Hilliard Gates

Hilliard Gates (December 14, 1915 – November 21, 1996) was an American sportscaster who was widely regarded as the founding father of Indiana sports broadcasting and the leading sportscaster in Indiana for decades.

Early days

Born Hilliard Gates Gudelsky, Hilliard used his middle name, Gates, as he entered broadcasting at a station in Muskegon, Michigan. Gates moved his career to WOWO radio, at that time a 10,000-watt clear channel radio station in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1940. During World War II he entered the Army Air Corps and was stationed at near-by Baer Field, which allowed him to continue his career at WOWO part-time. After the war he supervised the construction of WKJG radio which went on the air in November 1947 with Gates as General Manager and part owner. The station was largely owned by the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, which in turn was owned by William Kunkle. An acronym of this combination provided the station call letters. He put WKJG-FM on the air in June 1948 and in November 1953, was the first person to appear live on Fort Wayne television when he signed WKJG-TV onto the air. His segment Gatesway to Sports was very popular with Fort Wayne viewers.