Don Geronimo
September 18, 1958
2
The Don Geronimo Show
http://pod-god.com / Sacramento, CA
US
Personal life[edit]
Family[edit]
Don's first wife, Freda, died on July 10, 2005, in an automobile accident on Maryland Route 90 near Ocean City, Maryland, where the Sorces had their vacation home. Freda was a frequent contributor to the Don and Mike Show and her spirited interaction with Don was an integral part of the program. Following her death, Don took a hiatus from the show until August 1, 2005, when he returned to the air with an emotional solo broadcast.[17][28]
Don married Janet Sorce on March 21, 2009,[29] and has one son (Bart Sorce) and one daughter (Amy) from previous marriages.
On Friday, October 22, 2010, during the Don Geronimo live stage show Don slipped and fell off the stage. Don suffered head trauma and was admitted to a local hospital and later transferred to ICU.[30]
Controversy[edit]
In 1994, Geronimo and his then radio partner Mike O'Meara were sued for $35 million by an anonymous University of Maryland student who claimed the pair had violated her privacy and inflicted emotional distress.[31] In May 2007, a Leesburg, Virginia man named Carl Grossman, who had once been a frequent caller to the Don and Mike Show, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of stalking. Geronimo had received a letter from the man which contained threats to Geronimo and his family. The judge also issued a lifetime restraining order in the case.[32]
Retirements and returns[edit]
On February 4, 2008, Don announced his retirement from his radio show to pursue his personal life for a while. His last appearance on the Don and Mike Show was Friday, April 11, 2008, with Mike O'Meara to continue the show after that (as the Mike O'Meara Show). Don was widely expected to return to radio in some form in the future.[18][19]
After only two months in retirement, Geronimo announced that he would return to the air on WOCM, a small, independently owned radio station in Ocean City, Maryland. Don Geronimo's Rockin' Soul Show aired weekdays from 1 pm – 3pm featuring popular music from the 1970s and 1980s. After four weeks, Geronimo left the station.[33][34]
In May 2010, Geronimo announced that, beginning June 21, he would be returning to 1140 KHTK—a station which had formerly syndicated the Don and Mike Show—to host a mid-day show.[22] On Friday, October 4, 2013, this new Don Geronimo Show was replaced on KHTK by The Jason Ross Show. Geronimo returned to the airwaves several days later to explain that KHTK decided to go with all sports programming, but that he would return to a CBS Radio station elsewhere soon.[35]
Don Geronimo returned once again to the Washington, D.C., airwaves on WJFK-FM on October 24, 2013. His sports-oriented show aired weekdays from 7:00 to 10:00 pm and on Saturdays from 9:00 am to noon. Initially, he broadcast the show from a studio at CBS Radio's main building in Sacramento, then later from a studio at his Sacramento home when CBS internal politics prevented the show from being broadcast at the company’s building any longer. Co-hosts for the show were located at WJFK’s home studios in Lanham, Maryland. While it was intended that Geronimo would eventually move to the Washington area to do the show live at WJFK's studios, this never materialized after frequent preemptions and schedule changes. On March 1, 2014, Geronimo announced on Twitter he would no longer be heard on WJFK; The show he had broadcast on February 26, 2014, ended up being his last at WJFK.
On April 1, 2014, Geronimo began broadcasting a live podcast, also titled The Don Geronimo Show, weekdays on the RELM Network. The show was a commercial-free, uncensored, subscription-based podcast that listeners could stream live or download for offline listening. Geronimo described the show on Twitter as, “the show I always wanted to do.” The final broadcast of that incarnation of The Don Geronimo Show aired September 13, 2019, with Geronimo declaring a hiatus to allow him to work on other projects.
On November 16, 2021, The Don Geronimo Show began broadcasting during the 5:30-10:00 am drive time slot at suburban Washington, D.C., classic rock station WBIG-FM, an iHeartMedia affiliate in Rockville, Maryland, located only two miles from the station where he began his radio career at age 13.[36] However, WBIG fired Geronimo in July 2023, after he made sexist comments towards WUSA9 sports reporter Sharla McBride while broadcasting from Washington Commanders training camp.[26]