Legendary broadcaster and executive Van Lane passed away Sunday night.
Born Morris Schecter, Lane achieved his greatest success from 1955 until 1968, mostly through daily freelance Thoroughbred racing news that Lane provided to WHK/1420, KYW/1100, WERE/1300 and WJW/850. Those racing reports were so popular (as the sport enjoyed its’ pinnacle at that same period) that Schiltz Beer even served as a sponsor for several years.
He also was the play-by-play voice for the old AHL Cleveland Barons on WDOK/1260, and hosted the Cleveland Indians-oriented “Knothole Gang” show on WEWS/5.
After a short stay as an assistant manager for Booth Broadcasting’s WABQ/1540 in 1969, Lane became the sales manager for United Broadcasting’s two Cleveland Heights stations, WLYT/92.3 and WJMO/1490 in 1970, a position he would hold until retiring in 1989. Most recently, he had worked as a consultant for WELW/1330.
Van Lane is survived by sons Louis and Todd, the former having become a movie producer in California, who had cast his father several times in bit parts on some of his movies.
An excellent tribute site (from which I was able to delve into much of this information) is up at VanLane.com.
I met Van Lane on my first day at WLYT at 6:30AM. He always showed up that hour to read the paper, drink coffee and remember the good old days of broadcasting. I also met his son Todd who was very curious about the radio biz and he would hang out at Cedar and Lee at 92.3 when not in school. You will be missed Van Lane. Thanks for the great stories (history). — Dave Sharp
By the way, I met Van Lane on December 24, 1980 at 6:30 AM. I will never forget that day. My first day working in radio. It was FM radio rock jock fun back then, even though I did the news! — Dave Sharp
I remember “We Love You Truly”. That was good radio.