Ed Sherman & Chet Coppock on Webio & Life

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: Coppock: Where do I go from here? : Posted by Ed Sherman 6/17/2009 5:43AM 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. : 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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