Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 16, 1993 TAG: 9305160037
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Make that a day of pleasure because McCadden doesn't consider it work.
He wakes at 3:30 a.m. and drives 100 miles to Harrisonburg, where he is the disc jockey for a radio show of music oldies - rock and roll and the Motown sound.
McCadden's show starts at 6 a.m., and for the next four hours, he plays music from the 50s and 60s, mixing music and talk in what has become one of the top-rated shows in the Shenandoah Valley.
He stands the entire time.
"I can dance while the music is playing," he says.
He doesn't do the show for the money. "To me, the fun is not in getting paid, but having people appreciate my efforts."
When the show is over, he climbs back into his green Volvo and heads back to Roanoke. He gets home about noon.
McCadden, 43, has been doing it for more than a year.
Recently, McCadden began hosting an oldies show on station WROV-AM in Roanoke every other Saturday.
His schedule keeps him going seven days a week, with only three or four hours of sleep many nights.
McCadden is district sales manager for USAir, a part-time disc jockey on two radio stations, a member of nearly a dozen civic organizations and father to two daughters and a son.
McCadden also tries to get to the games of his 12-year-old son, who plays baseball and youth hockey.
"My family and my mom tell me to slow down," McCadden said, but he has no plans to cut back on his schedule.
"I think I'd die if I had to slow down. I don't know how to live any other way."
A Roanoke native, McCadden has loved sports since he was a kid. But he didn't play sports in high school because he was awkward and clumsy.
McCadden graduated from Virginia Tech, where he played baseball as a pitcher and infielder. He played minor league baseball for two years, but decided that he wasn't likely to make it to the majors. He decided to go to umpiring school.
During the 1970s, McCadden umpired for seven years in several minor leagues. In the off-season, he came home to Roanoke to teach school.
He made it to the majors in 1978. Less than a year later, he tore ligaments in his knee during a basketball game at the Roanoke YMCA. He had several operations, but his umpiring career was finished.
His affair with baseball hasn't ended, though.
McCadden does commentary on the weekend telecasts of home games of the Lynchburg Red Sox baseball team on Lynchburg's cable system.
He has also been a professional baseball announcer and is a former analyst on the radio broadcasts of the Salem Buccaneers baseball team.
If there is any doubt about his passion for sports, consider his attendance record at two of sport's most celebrated events: the World Series and the NCAA's Final Four.
McCadden has attended 17 consecutive Final Fours and seen at least one game in person of every World Series since 1970.
McCadden's likes the intellectual aspects of sports more than the physical.
"My joy in sports is not just watching the game, but analyzing what's going on," he said.
by CNB