Fritz Coleman a Hit at Mayor’s Breakfast

The weather outside the FrontRunner restaurant at Santa Anita Park Friday morning was cool and overcast. However, inside at the Mayor’s Breakfast featuring Channel 4 weatherman Fritz Coleman as the keynote speaker, there were a number of hot topics.

The key issue was the Spirit of Volunteerism, with Mayor Gary Kovacic honoring three Arcadians–Citizen of the Year Alice Wang, City Clerk Jim Barrows and Arcadia High Student Body President Calvin Irvin.

Weatherman Coleman, who doubles as a stand-up comic, entertained the crowd of about 300 people.

After being introduced by Kovacic, Coleman, as he approached the podium, was serenaded by Santa Anita bugler, Jay Cohen.

“I feel like Secretariat,” Coleman said, setting the tone for what turned out to be nearly a half-hour of laughs from an appreciative gathering that gave the weatherman a warm reception.

“I’m just killing time until they open the $2 betting windows,” he cracked.

“I’m in my 30th year as a weatherman in a city with no ongoing weather,” he explained.

He said he gets a lot of emails from viewers who complain about the weather.

“They’ll ask, ‘What’s with all this heat?’ My response is, ‘It’s summer. Sorry you got caught offguard.’ I suggest maybe they would move to Seattle where the sun never shines, where people are so pale they have to put on sunscreen when there’s a full moon.”

Other parts of his routine included such things as social media and aging.

“I prefer Facebook to Twitter,” he said. “On Facebook, you have friends. On Twitter, there are people following you.”

Of aging, he said, “When you turn 55, you get a letter from AARP reminding you that you are in the final chapter of your life and offering you a discount coupon for a scooter chair.”

Coleman, in a more serious vein, had nice things to say about Arcadia and its diversity and schools. He said he’s been coming to Arcadia for years to take part in Supervisor Mike Antonovich’s “Remembering Our Veterans” event held each May at Arcadia Park.

Kovacic said it was his wife Barb’s idea to get Coleman as the keynote speaker.

“I just called the station and he said he’d be glad to do it,” Kovicic told Arcadia Patch. “He didn’t want to be paid, he didn’t ask for a hotel room or car service or anything. And wasn’t he great?”

As Coleman was leaving Santa Anita, I was able to ask him about a story I’d heard from Pat Sajak, his predecessor as the lead Channel 4 weatherman. Sajak said in 1974 he asked the late Stu Nahan, Channel 4’s sports anchor at the time, for advice when he had to choose between staying at Channel 4 or accepting a job as the host of a new game show called “Wheel of Fortune,” which would debut in January 1975.

Sajak said Nahan told him he’d be crazy to choose the game show, saying, “In 13 weeks you’ll be out of a job and unemployed. Then what are you going to do? Game shows come and go but you’ll always have weather.”

Sajak added that he was glad he didn’t take Nahan’s advice.

When asked about that situation, Coleman said, “Pat was taping ‘Wheel of Fortune’ shows while he was still working at the station. The boss at the time felt he was devoting more time to that than his job at the station and told him he had to choose one job over the other. I think Pat made the right decision. He is now a very rich man.”