Excerpt from article, "Race Matters: Overcoming the hidden taboos of crossing the color line"

by Jesse Hamlin, Chronicle Staff Writer
February 19, 2006

Gary and Alicia Radnich fell for each other a decade ago, got hitched and have two beautiful young daughters.

A lot of people on the street recognize Radnich's big cheery mug. He's the veteran KRON-TV sportscaster and KNBR talk show host who's famous for his straight-talking style, ad-lib jokes and jibes. But once in a while, when he's out with his wife, he feels someone's gaze lingering longer than usual.

Radnich likes to turn around with a smile and ask, "Excuse me, is she too black or too young?''

The flustered party usually blurts out something like, "Oh, no, she's a beautiful girl,'' Radnich says. "That stops' 'em right there.''

He and his family are dining on seafood salad at Fisherman's Grotto No. 9 on the Wharf, one of their hangouts. Padrone Mike Geraldi coos over the kids in their brown and pink polka-dot dresses -- Jolie is 6, Isabella, 21 months -- and takes them over to see the fish tank so the folks can talk.

The couple met in '94 at KRON, where Alicia became a writer and producer. She was leery of office romances. But Radnich happened. "I fell in love with Gary,'' she says. "I fell in love with his work, his spirit. He's a kind man. He has a really great sense of humor, and I think I've a good sense of humor. I married my best friend. He has a little bit of soul, and that doesn't hurt.''

Race wasn't an issue, she says. "It was never a question of, 'Oh my gosh, he's Caucasian.' I grew up in West Los Angeles in a diverse, multicultural neighborhood. My mom was a teacher, and she raised us to accept and embrace all ethnicities, all cultures.''

Radnich was drawn to Alicia -- "I got a kick out of her, and what the hell, she's pretty good-lookin', too,'' he says -- but wanted to take it slow. He'd been divorced for about five years after a 15-year marriage that produced three kids, now grown. He wasn't looking to get hitched.

His caution, he says, had nothing to do with the race difference; it was the age difference that gave him pause. At 55, he's 17 years older than Alicia.

"I said, 'Kid, if you can't find anybody else, stick with me. If you can find somebody younger, a little better guy, go ahead. If you can't, I'm not going anyplace.' ''

"And here we are,'' she chimes in, "all these years later.''

Unlike some checkerboard couples, these two encountered no resistance from their respective families. Once Alicia's grandma Nana gave Gary the thumbs up, the rest of her family was cool.

"She loved him immediately,'' Alicia says, "and she doesn't like too many people.''

Radnich's folks were equally supportive. He was very close with his late father, William Radunich, a one-time boxer, rancher and pest-control guy whose father had immigrated from Belgrade. Gary's mom is a Santa Barbara gal of Scottish stock.

"My dad said, 'Good for you, it's about time,' '' Radnich recalls. "Here's a guy who's pretty set in his ways, and a 17-year younger black woman is in love with (his son). You could see where that would jolt you a little bit. But they never said a word.''

Radnich grew up in San Jose, where he spent summers playing basketball on city playgrounds with black guys. He was good, (Radnich went on to play at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas) and sought out the best players to test his skills. Skin tone didn't matter, he says. "If you were a black guy and couldn't play -- my brutha, nothin', get him off the court and get a white guy in here who can play.''

Racist remarks occasionally come his way. After seeing a picture of his family in a newspaper story about his 20th year on KRON, Radnich got a letter from a guy who said he couldn't be the "king of Bay Area media'' because his wife was black. He brushes it off. Some people are just ignorant, he shrugs.

"When it comes down to it, everybody wants the same thing, whether you're black or white. Everybody wants to be respected, everybody wants to be able to pay the rent, everybody wants to have somebody to love and somebody to love them.'' As for the rest of it, "who cares?''

On occasion, Alicia has been mistaken for her daughters' nanny. One woman asked how long she'd been taking care of Jolie.

"Since she was conceived,'' replied Alicia. She mentions her brother, who's married to a fair-skinned Venezuelan woman. Because mom's white and dad's black, his kids wanted to know "what are we?'' He answered by pouring chocolate syrup over vanilla ice cream and mixing it up. "You can't separate it now,'' he told his kids. "You're part of the vanilla ice cream and the chocolate syrup.''

Alicia Radnich tells her girls something similar: "You don't have to say you're this or that. You're one happy mix.''

(To read the full article, please go here).

E-mail Jesse Hamlin at jhamlin@sfchronicle.com.