A longtime staple of Springfield’s sports media community will soon be joined by a relatively fresh face. 

Art Hains, the longtime host of Sports Talk on the Jock radio station, has a co-host as of Wednesday in News-Leader sports reporter Wyatt Wheeler. 

“(Wheeler) has been on with several of our hosts and really done an outstanding job,” said Tom Ladd, operations manager for the station. “His knowledge of the local scene grows every week, every month. He’s young but he’s done a fantastic job covering the sports scene, really on a solo basis.”

More: Here are the athletes who impressed us the most during Week 4 of the high school football season

Wheeler has been the News-Leader’s only full-time sports reporter since he was hired to the job in 2017, one year after he started part-time. 

On the flip side, Hains has hosted Sports Talk since 1995. He was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2016 and is the voice of the Missouri State Bears. He is also the studio host for the Kansas City Chiefs. 

“Wyatt will add a very different element to the show,” Hains said in a news release. “He is obviously of a younger generation and will bring a fresh perspective and will lend himself to some interesting back and forth with me and the listeners.”

Ladd said he has talked to Art for years about having someone to “play off of.”

He though Wheeler would be a good fit. 

“We love his work both with the newspaper and with us,” Ladd said. “Covering games, giving us reports on the radio. We thought he’d make a good co-host.”

Wheeler said he’s also excited about the opportunity. 

“Art Hains is someone I’ve always looked to as a young sports reporter in southwest Missouri,” he said. “Joining his show is an honor and I’m looking forward to working with him and giving sports fans in the Ozarks an entertaining product on a nightly basis.”

Just as Hains wears multiple hats professionally, Wheeler will continue to be a full-time sports reporter for the News-Leader. 

Zimmer Midwest Communications took over the family of stations in July and has worked quickly to make several changes. That has included moving sports programming off of 98.7 in favor of music, and instead parking ESPN Jock Radio on three stations: AM 1060, FM 96.9, and FM 99.9. 

Sports Talk airs Monday-Friday from 4-6 p.m.

Recent weeks have also seen the return of Ned Reynolds to the Jock’s morning slot. Ladd said they’re currently working on establishing a consistent co-host for Reynolds as well. 

“Plenty of people love working with (Reynolds),” Ladd said. “I expect we’ll have some exciting news to release in the coming weeks about Ned’s show and the station as a whole.”