The radio host-turned-speech pathologist who could always make others laugh

Some 30 years ago outside an apartment complex in Timonium, Alan Courduff ushered his children across the yard and toward a magic archway.

It was just a regular brick archway, obviously. But his elementary-aged kids didn’t know that.

Make a wish as you walk through, Courduff told them, but make sure to hold your breath as you do. Otherwise, it won’t come true.

Courduff was pretty good at getting people to believe things that weren’t actually real, whether it was riffing an exaggerated story to a friend or morphing into Glen Burnout, Momma Panzarella or one of his other beloved characters on 98 Rock Baltimore. He kept a straight face for the bit, but no matter where he was or who he was talking to, the goal was to get people to smile.

“So many people just thought he was hysterical,” said his wife, Nancy Courduff. “One of his biggest legacies — that he, I think, was put on this earth to do — is bring people joy and make them laugh.”

Even as he grew sick in recent years, Alan Courduff never lost his sense of humor, loved ones said. They plan to gather Friday to remember and celebrate Courduff, a longtime Baltimore radio personality and speech therapist, who died Aug. 25 of complications from heart disease. He was 75.

He was born Sept. 29, 1950, the youngest of Irma and Allen Courduff’s four children. He spent most of his youth playing outside with other kids in his suburban Philadelphia neighborhood, practicing the trumpet and building a reputation in school as the class clown.

When he was on the cusp of teenagehood, he snuck out one night to go to a James Brown concert — the best show of his life, he’d later tell people. He built a shed underneath his window outside just so he’d have an exit plan.

After high school, he enrolled at Pennsylvania State University, where he played trumpet in the school marching band. He once did a backflip in the middle of a performance — a favorite story to tell later in life. He originally intended to pursue something in engineering but switched to broadcasting. It was the “golden age of radio,” said his daughter, Rachael Sottile, and professors trained the Philly accent out of him.

He spent a few years at D.C.-area radio stations before landing a DJ gig at 98 Rock. He worked late at night — a less desirable shift, perhaps, but one that afforded him great agency to pick the music and commentary that aired, Sottile said.

He “had a very strong sense of self, of what his on-air persona was, and I think that really led him well,” Sottile said. “It really led to a lot of success for him.”

Courduff later moved dayside, where he expanded his repertoire of on-air characters, sometimes queuing up their voices so he could have “live” conversations with them, said Bob Kneebone, a longtime friend and former neighbor.

Courduff adopted the characters both to entertain his listeners and himself, Kneebone said. And it was an occasional coping mechanism: Back in college, while working at the university radio station, Courduff came in one day to find all the music had changed from rock ‘n’ roll to country. He quickly pivoted and spent the night taking calls as Tex Cactus.

“The guy was smart as hell, and he just adapted to the situation,” Kneebone said.

Courduff became a trusted mentor and peer at the station, he said. Once, a new reporter was so scared to go on air she was physically shaking, Kneebone said. Courduff stayed all night to help her through it.

Courduff met his ex-wife, Carolyn, at 98 Rock. They were married for a few years and had two children, Matthew and Rachael, before splitting when the kids were toddlers. Courduff was 40 when his first child was born, and he worried radio wouldn’t be as friendly to him as he grew older. Hoping to secure a more stable future, he studied to become a speech pathologist.

“He went from talking for a living to teaching people how to talk,” said his son, Matthew Courduff.

In both careers, he enjoyed making himself into someone people of all backgrounds could relate to, his son said. But where radio gave him a creative outlet, speech pathology revealed the more compassionate and considerate parts of his character, Nancy Courduff said.

She saw them constantly outside of work, too — like when he checked in on neighbors going through a rough time or delivered milkshakes to a former colleague who was sick.

The couple met in the early days of Courduff’s speech pathology career, where he crossed paths professionally with Nancy, a dietician. Courduff always said it felt like someone flicked him on the head and told him to pay attention to her. After nearly two years of dating, he proposed to her on Christmas morning in front of the kids.

They married in 1999 and two years later had a daughter, Allison “Allie” Courduff. Courduff found creative ways to keep the kids busy, sometimes by convincing them he could talk to animals or grabbing a bite at Burger King.

He retired at age 64 to spend more time with family and friends and on masonry projects. He showed Allison how to pick out the best CDs and repair broken bookshelves.

But the most important lesson he taught her was to stay positive.

“I try and make myself find the light, like he would, and try and make people laugh,” she said.

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