After graduating from Eureka and working his final summer at Lowell Park, Dutch faced his first true crisis: what to do? During that summer, Dutch made friends with a Kansas City businessman named Sid Altschuler in whom Dutch confided his growing dismay about his future. At one point, Dutch suggested he might be considering work in radio, as a sports announcer. This kind of job seemed like a natural outgrowth of his two interests (sports and acting).Altschuler agreed and was encouraging, "Well, you've picked a line in which I have no connections, " he said. "You've picked a sound industry and one that should have hundreds of undreamed directions. .... So start knocking on doors, tell everyone who'll listen that you believe you have a future in the business, and you'll take any kind of job, even sweeping floors, just to get in."
With that encouragement from Altschuler, Dutch made a trip to Chicago looking for radio work, ready to take anything offered. He walked from company to company trying to convince someone he would make a good announcer, but no one would hire an inexperienced employee. Finally, a staffer at NBC in Chicago told Dutch to get some experience "in the sticks" before trying the Chicago market again.
Stung by the reception in Chicago and following his father's advice to try every station along the Mississippi that he can get to in one day, Dutch decided to try one last time looking for radio work. On one of these trips, he ended up at the WOC ("World of Chiropractic") radio station in Davenport, Iowa. There he talked with Pete McArthur, WOC's program director. There Dutch gave his usual selling pitch and explained he would do any announcing job, but McArthur interrupted him to say they filled the only position the day before. Reagan walked off in frustration, muttering about his aborted dream to be a sports announcer. "How in the hell," he recalled saying, "does a guy ever get to be a sports announcer if he can't get inside a station?" McArthur heard his comment and called him back. After more discussions, McArthur took Dutch into a studio and told him to try and describe an imaginary football game, describe it in such detail and with such enthusiasm that made McArthur see the players on the field. Reagan went into the studio, and described one of his own games at Eureka with all the spirit and enthusiasm as he could muster.
By the end of the "game," McArthur decided to give Reagan a trial run at the real Iowa-Minnesota Homecoming game. Reagan's football experiences at Eureka had landed him a job and while the Mid-West suffers from the Great Depression, Dutch makes enough to send money home to support the family.


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