Meet Tony Perkins | Morning radio news anchor, KUAZ Arizona Public Media, Tucson.

We had the good fortune of connecting with Tony Perkins and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Tony, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
If you refuse to take risks, you will never achieve your dreams. I have always chosen risk over comfort in my career as a broadcast journalist. Many times it was simply deciding that I would go somewhere and do something that I knew was beyond my ability, trusting that I would grow into the role.

In 2007 I’d already decided to quit the grind as a daily news reporter after almost 30 years of on-air work for radio and television. I planned on going into academia as a journalism professor, specializing in teaching international broadcast journalism. I saw a chance to do research by working in Beijing for the national broadcaster of the 2008 Summer Olympic games. The job application was meant for people of Chinese heritage with experience covering previous Olympics. I had neither qualification, nor did I know Mandarin. But the Chinese government broadcaster, CCTV, offered me the job anyway. So, I dropped my entire life in the U. S. and set off on a one-way flight to Beijing on New Year’s Eve, 2007. It was the risk of a lifetime for the opportunity of a lifetime, hosting a daily Olympics broadcast seen around the world. I continued working as a television sports personality in China for the next four years.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I published my first book, Beyond Our Vision: Stories From the Decade That Changed Everything, in 2022. It is a look back at news events and personalities that were pushed out of the spotlight during the years between the presidential inauguration of John F. Kennedy and the arrival of the Beatles in the United States. These were the stories that I first encountered when I was in primary school, learning how to read, and doing the research to revisit those happenings after more than 50 years was fascinating.

My next book will turn to sports in the 1970s, and focuses on a period in which spectators often turned their passion into violence and other disruptive behavior which changed how we watch sporting events today.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
We have strong ties with the University of Arizona community, so we would plan a visit during a sports weekend at the U of A. It might include Bear Down Fridays at Main Gate Square and a dinner at one of the pubs on Fourth Street or University Boulevard, before making our way to Arizona Stadium for a football Saturday, or the McKale Center for a men’s or women’s basketball game. I recall making similar trips with friends at the University of Florida and visits built around the sports experience at Indiana University, so it’s time I returned the favor. Tucson’s sports scene is very unique and the weather here is great all year, so it’s hard to go wrong.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My father worked a postal service letter carrier when I was growing up. He’d bring home undelivered newsmagazines and encouraged me to read as much as I could about current events. This included the tumultuous era that included the civil right movement, the Vietnam war, and manned space exploration. This was the start of my curiosity and interest in being a news reporter. One of the great ironies of my current life in Southern Arizona is meeting and speaking with the now-retired scientists at the University of Arizona who worked with NASA on the lunar missions I read so much about when I was a child.

My parents also instilled a love of travel in myself and my siblings. We would take a family vacation every year from our home in small-town Indiana to visit relatives in Boston, Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit and the Cleveland area. Those trips revealed to us that there was a bigger world out there beyond our neighborhood. In fact, the trips to the East coast always included a side journey to Washington DC, where I’d see all of the landmarks I’d read about in the newspapers and magazines. It just made the outside world more real, and, with a focus on education, within our reach. My older sister ended up living and working in Europe for 10 years, so my decision to move to China seemed almost like a natural progression considering how we grew up.

Website: aeperkinssports.com, aeperkins.online

Twitter: @PerkinsSportsTV

Youtube: Second_draft827, Tony Perkins play-by-play

Image Credits
Credit: Tony Perkins