Signing Off in The A-T-L

WXIA 11 Alive sports anchor Randy Walters is retiring next month after 29 years at the station.

He's the longest-running sports anchor in town. He's been reliable, flexible and upstanding. But showy and egotistical? Not on your life.

"I never felt like the big fish," Waters said the to Atlanta Journal Constitution. "I enjoy being out in the field as much or more than being in the studio. There are so many things in life more important than what day or time I'm on TV."

"You're not curing cancer," he added, with a chuckle. "Thank God we don't work on airplanes because we make a lot of mistakes."

His colleague of 21-plus years Fred Kalil called him a great teammate, a helpful human being and a man of many skills. He was thrilled to see Waters take over the evening sports anchor desk for him when Kalil needed to stop doing so for medical reasons a few months ago. "If anybody deserves going out being the main guy, it's him," Kalil said.