How ‘Radio’ touched Hilton Head Island, like the rest of the world, as CBS Sports guest
When I met “Radio” on the patio of the CBS Sports villa at Harbour Town, he was wearing a T.L. Hanna High School “Kiss a Jacket Get a Buzz” T-shirt and scarfing down a cheeseburger while sliding an extra Diet Coke in his pocket.
His host was Jim Nantz, who was on Hilton Head Island that sunny April day a decade ago to anchor the CBS coverage of the RBC Heritage Presented by Boeing golf tournament in Sea Pines.
Nantz has been a friend to presidents, and he’s met many of the biggest names in the world.
But he said to me that day, “Radio is the most successful person I’ve met in my life.”
It wasn’t supposed to be that way. Radio was a special-needs person who could not read or write, yet he touched the whole world just as he did Nantz.
James “Radio” Kennedy’s remarkable life ended early Sunday morning in his hometown of Anderson, in South Carolina’s Upstate. He was 73.
Radio is so beloved there that his funeral at 2 p.m. Saturday will have to be held in the Anderson Civic Center.
Radio’s story was first told in the local newspaper, and clippings got to Sports Illustrated superstar Gary Smith.
In a 1996 story, Smith told the world how Radio showed up at a middle school football practice field in a Bi-Lo buggy, a transistor radio in a pocket making sounds when he could not.
Smith wrote about the day then-assistant JV coach Harold Jones saw the outcast young man, and the power of a simple act of kindness.
“The choices that make or unmake a life are so small. ‘Come over here, boy,’ calls the coach.”
Sports Illustrated
Radio kept his distance, but they say Cokes and snacks eventually helped lure him into a fold that never let him go.
By 1970, Radio started attending T.L. Hanna High, and he went every day for decades, always a sophomore. He blossomed, he spread love, and he changed lives. He made us wonder: Who are really the “special-needs” people?
Smith’s story, called “Someone to Lean On,” told how Radio sat in class, fretting over his notes of looping “letters” and “words.” And how he became a popular fixture at the Friday night football games, where he’d hand out programs, lead the band, coach the Yellow Jackets from the sideline while listening to the game on his radio, and, if necessary, bless out the referees.
This year was Radio’s 55th season with the T.L. Hanna football team.
What Radio got was unconditional love.
What Radio gave was unconditional love.
The magazine article led to a movie, “Radio,” filmed in 2003 in Walterboro. Jones said director and producer Mike Tollin, screenwriter Mike Rich and actors Ed Harris, as the coach, and Cuba Gooding Jr. as Radio nailed it. So did Gary Smith.
“What we wanted the movie to do was bring awareness of people with special needs, and it did,” Jones told me during their annual Heritage visit in 2009.
“And it’s still happening. I’m getting e-mails from people all over the world, telling how they’ve changed after seeing it. An e-mail I was reading last night came from Kenya. He needs a DVD. You’d be surprised how many teachers are showing it in schools. Its message is still getting out there. That’s God’s plan.”
CBS Sports on Hilton Head
After Nantz read the Sports Illustrated article, he sent a letter and some gifts, including a U.S. Track Team watch, to Jones and Radio. Jones sent him a note back, with a photo of Radio wearing the watch. They continued to communicate, but the first time they met face-to-face was at the Heritage on Hilton Head 20 years ago.
“It was one of the most inspiring stories I’d read in my life,” Nantz told me.
They became fast friends. Nantz and his family were in Anderson for the “Radio” premiere. Radio sat next to Nantz’s daughter, Caroline, and when his name went up to fill the big screen, he was more interested in his popcorn. Nantz was also at the Statehouse to present Jones and Radio the state’s highest honor, the Order of the Palmetto, given by former Gov. Jim Hodges.
At the Harbour Town Golf Links — with the PGA Tour drama playing inside the ropes and poshness everywhere outside the ropes where everyone worried about what they were wearing — Radio greeted everyone with a huge, tooth-impaired smile and sometimes a hug. He posed for photos. He signed his autograph with a big swirl.
As he shadowed Jones around the golf course, joyously shouting about being on TV when Nantz invited him into the booth high atop a tower at the 18th green, Radio constantly called to his mentor: “Ain’t dat right, Co’ Jone?”
Radio and Jones came to speak that year at the “Lowcountry Lessons” Sunday school class I teach at First Presbyterian Church.
Jones said we should find someone in our community that has a special need and become their friend.
Radio, in his navy blue CBS Sports blazer, didn’t do much of the talking. He didn’t need to. His life said it all.
