Four Inane Questions with Sports Radio 810 WHB’s Todd Leabo

Todd Leabo interviews Mahomes. // Courtesy Todd Leabo

This past August, Sports Radio 810 WHB celebrated a milestone marker—the station’s 100th year on the air. While many locals know it primarily as a powerhouse sports radio station, it was originally a Top 40 format. In fact, it helped pioneer the genre as the first station in the country to play Top 40 music 24 hours per day. 

Veteran sportscaster (and Independence native) Todd Leabo has been with the station since they switched to their all-sports format back in 1999. To hear Todd tell the tale, he’s always been a sports aficionado. “I spent my teen years as a food vendor at the Royals and Chiefs, watching more than selling,” he tells us. 

Since joining the station, he’s become one of the market’s most revered and trusted authorities on all things sportsball. And, if given the opportunity, he’ll talk your ear off about anything pertaining to local sports teams, players, and stats. “My title is Vice President of Sport Operations, although that only means that I’ve worked there a long time,” he jokes. 

When asked, Leabo told us he was up to the challenge of answering our four truly inane questions. Uh, we threw one sports question in the mix just to hold his interest. (Bless our non-sporty hearts.)

The Pitch: Name a movie where you can recite each and every line verbatim. 

Todd Leabo: Raising Arizona. I saw this in a nearly empty theater while I was in high school with one of my best friends (still to this day). We were in the right mood and laughed our butts off and still quote the movie in conversation today:

• “Her insides were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase.” 
• “The government do take a bite, don’t she.”
• “Nobody sleeps naked in the house.”
• “Federal B.I.”
• “Say, that reminds me, something’s wrong with my semen.”
• “If round is funny…”
• “Anyone found bipedal in five wears his ass for a hat.”

The list goes on and on. My kids even repeat lines from Raising Arizona because they’ve heard me say them so often.

You have the ability to banish one sport from the earth. What is it? 

Probably synchronized swimming. I’m not a fan of most sports that are judged and scored. That includes diving, figure skating, and gymnastics. Synchronized swimming takes the cake, though. They’re really just treading water to music. C’mon. 

Admit it—what’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said live on the air?

I’ve got two. I said the “F” word on the air one time while I was doing a live hit back in the day. I was a celebrity caddie during a Pro-Am Champions tour event at Tiffany Greens. I casually slipped that I “fucked up” when referring to my performance as a caddie. No one back at the station hit the dump button, so thousands of listeners heard it loud and clear. Luckily, no FCC fine. 

Another time I was talking on the air about how severe a penalty was for something, and I said “penile” instead of “penal.” I must’ve heard too many E.D. commercials. We had a good laugh about that one.

Who was your first celeb childhood crush?

I’ll go with Justine Bateman—Mallory Keaton from Family Ties. I loved that show when I was a kid. She was cute and a total smart-ass to her brother, Alex P. Keaton. Then, she was in a rock-n-roll movie called Satisfaction when I was in high school. It was awful, but I’ve always liked girls who could rock.

Bonus 5th Question: What game show could you unequivocally win with the greatest of ease?

It would be a dream to appear on Jeopardy! I DVR it and watch it every day. With the right set of categories, I could win a day or two. I know just enough about most of the things they ask on that show. And if I got lucky and there were some sports-adjacent categories, I could get the job done. 

Most of the nerds on Jeopardy! look like a deer in headlights when there’s anything about sports on the board. A more reasonable show would be Wheel of Fortune—just don’t get unlucky on the spins and that one would be easy money.