The SOFA Awards!

Now in their eighth year, the SOFA (Sports media's Outstanding and Forgettable Achievement) Awards are as much a part of the New Year's tradition as college bowl games -- and just as debatable. Here are the best and worst of 2002.

Best sports-talk radio show: Crunch Time, 9-11 a.m., WHB 810
Bill Maas and Tim Grunhard have the same kind of chemistry that makes Terry Bradshaw and Howie Long so successful on Fox's NFL show. They like each other so much that they can trade the most cutting and demeaning remarks and still laugh at themselves. As former NFL players, these two ex-Chiefs attract national big-name guests such as 49ers head coach Steve Mariucci, NBA owner Mark Cuban and the Dallas Cowboys' Jerry Jones -- and they rarely disappoint by sucking up in their interviews. Calling Frank Boal a third wheel on this entertaining midday show would be an injustice to the wheel, though. He's more like one of those half-sized spare tires that you hide in the trunk until you have a blowout.

Worst sports-talk radio show: The Show With No Name, 11 a.m.-2 p.m., KCKN 1340
Dave Armstrong and Tom Cheatham's idea of a sense of humor is to call their midday gig The Show With No Name. That tells you all you need to know about the limited entertainment value of this duo's work behind a microphone. Armstrong has great God-given pipes but pumps watered-down opinions through them instead of insightful commentary. Cheatham's high-pitched squeak is right out of Deliverance. Every time he starts to talk, I get a vision of a toothless mountain man atop him hollering, "Squeal, piggy!"

Best radio host: Steven St. John, 6-9 a.m., 810
Steven St. John is not only the best talent on local sports-talk radio; he's the most underrated. He plays second pork chop to Jason Whitlock on 810's morning-drive show but could easily shine as the solo act he once was. St. John combines national and local sports acumen with a fall-on-the-floor wit rarely seen in KC or nationally. No one on the radio makes me laugh out loud as often as this former talk-show caller.

Worst radio host: Kevin Kietzman, 2-7 p.m., 810
No one has slid farther faster than the onetime king of KC sports-talk radio. Kevin Kietzman's show has struggled for direction since last January. He sounds more desperate than ever to invent news rather than report it, and his catalog-sized supporting cast of "experts" is starting to yellow with sameness. How out of touch is he? He recently spent an entire show doing a four-hour infomercial for KCK's new minor-league baseball team. Kietzman needs a makeover more than the Chiefs' defense.

Best television sportscast: Metro Sports Zone, 6-7 p.m. and 10-11 p.m., Metro Sports
Dave Stewart and Metro Sports have taken a Big Bertha steel-head driver out of their cable-TV bag and whopped the living daylights out of their competition. This fast-paced, info-filled thirty-minute show is so good it has TV news programs thinking about giving up their local sportscasts. The detail-loving Brad Porter, the self-proclaimed "monster" of high-school sports Chad Harberts, and the off-the-ceiling Mick Shaffer are also important contributors to the zaniness that is the Zone.

Worst television sportscast: KSHB Channel 41, 10 p.m.
Todd Romero got an early Christmas present when Channel 41 informed him that his contract would not be renewed at the end of February. No great loss for KC viewers. The always bouncy, always important-sounding Romero never should have been hired in the first place. He's just not very talented -- nor is he likeable enough as a TV personality for viewers to forgive his shortcomings as a sports guy. Lisa Holbrook, 41's second-team sports anchor, has made steady progress in the beautician's chair, but that asset is soon forgotten once she starts speaking.

Best TV sportscaster: Dave Stewart, Metro Sports
Maybe it's his petite size that makes Dave Stewart so likeable. Or the way Johnny Dare treats him like Tard's big brother on KQRC 98.9's popular morning show. Whatever it is, Stewart has shot past WDAF Channel 4's Frank Boal as the hippest sports guy on the tube. Still, it's not saying much for the competition when two fortysomething dudes with Eddie Munster comb-backs are the Mini Coopers of the local TV sports world.

Worst TV sports broadcaster: Len Dawson, KMBC Channel 9, 10 p.m.
Lenny the Cool slipped his Channel 9 sports-anchor gig into neutral sometime around 1985, and he's been cashing big checks for coasting ever since. Dawson reportedly shows up for his 10:25 sports report a few minutes before airtime, then mispronounces a handful of names, introduces a feature or two and smiles at his thousands of admirers out in TV land as Larry Moore sends them to commercial break. Few ex-jocks have been able to parlay one big win into a more lucrative thirty-year shakedown.

Best sports interviewer: Bill Maas, 9-11 a.m., 810
Bill Maas will ask just about anyone anything. There are no boundaries in his sports-talk world, only uncharted, fertile valleys of controversy and embarrassment. When it comes to sports-talk radio, I don't want an ass-kissing host lobbing softball questions to a paid interviewee à la Kietzman's Between the Lines on the same station. Maas gets some of the biggest names in sports -- Jim Rome, Mike Ditka and Rich Gannon -- to come clean on his show. No one else in this market has ever come close to doing what he does.