On Bob Rondeau, and life after work
The former voice of the Huskies retired nearly eight years ago. His life since is a study in retirement as a beginning, not an end.
NORMANDY PARK, Wash. — There is a single trophy displayed in the retired broadcaster’s home, and it does not bear his name. Background, son of Khozan, was 4 years old when he covered eight furlongs in 1 minute, 36.67 seconds on an 80-degree day in August 2021, winning the 86th Longacres Mile at the Emerald Downs racetrack in Auburn. Bob Rondeau and his wife, Molly, owned the horse then. “He was kind of the foundation of the empire,” Rondeau said. “He was the first horse we bought when we got back into it.”
So there it is, the silver prize resting modestly on the end of a mantle, framed by a painting and a window. The bobble heads? Rondeau figures he has about 10 left. They’re in a box in the garage; every now and then, folks ask if he might supply one of the dolls — made in his image and given away to fans at the 2017 Apple Cup, his final home game — perhaps, say, as an auction item.
He obliges, but says you’ll never find one inside his house. Same goes for any commemoration of his broadcasting honors, of which there have been many.
“I don’t have a room devoted to me, with all my awards and plaques,” Rondeau said during a conversation earlier this summer. “I’ve never been one to pay tribute to myself in my own house. I don’t need that.”
A couple years ago, Chris Petersen remarked to me about a lie some football coaches tell themselves: “Coaching is what I do, but it’s not who I am.”
The more competitive and high-profile the job, Petersen reasoned, the more those lines blur, until your profession is so all-consuming that your personal identity can’t be divorced from your work.
Set aside the fame and fortune, and is it really so different for the rest of us? Do you take work home with you, in either the literal or metaphorical sense? Allow a rough day at the office to linger? And rather than daydream about retirement, do you instead fear the idea of waking up without destination? Of nobody expecting anything from you? Of idle time?
Rondeau, now 75, knows this might be a conundrum for some. Reflecting on his retirement during a conversation earlier this summer, the play-by-play legend (sorry, Bob, but we call it like we see it) said he experienced no such anxiety.
“That was never going to be an issue with me,” Rondeau said. “Ever.”