Buttitta Suits Up for Different Owner

To look at him in his finely tailored suit, chatting across his desk to a customer about free checking accounts and home development loans, you’d think Joe Buttitta had been a banker all his life.

Well, he may look the part. He may act the part. But Buttitta, three months on the job, would much rather be sitting in a broadcast booth, chatting through a microphone about free throws and home runs.

He’s happy that the Bank of Granada Hills has given him a job as director of its sports and entertainment division, but he’d be a lot happier if his sportscasting career hadn’t nearly fallen apart.

“A few years ago, I had the best job in town,” he says. That’s when he was doing UCLA football and basketball, Angels baseball and the weeknight sports report on Channel 5.

First, the UCLA package changed hands and the new people wanted a new voice. Then, the Angels brought in former major league manager Joe Torre to do their television commentary. And finally, only weeks after winning a Golden Mike award for his Channel 5 sports segment, Buttitta was informed that his contract would not be renewed.

“I don’t know the reason that they fired me,” Buttitta said. “That’s what is killing me. They have never given me a reason.”

Said Jeff Wald, the Channel 5 news director who fired Buttitta: “Joe is a victim. I’m a real Joe Buttitta fan, but he is a traditional, conservative guy. We were looking for a new method. We wanted to do more human-interest stuff, be more entertaining.”

Buttitta, 42, spent 15 years at Cal State Northridge, where he coached the golf team and served as sports information director.

Then, one day, while driving out to Thousand Oaks to play golf he heard an announcer reading a score from a game involving the Boston Cletics. Not Celtics, but Cletics. Not once, but twice. Buttitta had always harbored a desire to be a sportscaster. He knew he could do better than the man he had just heard, so he went to the Thousand Oaks station and volunteered his services.

He got the job and stayed five years. He spent five more years at KGIL in the Valley, and, for the past five years, has been at Channel 5.

Now, he’s reduced to keeping his voice in shape by broadcasting Pepperdine basketball games for Simi Valley radio station KWNK.

Bank officials are thrilled to have him. They say Buttitta has already brought in nearly $1 million in new business.

No matter. If he can land another sportscasting job, he wouldn’t hesitate to instantly make his new profession a secondary task. That much you can bank on.