Joe DeCamara takes over as the new voice of local sports talk radio at WIP-FM

It was a family portrait. The DeCamaras would tuck themselves into the family room for every major Phillies, Flyers, 76ers, and Eagles game. Phil, the patriarch, would be stretched across the carpet with his head propped up on a pillow. His wife, Terese, and his four older children would be scattered about, some on the sofa, some on the floor next to him.

Nestled tight to Phil was often his youngest, Joe, a curious 5-year-old with an insatiable appetite for Philadelphia sports, mimicking Dad, lying with his head on a pillow, eyes gazing up at the beaming TV screen.

When Charles Hudson coaxed a fly ball from Dodgers shortstop Bill Russell for the final out of the Phillies’ 7-2 victory in Game 3 of the 1983 National League Championship Series, the DeCamaras erupted, jumping up and down as one, hugging and high-fiving, because the Phils were one game away from the World Series.

It was a resonating family moment.

The next night, Terese solemnly walked through a crowded house to tell her five children who were huddled in the family kitchen, “God took Daddy home tonight.”

Every family has them. Those dates you never forget, the scrawled etchings divided by slashes that never leave you, in many ways define you, and always are a part of you.

For Joe DeCamara, one of those dates is 10/8/83, the day his father died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 44.

On Monday, Joe added another, 2/20/23, as the new voice of Philadelphia sports talk radio as the drive-time morning host at WIP-FM, taking over for the legendary Angelo Cataldi.

It will mark the first time in Philadelphia sports talk radio history when all the major morning shows will be anchored by hosts with Philadelphia-area origins. The Fanatic’s 97.5 morning host John Kincade is a native of Broomall, while DeCamara is from Huntingdon Valley.

DeCamara, 44, is in many ways the quintessential Philadelphia story. A 1996 St. Joseph’s Prep and 2000 Fairfield University graduate with a history major, he worked his way through the field, leaving a job he hated to take a chance on a dream.

His journey was buoyed by a cocoon of love and support from a vast network of family, relatives, and family friends that can only be described as “DeCamara’s Army.”

DeCamara seemed destined to do this. As a child, he would sneak a radio under his pillow and listen to sports talk radio. His sister Nancy would check on him and let it go, until the nuns called Terese informing her Joe was dozing off in class from listening late at night.

» READ MORE: Appreciation for Angelo Cataldi, father confessor of Philadelphia sports

Joe spent countless hours in the basement “broadcasting” games to himself on a tape recorder or a drumstick. Anything he could get his hands on to talk into, and then self-critique himself.

He would mope around the house, telling his brothers or relatives he didn’t have a good game. His uncle, George Wolf, would sometimes be confused. “Joe, you played a game today?” “No,” Joe would reply, “I was broadcasting. I didn’t have it today.”

DeCamara was 7.

“Joe would drive himself; he still drives himself like that today,” said Wolf, 70, who stepped into Joe’s life as a surrogate father after Phil died. “Joe was always very competitive. His brothers were competitive. They would stand out at their basketball hoop and shoot free throws for hours until somebody missed. Joe wanted to keep playing the game until he won. It could be 11 at night and Joe wouldn’t quit until he won.

“None of Joe’s path astonishes me. He’s experienced tough losses in his life, starting with his father. But I knew Joe would be successful when he first started. Joe has that mental ability to succeed. He’ll always be that kid at heart, always looking to get better — every day. He knows he’s not done learning.”

None of this would have happened if DeCamara was not willing to take a chance. His first job out of college was with ING Barings, a banking and financial services corporation in New York City, as an operations options specialist. He had no idea what he was doing. What’s more, he hated it.

“I did a lot of soul-searching in 2000 and 2001 to really challenge myself to try to figure out what I wanted to do,” said DeCamara, who was so young when his father died that he retains only faint memories of him. “It was not an easy process. I remember watching the movie Almost Famous. I was stirred by the inspirational pursuit of the main character.

“One night in particular really helped crystalize things for me. I had gone back to Fairfield to see friends, and it just so happened to be parents weekend. After talking sports with one of my friend’s father for about an hour, he said to me, ‘You know everything about sports. You should work in sports.’ That really struck me. Then about an hour later, I was talking with another friend’s father who told me how unhappy he was professionally in his life because he hated his job. He was in his 50s, but he would have to start all over again. I realized through that combination of conversations that I better get on it to pursue something I would love and hopefully be good at. I knew my early to mid-20s would be the optimal time for risk-taking.”

The drudgery of waking up every day to punch in data for eight hours finally ended in 2002 when he resigned to intern at Bucks County’s WBCB-AM (1490) with the help of iconic Eagles broadcaster Merrill Reese.

Three-and-a-half months into his stay at WBCB, he was hired to host a sports radio call-in show at night after Phillies games on Monday and Thursday nights from 10 p.m. to midnight. He made a whole $5.15 an hour for 3½ years.

His mother was his producer and his board was filled every night with calls from Phil, Andrew, Matt, Nancy, and George — his four older siblings and his uncle.

In 2003, with the help of Reese, DeCamara was hired to produce the Eagles pregame and postgame shows on WYSP-FM (94.1). By 2004, he was producing Howard Eskin’s evening show at WIP-AM (610), and eventually made the jump in 2005 to WPEN-FM (950), now 97.5 (FM) The Fanatic. Two years later, he was promoted to assistant program director. In 2011, he was hosting a daily show.

» READ MORE: After three decades, WIP’s Angelo Cataldi hosts his final show

Eventually, his brand grew to the point where he attracted the attention of Spike Eskin, then the program director of WIP in 2015, and who is now vice-president of programming for WFAN and CBS Sports Radio and sports format vice-president for Audacy Broadcasting.

“I knew Joe for a while as an Eagles producer for ‘YSP,” said Eskin, 46, an Episcopal Academy and Syracuse University graduate. “Initially what attracted me to Joe was the preparation for his show and his desire to get better. He wants and desires feedback. He’s a true Philadelphian. All of those are good things to have when you are a WIP host.

“I don’t think you hire anyone with the expectation that somebody will be incredibly successful; you hire them with the hope that they’ll be incredibly successful. When we rebuilt the WIP lineup years ago, the idea was to hire people who we believed would be there long-term and grow.”

The DeCamara-Jon Ritchie midday show from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. dominated the 2022 fall ratings book, leading all sports talk shows in that slot, well above 97.5′s Anthony Gargano, who finished fifth.

A few years into the DeCamara-Ritchie experience, the show began to flourish. It didn’t start well.

“I remember the exact date, Oct. 24, 2016, we started on the air, but I really remember the first time I met Joe,” said Ritchie, 48, laughing. “We went out to dinner with Spike and I thought Joe was one of the stranger people that I had ever met. I felt like we were talking at and past one another the entire time. Spike was sort of there in the middle.

“We went out to dinner at a pizza place, and I found out Joe had already eaten multiple pizzas on the way to the place. I don’t think we achieved much. I thought we would need a lot of work after the initial meeting.”

Eskin, new morning show producer James Seltzer, and DeCamara knew what little experience Ritchie had in radio, and they kept his plate as light as possible. For the first six months, Ritchie figures, he wasn’t even included in the show’s topic generation discussions that they have before every show.

“I know now that they were easing me into radio, and I am incredibly grateful for it,” Ritchie said. “They brought me along slowly and I appreciate that they put the kid gloves on me. I got used to Joe. He’s Joe. He’s very set in his ways with his constant white legal pad with him. We understand each other.

“Spike would be incredibly hard on us. Sometimes we had to hear things we didn’t want to hear. In all my time in media, I had never gotten notes or feedback that was negative. I was so refreshed by Spike saying to us, ‘Hey, bad job, that has to be so much better. Hey, the way you guys are planning your show has to be so much better. Bad job.’ That was Spike being honest with both of us. That made us better.

“I still don’t know what makes Joe tick,” he added with a laugh. “I still don’t know the answer to that. I am amazed by Joe’s willingness to adapt and work. What I will say about Joe DeCamara that makes Joe, Joe is that he’s a down-to-earth good person and that makes him so relatable to people.

“Joe never stops working.”

Ritchie and DeCamara think differently, and that’s why their show works. They don’t see eye-to-eye on everything, so they don’t have to manufacture any opinions. Everything from Ritchie and DeCamara is organic.

» READ MORE: Appreciation for Angelo Cataldi, father confessor of Philadelphia sports

Cataldi was a genius and his 33-year shtick played to the heartstrings of an angry fan base with a contrived angst.

But perhaps not everyone shed tears over his farewell on Friday. Cataldi himself admitted he was “very difficult to work with.” On his send-off on Friday he said, “I will say, I feel now as I look back, that I was kind of a jerk. I was obnoxious to a lot of people because I was so committed to the best show that we could have. Some took it well. Some didn’t. I’m not apologizing, but I am acknowledging I should have been nicer about that.”

One staffer, who asked not to be named, said on Friday, “We’re not going to have to worry about tiptoeing on eggshells around here anymore, or have to walk around any egos with Joe.”

On Monday, Terese will get up early to listen to her son. If there is a hero in DeCamara’s journey, it’s his mother, who sometimes would get three hours of sleep and had to be admitted to the hospital three times for stress in the first year after her husband died. She managed to raise five children and also continued to run Philip L. DeCamara Jr.’s sprinkler-system business. Phil was considered a giant in the fire-prevention field in the early 1980s. The family eventually sold the company.

To this day, the Philip L. DeCamara Jr. Scholarship still exists at the University of Maryland, from where Phil graduated.

When Phil died, Terese had 17-year-old Phil III, 16-year-old Andrew, 14-year-old Matt, 12-year-old Nancy, and Joe. Before the family patriarch passed, Phil would carry Joe everywhere, until Joe became too heavy, and even then, his father would always walk with Joe’s tiny hand wrapped around his index finger.

“I think two regrets we all have is that my dad isn’t here and that Joe didn’t get more time with my dad,” said Matt, his voice cracking with a tinge of emotion. “My dad died at 44. This new chapter for Joe begins at 44. We know my father is watching over us and listening to Joe.”