New regional sports show launches Friday on FOX40

Nov. 30—John Cassidy, the former CEO of Sierra Central Credit Union and longtime organizer of The Event, has helped launch a new regional sports show called Highlands Sports Roundtable that is set to air for the first time on Friday night.

Taped in a studio at 93Q Radio in downtown Marysville, the first show features Cassidy, former Sacramento Kings forward Harold Pressley, Sactown Sports broadcaster Scott Marsh, and FOX40 reporter Gary Gelfand. It is sponsored by Highlands Community Charter and Technical Schools.

Episodes of the show, including the first one this Friday, will air at 11:30 p.m. on FOX40, according to Cassidy. Along with traditional broadcast television, the show also will be available at 11 a.m. on Saturdays on Sactown Sports 1140 AM radio, 93Q's YouTube page and in a podcast format.

Cassidy, who was inducted into the Northern California Sports Association Hall of Fame in 2014, previously hosted the Sierra Central Sports Roundtable, which was based in Yuba City. That show, much like his new one, also featured Pressley and Marsh and put a focus on players, coaches and legends who grew up and played in the Sacramento region.

"It was the first studio show on the Comcast Sports Network that became NBC Sports Bay Area and NBC Sports NorCal," Cassidy said. "... The show was really popular. It's the same format that TNT kind of borrowed for their four-person set for NBA on TNT. ... We had a killer, state-of-the-art studio."

Sierra Central Sports Roundtable was on the air for about 11 years before ending after Comcast consolidated its programming, the Appeal previously reported.

"We're bringing the sports roundtable back," Cassidy said Wednesday before the taping of the first episode of Highlands Sports Roundtable.

Cassidy said the idea to bring back the roundtable came from Pressley, Highlands, and himself.

"This is going to be a branding campaign to help Highlands increase their brand awareness throughout Northern California," Cassidy said. "... We got approached by Highlands and then I talked to FOX40 and their corporate people. ... Once it got approved, they jumped all over it and allowed us to air it on FOX40."

Cassidy, who will be the main host, said shows will air weekly throughout the year. While Pressley, Marsh and Gelfand will be the "core anchors" of the show, Cassidy said others may be included over time.

As with his previous show, Cassidy said Highlands Sports Roundtable will seek to fill a void in highlighting regional athletes and teams.

"One of the opportunities for us is that the big Bay Area cable outlets don't really talk a lot about all the Sacramento-area athletics," Cassidy said. "We're able to tie a lot of that in, especially because of the people we have involved in the production. ... We'll cover national (teams and players) as well. ... We're very topical."

Cassidy, and his late twin brother Phil Cassidy, spent years not only playing sports but established themselves in the broadcast realm as well. Phil Cassidy was a well-known sports broadcaster in Oregon before he died after a four-year battle with melanoma.

According to his obituary, Phil Cassidy spent the better part of 25 years as a television sports reporter, weekend anchor and feature reporter on the morning show "Good Day Oregon" on FOX KPTV Channel 12.

John Cassidy, according to Appeal archives, played basketball and competed in track and field at Granada High School in Livermore before heading to Butte College. Basketball was his primary sport. He was a reserve at Butte College under coach John Abell when the Roadrunners went 29-1 and lost in double overtime in the state championship game against Merced during the 1978/79 season. In track, he leapt 6 feet, 6 inches in the high jump.

At 20 years old, Cassidy started his broadcasting "hobby" as the sports information director at Humboldt State, the Appeal previously reported. He started a radio show there and was the play-by-play man for the college's basketball team.

Cassidy would later move on to the University of San Francisco where he studied business administration and finished his bachelor's degree in organizational behavior. All the while, he still had a passion for sports and sports broadcasting.

He was the play-by-play announcer for the Stockton Ports, then affiliated with the Milwaukee Brewers; announced football, volleyball and basketball games for Yuba College; and was a sports talk show host on KHTK-AM 1140 in Sacramento, the Appeal previously reported. In 1987, he started the Hoops for Kids All-Star Game which raised more than $600,000 in five years for the Boys and Girls Club of Northern California.

Cassidy later went on to coach the Yuba City High School girls basketball team for three years, starting in the 2005/06 season. The Honkers won the league title twice during his tenure. He was named the Appeal-Democrat's Coach of the Year in 2007.