<\/a>Tim and Rafer Weigel<\/p><\/div>\n
Weigel, 45, joined ABC 7 with expectations of someday stepping into the top sports job held by the legendary Tim Weigel, who died of a brain tumor in 2001 at age 56. \u201cHis father is an important part of ABC 7's sports legacy and we are thrilled that another Weigel will again be working the sports beat at our station,\u201d Graves said of his hiring in March 2011.<\/p>\n
Inspired by his father, the younger Weigel had given up a modest acting career and turned to journalism, first covering sports for the Sun-Times and hosting a weekly radio show on the former WCKG FM. He shifted to television news reporting at independent KUSI-TV in San Diego and CBS-owned KOVR-TV in Sacramento before joining HLN\u2019s \u201cMorning Express with Robin Meade\u201d as sports anchor.<\/p>\n
But the third-generation Chicago broadcasting scion apparently did little to endear himself to colleagues or the teams he covered for ABC 7. Talk of him as eventual successor to No. 1 sports anchor Mark Giangreco ended precipitously. (And the station\u2019s No. 2 sports anchor, Jim Rose, a 32-year veteran of the station, wasn\u2019t leaving any time soon either.)<\/p>\n
ABC 7 insiders declined to speculate on replacements for Weigel, who anchored sports on weekends and reported during the week. But the vacancy again raises the possibility of the station adding the first female to its sports staff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The handwriting was on the locker room wall. Rafer Weigel, who once seemed destined to inherit his late father\u2019s legacy as one of Chicago\u2019s top sportscasters, is leaving town after little more than three years at ABC-owned WLS-Channel 7.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4606"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4606"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4615,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4606\/revisions\/4615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}