Hood on ESPN 1000 and manages a YouTube page, @rekapdavidkaplan, where he posts recaps of Cubs, White Sox, and Bears games, as well as other Chicago and major sporting events.
[2] Kaplan grew up in Skokie, Illinois and is a graduate of Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he received a bachelor's degree in English.
[1][3] He was an assistant on head coach John McDougal's staff at Northern Illinois University from 1982 to 1986 for NIU's Men's Basketball Team.
After Waddle left to join ESPN Radio in February 2007, Kaplan hosted the show on a solo basis until March 2010.
It was the longest-running sports talk show in Chicago (began in 1982), until March 2010 when the former Program Director Kevin Metheny, who was characterized in the Howard Stern movie Private Parts as Kenny "Pig Vomit" Rushton, opted to replace the program with a non-sports oriented talk show.
[3][11][12] In 2013, this show changed its name to Sports Talk Live, which Kaplan hosted for several years until it was cancelled by the pandemic in August 2020.
[16] In November 2022, Kaplan announced he would be leaving NBC Sports Chicago at the end of the year, choosing to focus on his ESPN radio show and growing YouTube channel.
[citation needed] In addition, he co-authored the award-winning "Around Town" column in the Chicago Tribune with longtime writer Fred Mitchell from 2009 to 2011.