One of the men responsible for bringing sports radio to Chicago is no longer with us. Seth Mason died after an eleven-month battle with pancreatic cancer. He was one of the founders of both the Score and WXRT.
Mason worked with Dan Lee at Diamond Broadcasting. The company purchased the 820 AM signal in 1990 and the duo decided to build the market’s first all-sports station. Mason was tasked with putting the talent lineup together. Dan McNeil, Mike North, Dan Jiggetts, Terry Boers, and Brian Hanley were all amongst his initial hires.
“We were looking for people with a good sense of humor and just entertain people,” Mason said in a story about the history of the station for CBS2. “Among the writers, I remember asking a number of people, ‘Who makes everybody else in the press box laugh?’ Consistently it came back Terry Boers and Brian Hanley. That is what I was looking for.”
Susan Mason, Seth’s wife, says that the family will eventually hold a memorial service. In the meantime, the family asks that in lieu of flowers, mourners make donations in his honor to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN) online or through the mail at 1500 Rosecrans Ave., Suite 200, Manhattan Beach, CA 90266. Seth Mason was 71-years-old.
