The man who is trying to bring back ‘Leonard’s Losers’
“Kentucky vs. Alabama.
“The Wildcats leave the Bluegrass State for Tuscaloosa, hoping to catch a Red Elephant napping on Saturday afternoon ...”
When George Yardley was a young football fan in the 1960s and ‘70s, a staple of his autumn weekends was the “Leonard’s Losers” radio show.
Originating from Athens, Ga., “Leonard’s Losers” was a college football prediction program in which the host, literally, picked the loser of games.
Under the pseudonym “Leonard Postoasties,” Georgia businessman Leonard Postero predicted outcomes in a delivery rich with down-homey, Southern witticisms.
The show made college football fun — and had a way of sticking with you.
In the vernacular of “Leonard’s Losers,” a Florida-Georgia game was not a battle between the Gators and the Bulldogs:
It was the “Giant Water Lizards” vs. the “Red-Clay Hounds.”
As a child just beginning to follow University of Kentucky sports, I can still remember Leonard’s references to “Fran Curci and his pack of frisky Felines. ...”
At its height, the syndicated “Leonard’s Losers,” was on over 1,400 radio stations, including Armed Forces Radio. On Nov. 11, 1985, The New York Times ran a profile about the show.
“Leonard was kind of an icon with his clever delivery and all the colorful remarks he could make about the coaches,” Yardley says. “Growing up outside Knoxville, we were all big football fans, my friends and I, so when you knew Leonard was coming on, you all just dropped everything you were doing (to listen).”
Alas, the show that had been a staple of college football Saturdays from 1958 — when Postero began “Leonard’s Losers” at WRFC-AM in Athens — through 1999 faded away in the 21st century.
Postero retired after the 1999 season and died in 2001 (in 2013, he was posthumously inducted into the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame).
An Athens, Ga., attorney, Len Davis, took over the program and tried to keep “Leonard’s Losers” going. Without the creative spark of the show’s originator, however, it did not last.
Yet even as the years passed after the show went off the air, Yardley’s affection for “Leonard’s Losers” never dulled.
So back in 2012, Yardley adopted the “Leonard’s Losers” shtick and began picking “about four or five games each week,” he says. “I would just send them out to friends. But the thing was, my little email list started to grow and grow.”
That made Yardley, 73, wonder if there was the potential for launching a “Leonard’s Losers” revival.
“I knew there was a trademark involved,” Yardley says. “So I got a patent attorney in Knoxville. ... It took almost two years of paperwork and waiting periods until I obtained the trademark.”
Now, the Dandridge, Tenn., resident is trying to recapture the magic of “Leonard Postoasties” and his “little smart pill machine.”
At the website www.theleonardslosers.com, one can listen to Yardley pick games each week in the style and manner of “Leonard’s Losers.”
On Sundays, Yardley says he begins doing research on the following Saturday’s games, as well as working on his scripts for that week’s predictions.
He tries to post each week’s predictions by Wednesday at 5 p.m.
“I’m not (the original) Leonard. I’m not that clever, I’m not that good,” Yardley says. “But, I’ve never had anyone call me and say, ‘Hell, man, you aren’t worth a (crap).’”
Yardley would like to rebuild the radio syndication of “Leonard’s Losers.” As of late last month, he said he had “about five stations,” concentrated in Alabama and Tennessee.
“As I tell folks, this is a work in progress,” Yardley says. “My phone number is on the website, you can contact me.”
We now inhabit a very different media environment, of course, than the one in which “Leonard’s Losers” thrived.
College football fans seeking predictions now plan their Saturdays around the game picks on ESPN’s “College GameDay.”
With “Leonard’s Losers” having been dormant for almost two decades, Yardley understands that “the youth market” has no point of reference for the show.
“If you are younger than (40), you’ve probably never heard of Leonard,” Yardley says. “That’s one of the challenges.”
I asked Yardley if he is trying to rekindle “Leonard’s Losers” primarily to have fun or to try to make money.
“It’s fun right now because I’m not making any money,” he said, laughing. “The trademark wasn’t cheap, so I would like to recoup that.”
Yardley says he spent “about $3,500 to $4,000” in acquiring the trademark to “Leonard’s Losers.”
“(Doing) ’Leonard’s Losers’ is fun. I enjoy doing it,” Yardley says. “And if you listen and I can make you laugh or smile or chuckle, I’ve had a good week.”
“... The Tide is riding on the No. 1 horse in the polls, and it would be unlikely that the Felines will sneak up on the Pachyderms.
“Leonard’s Loser: Kentucky.”
— From George Yardley’s Week 11 predictions at www.theleonardslosers.com.
This story was originally published November 19, 2020 at 5:44 PM.
