.”

We all knew that Kaull bled Keaney Blue, but we also knew that he did not let his a ection for URI prejudice his analysis.

“Don always had a way with honesty. You know he wanted the best for Rhode Island every time out, but he was always honest with his assessment on the air. That was the main thing I wanted to bring to each broadcast, to honor his approach,” Donaldson wrote.

Kaull’s death leaves a hole in the Rhode Island sportscasting fraternity – a band of brothers, if you will, that we have been fortunate to listen to for decades.

Joe Hassett, the shooting star of Providence College in the 1970s, an NBA champion with Seattle in 1979, and a veteran of seven professional seasons, has occupied a courtside seat and shared his views for 38 years – most of them with play-by-play man John Rooke. They celebrate the Friars when they play well, and criticize them when they don’t.

Terry Lynch, a quarterback-turnedtight-end at URI, a Rams assistant coach, and now athletics director at South Kingstown High School, has shared the radio booth on football Saturdays with the late Jim Norman and with McDonald for what seems like forever.

At Brown, Scott Cordischi has been a fixture behind one microphone or another since 1996. He has done football play-by-play since 1998, and launched basketball broadcasts in 2001. John Anderson, who played football at Colby and watched his son John play at Brown, has shared the booth for 10 years. Russ Tyler, among Brown’s great basketball players, has sat beside Cordischi during the hoops season forever, it seems.

These broadcast teams benefit from fabulous chemistry. Cordischi described his working relationship with Tyler.

“It’s very important. He knows when to step in. He knows my tendencies. Russ adds great color to the broadcast. He has a fabulous sense of humor,” he said. “Don and Joe do the same thing. They played for their schools. They know the game. And they are great human beings.”

Also, Lynch, Hassett, and Tyler can offer historical perspective as well as expertise to their comments, as Kaull did. They are committed to their schools and their state. For them, Rhode Island is home, not just a stepping stone to a bigger job in a bigger market.

On the television side, the same is true for Frank Carpano. He has been with NBC10 – or WJAR, if you are old enough to remember call letters – since 1980, and sports director there since 1984.

That sportscape is changing. Radio voices have died. Longtime newspaper writers have passed on, been bought out, or retired. The end of a golden era approaches. Cordischi suggested that radio broadcasts as we have known them will disappear.

“Now everything is moving online, streaming. That’s where we’re heading,” he told me.

So, when an esteemed colleague like Kaull dies, it’s time to step back and appreciate the voice he lent to URI basketball, and the waves he gave to neighborhood kids as Santa Claus.

This article was originally posted on December 8, 2022. Michael Szostak can be reached at News@ThePubicsRadio.org