Kill yourself in a car accident.

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I'd post condolences to his twitter but he blocked me.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

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I don't remember half the time if I'm hiding or I'm lost

Chet invented sports talk in this city. It was unfortunate that the industry retired him before he was ready.

His style was so hilariously grandiose and unselfaware it almost seemed like a parody. Still, Chet was an innovator and great in his own way.

I'd love it if some station did a best of memorial show.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

EVERY single sports talker in Chicago should be thankful...but...they won't...arrogant assholes.

You were fond of saying that if The Score went the Chet route, as opposed to the North route, then they would have been antiseptic, cloying, and dead in the water (I'm paraphrasing.) I don't disagree with you. However, I think the early Score needed Chet out there as a model of what not to be. I think Chet needed The Score for the same reasons.

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I don't remember half the time if I'm hiding or I'm lost

100% agree.

The Voice of the Fan is a direct response to what Chet was offering at the time.

He rarely took calls and certainly never let the unwashed interact directly with a guest. Chet was the high priest, the earthly intermediary between the gods and the people.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Me as well...

Right. In that vein Chet had a little Hub in him. He will bring you info his way. Like Hub he got left in the wake somewhat.

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If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

He took plenty of calls. I still remember some of those bastards. Guy named Irish Bill used to piss me off.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Did Bernstein spike the ball?

We get details on the car accident? Chet driving? DUI by Chet? DUI by a friend driving Chet? DUI by the guy that hit him? Prescription pills involved? Or just a random accident?

I heard he was attacked by a pack of minks seeking the ultimate revenge.

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You know me like that.

I saw a tweet from the woman who is in obscurity on am560, she claimed it was a head on collision and he was being driven by some woman from Indiana. I don't know if Chet drove any more, as he had posted on social media about a bunch of surgery on one of his feet.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

That was my next guess.

Fitting. Ill-fitting, but fitting just the same.

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I don't remember half the time if I'm hiding or I'm lost

Vague. A women from Indiana that he knew? Or did Chet hitch hike from Indiana? Did the Indiana women survive?

Condolences, though.

He was a voice of my youth. I remember specifically listening to him in Bulls post game after the Bulls won their first title on AM 1000.

This news hit me pretty hard. I loved the guy and would call in to his old show on WMAQ. I was working 2nd shift back then and I loved his show at night.

Here is an old article I wrote about him and his response to it below:


Chet Coppock has been covering the Chicago Sports scene since the days of guys showing up at football games with a mink coat and 3 hidden flasks. Well,I take that back,Chet still has the mink,but maybe nowadays he is down to 2 flasks! He is a "one-of-a-kind" sports personality & stands above the rest in this town and many others. I loved Chet from years ago & was a frequent caller (he took a few) to his old radio show. He was an excellent interviewer & always "dressed up" his questions to a parade of sports personalities. What set Chet apart from the rest was his ability to laugh at himself and others. The combination of his "Hollywood personality" & his great interviews made Mr. Coppock a great listen,night after night. He has written a book,which I plan to buy. Of course,if it lacks pictures,I probably won't read most of it because I have the attention span of a 3 year old,but that's another story. I wish Chet the best & hope he get's a major gig soon in our fine town! Chicago has 2 major players in SportsRadio,WSCR & WMVP. Both have confused working "cheap" with younger hosts as the same thing as working "good"!
Guys like Chet,Mike North,Steve Dahl,Bruce Wolfe should all get together and do a daily podcast (like the WEBIO deal),but instead of just giving it away,ask for subscribers to the tune of maybe 25 bucks a year. If they could get 10,000 subscribers,that's 250,000 bucks. They also could charge a daily fee of say a dollar a show. This would also bring in advertisers because now they would be talking REAL numbers. Just a thought,but what the hell do I know?
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Chet430@aol.com
> To:
> Cc: LIKRISH44@aol.com, Likrish47@aol.com
> Subject: Re: Chet,Your still the best!
> Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:41:31 EDT
>
>
>
>
>
> jim..... pls tell people that i hope my legacy is simply that i did my
> best to help alot of people, danny mac, bruce levine, david kaplan
> get started
> in this game.......... i always tried to give back..... and i will
> broadcast until the day i die...... meanwhile, i still do notre
> dame football and
> roundball on wls...
>
> cc

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

Here is an old Ed Sherman article:

Coppock: Where do I go from here?
Posted by Ed S. at 6/17/2009 5:43 AM CDT on Chicago Business
Chet Coppock has been through more downers in his career than he can remember. But this one, he says, is the worst.

"It's a very desolate feeling," Mr. Coppock said. "I don't think I've ever felt this bad. I feel like I've been hit by a truck and I don't know how big the truck is."

Mr. Coppock signed off for the last time Tuesday from his Chicagosportswebio.com afternoon show. The gig, as he would say, lasted just over two months.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. After languishing on weekends at WMVP-AM 1000, he jumped at the opportunity to work a five-day, drive-time shift for the town's new Internet sports talk station. It was "a rebirth," he said.

He had a two-year, six-figure contract with the promise of more down the road. He said this was going to be his last job, his bridge to life's sunset.

Then it all stunningly unraveled when station president David Hernandez faced charges of business fraud by the SEC. The SEC alleges the funds for Webio were derived from an illicit Ponzi scheme.

Suddenly, it was all over for Mr. Coppock. Just like that.

Now at age 61, he wonders if he has done his last show.

"Nobody's going to hire me to be a go-go dancer," Mr. Coppock said. "(WMVP) wouldn't hire me if Chevrolet walked in with 100 large and said take back Coppock. We didn't leave on good terms. There's no room at (WSCR). I'm 61. Everyone wants the kids. I don't know where to go."

You could hear the pain in Mr. Coppock's voice when he later said, "I might have to enter the real world and frankly that scares the hell out of me. If I have to sell life insurance, I might have to slit my wrists."

Looking back, Mr. Coppock wonders why nobody knew more about Mr. Hernandez and his past: he was sentenced to 34 months in prison for wire fraud in 1998. Mr. Coppock said Mr. Hernandez simply struck him as someone who wanted to be around the action.

"My first reaction was he was a guy with a ton of cabbage who wanted in his whole life to be somebody," Mr. Coppock said. "He wanted to sit a skybox and have Jerry Reinsdorf acknowledge him."

Mr. Coppock said he bought into Mr. Hernandez's vision for the new endeavor. Again in Chet-speak, he said, "I went in with the same conviction Moses had in parting the Red Sea. I thought this would be a knockout, and in a couple of years I would sign a new contract."

Mr. Coppock still believes in the product and hopes that it will be revived in some form. But he knows "it isn't going to happen next Tuesday."

Mr. Coppock now wonders if he might have stuck around too long--again in Chet-speak--"like a fighter who didn't know when to get out of the ring."

I told him his analogy was wrong. A fighter who doesn't know when to hang them up risks damage to himself.

Being behind a microphone, knowing somebody is listening out there, has been the essence of Mr. Coppock for as long as he uttered his first, "How are you doing everybody...''

No offense to insurance salesman, but that's not for Mr. Coppock. He is a one-of-a-kind broadcaster in this business, in this town. Also, he still will be heard in the fall as a studio host on Notre Dame's football and basketball broadcasts on WLS-AM 890.

Borrowing from another of his signature lines, I told him, "It's your dime and still your dance floor."

"I can only hope, buddy," he said. "I can only hope."

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

Spada must have interviewed Chet recently.

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From Facebook:

So many of you have known Chester W Coppock (Chet Coppock) for what seems like forever... so much longer than I have...I don't even feel I have the right to speak about his tragic passing...however I must...because in the short time my life was touched by this angel - he made more of a difference in my life than some folks I have known for an eternity. I was honored to be introduced to Chet by my amazingly talented literary publicists Rick Kaempfer and David Stern. Chet and I became fast friends...literally by the end of a 5 hour book signing...Coppock already gave me his cell phone number and created a special nickname for me - he called me his "K-Girl" and insisted I needed to use "K-Girl" as another pen name on my books...and continued nagging me for weeks after to use "K-Girl" as my stage name when I perform music. Always extremely supportive of his friends and their endeavors...Chet kept encouraging me to return to singing professionally, in addition to my writing. I ended up doing another half dozen appearances with him, and the one I will never forget was at "Books and Bundts", when he insisted I take the stage with him - while he introduced me in a way that was befitting of a movie star while he bragged about MY books rather than his own! I am totally unworthy of such praise from such a highly accomplished man of his caliber! I have never met such a gentleman and class act who has helped so many people behind the scenes and been responsible for the successful careers of so many. Once Chet called you his "friend" - you immediately became part of his "family" for life and he instantly wanted to connect with you professionally, dive right into mutually beneficial creative projects with you and help you in anyway he possibly could! Chet's wild imagination, drive to succeed, and his youthful zest for life are some of the attributes I will miss the most about him. His resume reads like a "Who's Who?" of broadcasting, and yet he continuously challenged himself to accomplish more and more...recently asking me to assist him with getting work doing print-ads, excitedly chit-chatting non-stop about a new book he was working on at Eckhartz Press with Rick and Dave, and planning children's books with me - all with the ambition, determination, spunk, free-spirit, and hyper energy level of a 7-year-old set loose in a candy store! I always teased him for being 70 going on 7 - but when you think about it - that is the best way to approach life! Chet refused to grow old and lived everyday to its fullest and that is probably the best advice he gave me as well. Chet was looking forward to playing a character in one of my creative projects, gave me permission to write a children's biography about him, and we were collaborating on the outline for a fiction book series based upon himself, about a determined little boy known as "Chit Chat Chet" whose gift for gab..ultimately leads to him following his dreams, working hard and becoming a star. Chet Coppock was a star in every meaning and sense of the word...but he never acted like one. His love for his family and friends was unsurpassed. He never forgot to hug you goodbye and say "I love you" and that is something so special and rare these days! Chet's incredible amounts of volunteer work and charitable giving - which he humbly kept between himself and God - helped and assisted countless people in Chicago and beyond. As the daughter of a Viet Nam Veteran..I truly appreciated Chet's unwavering support of our Veterans and Military families. My only regret is that I did not meet him sooner...but my life was forever changed, touched and enriched during the time I was blessed to know him! Chet Coppock was one of the classiest, kindest, sweetest, most compassionate, generous, loving and giving human beings anyone could ever hope to encounter...blessed with a bigger than life personality, a sense of humor in the league of Jack Benny or George Burns, and an even bigger heart of gold. My heart goes out to his family and friends who are basically one and the same..for Chet treated everyone as his family. As a writer...I am supposed to be a wordsmith...but there are simply no words to describe the void this man has left in all our hearts and lives. He would never say "goodbye" to me - just something quirky like "see you later alligator." So...I will not say goodbye...I will simply say...see you later, my friend. Heaven received a very special angel today! Love you forever! - "K-Girl"

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Don't take it personally.

Who is that?

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You know me like that.

who's gonna inherit you?

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Silvy & Waddle had a great hour of yesterday's show focused on Chet stories and Giangreco called in to share some of his.

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Sherman remarked, "Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?" Grant looked up. "Yes," he replied, followed by a puff. "Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow, though."

Memorial service notice posted online. Interestingly, while his ex wife (with whom he claimed to be on good terms) is mentioned, his fiance is not mentioned at all.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

Who still controls the money. Fiance didn't get to finish line. Therefore, she is out.

I scrolled through the last week of posts on his fb page. Never mentioned except for one post by her son about 2 hours after Feder's post. She replied that nobody told her of the accident and she had just found out that he had died.

Somehow this makes me really sad.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal