Bill Wilhelm receiving the President’s Award at the Massachusetts Basketball Coaches’ Association meeting in 2011
The Sports Exchange hosted by Bill Wilhelm — airs Sundays 5-7 PM on WATD
Bill Wilhelm was born in Uniontown, PA and grew up in Southern New Jersey. He graduated from Kent State in Ohio in 1968 and after a brief stint as an infielder with the US team in the Global Baseball League, he came to Duxbury and in 1969 entered the life insurance business. Bill has interviewed many famous sports figures over the years beginning with Red Auerbach and John Havlicek back in the first days of the radio station, continuing with Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova during the Virginia Slims tour. There were legendary broadcasters, Mel Allen, Ned Martin, Curt Gowdy and Sean McDonough among others. And, of course, there was Larry Bird, Kevin McHale (who dropped in during a show one Sunday) and Robert Parrish.
When WATD-FM was formed in 1977, he joined the staff as the Sports Director, and has remained in that position ever since. As such his focus has been on local amateur and high school athletes. Beside deciding what games are to be broadcast, he also does the morning “drive time” sports every day but Sunday. Additionally, he does play-by-play of high school football, basketball and soccer. Every Sunday evening he hosts “the Sports Exchange”, a sports talk show, from 5PM to 6:30PM.
In addition to focusing on area student athletes, he covers all of the local major league franchises (and minor, the PawSox) including Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics, Bruins, Revolution, and Breakers (the Boston team in the new WUSA). On Sunday evenings he gives local high school athlete standouts their due by interviewing them either in studio or over the phone.Bill has interviewed many famous sports figures over the years beginning with Red Auerbach and John Havlicek back in the first days of the radio station, continuing with Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova during the Virginia Slims tour. There were legendary broadcasters, Mel Allen, Ned Martin, Curt Gowdy and Sean McDonough among others. And, of course, there was Larry Bird, Kevin McHale (who dropped in during a show one Sunday) and Robert Parrish.
Most recently he had the opportunity to interview some of the legends of baseball including Bob Feller, Brooks Robinson, Tug McGraw, Bill Lee and Bert Campaneris, as well as the current crop of Red Sox players.
Bill has won numerous broadcasting awards from the Associated Press and the Mass Broadcasters Association.