Channel 4 sportscaster Rudy Kalis retires

After spending parts of five decades on Nashville's television airwaves, WSMV-4 sportscaster Rudy Kalis announced his retirement Tuesday during the 6 p.m. newscast.

Kalis will continue to work through the football season and then handle freelance assignments for Channel 4.

Kalis, 70, came to Nashville in August 1974 and spent the next 40 years as a sports reporter, anchor and director at the NBC affiliate.

"They'd like for me to stay connected to the station, but at my age I've got to look at spending more time with grandkids and things like that," said Kalis, who was known for his first-person feature stories over the years, which included skydiving, driving race cars and flying in an F-16 jet. "I loved all those kinds of stories I was able to do. Plus, there are still things like that I'd still love to try just on my own."

In 2014, Kalis left sports and moved to the news team, where he served as co-anchor of the Channel 4 News Today morning show.

"That was really rough — that's one thing I'm not going to miss, getting up at 2 o'clock in the morning," Kalis said. "It was rough on my wife (Leigh) because we'd have to eat like old people at 5 o'clock in the afternoon."

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Kalis grew up in Milwaukee. He spent four years in the Air Force as a military policeman.

After graduating from Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a broadcasting degree, he went to work for WFRV-TV in Green Bay. After spending just two years there, Kalis came to Nashville.

"I thought I'd be here a year or two and I'd be off to the big time," Kalis said. "But after I got here I met my wife here and I've got this old German mentality. My father would tell me until he died, 'Son, keep your mouth closed, be grateful you have a job and you do it where you're at.' That became my mentality, and I just wanted to stay."

In 2011, Kalis was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Metro Football Coaches Association. In 2013, he was inducted into the Nashville Speedway Hall of Fame.

Reach Mike Organ at 615-259-8021 and on Twitter @MikeOrganWriter.