The Sportscaster

When Bob Rainey was growing up in Rochester, New York, ”He would turn the sound down so he could do the play-by-play," said his mother, Mary Ellen Rainey. 

Something about the Minnesota Vikings caught his fancy; he became a fan for life. Bob played sports announcer so much that he sometimes drove the family to distraction. "But I just let him do his thing," his mother said.

His “thing” was sports, and his games were basketball and football. With a sinewy body on a 6’2” frame, Bob starred in both sports for Bishop Kearney High School. But he wisely traded the ball for a microphone when it came time to choose a college. His choice? Xavier University. 

From 1981 to 1985, Bob refined his reporting skills covering sports for WVXU-FM. Bob handled on-air sportscasts, tackled high school play-by-play, and anchored the Sunday morning sports talk show.

WVXU Sports Director Tom Eiser remembered Bob “… clearly had a passion for the business; he was one of the most professional students that I ever worked with.” When Eiser was promoted, “The best choice to take over as sports director was Bob.”

Eiser had fought to get WVXU credentialed for the Reds, Bengals, LPGA, college basketball, and more. Bob “took those over seamlessly, and his professionalism, I think, made it an easy decision for all of these sports organizations to credential him.”

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His professional career began at WCKY-AM, Cincinnati’s sports radio station, before a jump to WLKY-TV in Louisville, Kentucky. Philadelphia’s PHL 17 lured Bob to the country’s top-five market in 1994 with a weekend anchor job, but just two years later, Bob and the NFL’s Houston Oilers signed long term deals with Nashville, Tennessee.

NewsChannel 5’s Sports Director Hope Hines hired Bob as sports reporter and anchor for the market-leading CBS affiliate.

For seven years, Bob covered the Tennessee Titans, Nashville Predators, the LPGA, and the SEC (1997-2004) for NewsChannel 5. “Bob loved covering  sports," said Hope. "His reports were always very precise. When the Titans played in Super Bowl XXXIV in Atlanta, Bob was a key part of our sports team.” But it wasn’t only his sports coverage that impressed Hope. “He was a wonderful human being who genuinely cared about people.”

In 2004, Bob finally got the call. WCCO-TV invited Bob to join the CBS News team in Minneapolis.  Rainey told friends and family that moving to Minnesota was a dream come true.

He always talked about covering the Vikings,” longtime WCCO sports anchor Mark Rosen said. "That's what he lived for…for work.” Vikings

coach Brad Childress was impressed by the Rochester native. Rainey "...was always very bright-eyed in press conferences. You could tell he

was passionate; he was engaged. You appreciate that," Childress said.

Rosen appreciated Bob’s storytelling skill. “From top to bottom, he did it the right way, with class and dignity," Rosen said. "He always had a nice

little twist to his stories.”

Then, in 2008, Bob got the diagnosis—colon cancer.  He elected to keep his battle private. He “...decided this is the way he wanted to go,” Rosen said. Bob Rainey lived his childhood dream until the very end. He lost the brief battle and died at the age of 46.