Tampabay: Radio host refuses to be confined by disease

TAMPA -- One minute Greg Smith is swishing down snow-covered slopes, his power wheelchair rigged to skis. Next, he's interviewing Christopher Reeve, the actor.

Next, Casey Martin, the golfer with the U.S. Supreme Court on his side.

Next, he's speaking to thousands at Solidarity 2001 in Columbus, Ohio.

That's the life of Greg Smith, 37, diagnosed with muscular dystrophy at 3, host to the only live commercially syndicated radio talk show in the nation for the disabled, On a Roll.

It's a show he started in 1992 in Phoenix and now does from his home studio in Temple Terrace, having moved to Tampa a year ago.

He reaches 20 stations, including WHNZ-AM 1250 locally, on Sundays from 6 to 8 p.m.

With the touch of a button, his high-tech chair moves toward a desk cluttered with high-tech equipment: computer, wires, microphone.

"Occupying the best parking space in syndicated radio, the wheelchair dude with attitude . . . Greg Smith," plays the opening rant.

The song Rolling, Rolling, Rolling is in the background.

Smith has interviewed cartoonist John Callahan, singer Teddy Pendergrass and artist Rusty Redfern, who was born without arms.

He talks serious: Philadelphia spent $19-million to buy new voting machines, none of which are accessible to the disabled.

And new: Miniature horses are being trained for the blind.

"I feel that I am a member of an organization that exists everywhere in America," says Smith of the disabled.

But he hasn't always felt that way.

In high school in Chicago, the disabled congregated in a special room with cubby holes in the morning. "The crip room," he called it.

"I wanted to stay as far away as possible from it," he said. His disability was something, he said, "I wanted to put in the closet."

Then he began hanging out in the room, meeting other kids with strokes, with spinal cord injury, with Down's syndrome. Some are his closest friends today.

He realized, "Hey, there is nothing really wrong."

Smith has always been one to take on multiple tasks simultaneously. In high school, he was in the band and on the student council. When he wanted to do play-by-play at the high school football games, his father carried him up the bleachers to the press box.

That was the first time Smith heard his naturally deep voice through a microphone and knew, he said, "This is what I wanted to do."

But it wasn't easy convincing the non-disabled.

After studying broadcasting at Arizona State University, Smith applied for jobs at radio stations in sales. He thought he would work his way to the microphone.

Thirty stations turned him down. This was in the mid 1980s, before the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act.

One employer said: "We wonder if you would be able to get into a lot of our client locations. What if they are on the third floor and there is no elevator?"

Smith answered: "Then, I would take them out to lunch."

At KTAR in Phoenix, the sales manager also brushed him off so Smith wrote a "strongly worded" letter to the general manager.

"I feel like I was given a courtesy interview and you ought to look at my qualifications."

Smith was hired.

To become an on-air personality, he had to overcome his own inhibitions.

During a department meeting at KTAR one day, it was announced that the host of Cardinal Talk, a sports talk show, had left.

Smith sat through the whole meeting thinking: "I can do this. I can do this." But he said nothing, until the manager was about to adjourn and then Smith spoke up, asking them to look at his qualifications. He was hired for the show.

A few years later, wanting to work for himself, he formed On a Roll. He received a lot of financial help from national sponsors that saw an opportunity to reach a sizable market. The companies include General Motors, Microsoft and Invacare, which makes power wheelchairs.

Ads for scooters, open captions videos and minivans with ramps that pop out with a press of a button are also heard on his show.

Ferman Chevrolet signed recently as a sponsor, and Smith plans live promo appearances at Tampa locations.

On a Roll also received a boost from the media spotlight. A 1999 Wall Street Journal article helped On a Roll became syndicated by the Radio Center for People with Disabilities in Chicago.

All this growth takes energy, which some mornings, the 65-pound Smith doesn't have. But he pushes himself because ultimately, he wants it all.

A staff. More advertisers. More stations. He wants to give out scholarships -- to be on the giving end of charity.

Then, this father of three can slow down. Buy a house on the water, drive his power wheelchair onto a pontoon boat, he says, "and go fishing."

Back to Tampa Bay area news
Back

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright

Special Links

Mary Jo Melone

Howard Troxler

Headlines
From the Times
local news desks