Ray Hadley
Ray Hadley (born September 27th 1954) is a Australian radio presenter. He presents 2GB Sydney's morning show, and leads the Continuous Call Team, a rugby league commentating team.
He grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney but spent a great deal of time with his grandparents in a small village called Eungai Rail on the mid north coast of New South Wales.
He decided at a young age to become a sports broadcaster, but was questioned by his family and friends whenever his ambitions were brought up. After completing his Higher School Certificate in 1972, he tried unsuccessfully to gain a job in sports broadcasting. He soon found work in auctioneering, and after getting his Auctioneer's license, he was a auctioneer for 8 years.
He soon quit auctionnering and became a taxi driver, so he could spend his weekends getting casual work as a race broadcaster. By 1980, he was calling the greyhound races at Appin, Bulli and Nowra.
Fate would soon intervene, and one night he was called to Radio 2UE in Sydney to pick up news director Mark Collier, who gave him casual work at the station.
Within a month, he was presenting traffic reports for Gary O'Callaghan's breakfast program, and did on-air promotions for various 2UE programs. He eventually landed up as an understudy race caller, behind Des Hoysted and John Tapp.
In 1987, Ray was chosen to head up 2UE's Rugby League coverage. He would lead the station to ratings victories 10 out of the 13 years 2UE had the rights to cover the game. In 1994, he was the first league broadcaster since Frank Hyde to attract 200,000 listeners per quarter hour.
During that time, he was also understudy and fill-in presenter for morning show presenter John Laws.
In 1999, 2UE lost the rights to the National Rugby League to 2GB. Faced with a difficult challenge to retain listeners, 2UE asked Hadley to present a rugby league program without access to the actual game, or to their reporters at the ground. Despite this hurdle, the Talking League Team won every rating period between 2000 and 2001, leaving industry indsiders bewildered.
In 2002, Ray joined fellow 2UE presenter Alan Jones over at 2GB, and was chosen to present their morning show. In addition, the Talking League team was also brought over to 2GB to present their league broadcasts. He has just been just as successful at 2GB, leading 2GB to the honour of being the top-rating AM station in Sydney.
During his time at 2UE, Ray also broadcast at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and was commentating on Cathy Freeman's memorable 400m race, where she had won gold. Freeman had later heard the replay of the race, and said that Ray's call made it sound better than she thought it was.
Other career highlights include the 1992, 1996 and 2004 Olympics, the 2003 Rugby World Cup final, 14 rugby league grand finals, 36 State of Origin games, three Australian Kangaroo tours, the 1991 Rugby World Cup in the UK, and two Wallabies European tours.
He has been named the best Radio Sports Broadcaster at the "Rawards" for the 5 out of the past 10 years, and was awarded an Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in the Queen's Birthday 2002 Honours List for services to rugby league (as a broadcaster) and the community, through fundraising initatives for charitable organizations.
Ray lives in the north-west of Sydney with his wife and four children.
Olympic outburst
In 2004, Hadley was recorded in the middle of an outburst aimed at 2GB news director Justin Kelly at the 2004 Athens Olympics, after Hadley's call of an event at the Games was not used in a news bulletin. This outburst was heard on regional stations taking 2GB's Olympic coverage. His use of the word "spastic" outraged organizations that deal with people which such conditions, and Ray made a quick apology and offered his services to the organizations affected for no charge.
A dance version of the outburst was soon created and played on Triple J and bootlegged around the country.
Categories: 1954 births