Generation Yap -- They Are Worlds Apart In Era And Style, But Are They Really That Different? Meet A Journeyman Radio Personality And A Hot Young Talent.

1995: Rob Tepper, "The T-Man," 26, becomes the morning personality at hit-music station KUBE-FM. He has barely two years of experience in radio.

Some people spend years working their way up the radio food chain to make it to a big market, and other people have all the luck - plus talent, a voice, gumption.

Tepper has no shortage of self-esteem. In his first newspaper interview, he predicted he'd have the top-rated morning show in town in six months to a year.

That had some radio veterans in town rolling their eyes. Not only will he have to retain listeners accustomed to a far gentler style, he and his cocky attitude will have to gain many converts in a market that doesn't change much.

But look at it from Tepper's perspective: A year ago he was making $18,000 a year. Today, if he's earning what others make at top-rated stations here, he is pulling down six figures. He was driving a '76 Oldsmobile. Now he has a BMW. He's in a conquering mood.

"I listened to all the morning shows in this town and I thought to myself that everyone is doing '70s radio," Tepper said. "People in this city are caught in a time warp, and they're probably going to be shocked by my show."

In civil Seattle, maybe. At the very least, listeners were shocked in September to find Tepper's assertive, flirtatious, occasionally outrageous persona on 93.3 FM, where Charlie Brown, Ty Flint and Mary White - the cheerful, upbeat team now on '70s-hits KJR-FM (95.7) - resided for 14 years.

Moving Charlie and Ty and Mary from Top 40-rhythm KUBE over to co-owned KJR-FM was long the plan by New Century Media, but it took a while to find the right replacement, someone who would appeal to younger KUBE listeners. In the end, he was right under their noses, down the hall, working the phones at night on sports-talk KJR-AM (950).

The T-Man's off-the-wall program, which invoked his and his callers' real lives as much as athletics, had earned him word-of-mouth notoriety, but sports radio is a narrow niche, and most people had never heard of him.

"We used to joke that Rob would make a really great morning guy if we had the guts to put him on one of our FM stations," said Bob Case, the vice president of operations and programming for all three stations.

Tepper was born in Queens, N.Y., in 1969. Until last year he spent his life in the shadow of the Big Apple. His father is an accountant and his mother is a dean at Ramapo College in New Jersey.

Like many radio-talents-to-be, Tepper was an underachieving clown. He got kicked out of class a lot.

"I was a big-time disappointment to my family in high school," Tepper said. "I had a brother and sister who went to Harvard. Both my parents are very bright. I was the big dope of the family. I barely made it through high school."

"He's always been very liked by people," said his mother. "Since he was a very young child. I guess that was what made it so tough in school. Teachers loved him, kids loved him, everybody loved him. People were frustrated by his refusal to do conventional things like homework."

His mother helped Tepper get into college - the University of Hartford, which, if you say it fast enough, sounds like "Harvard," he jokes.

Tepper combined his passion for sports with radio, calling games for the student station. He landed an internship, then a real job, at WFAN-AM in New York, the nation's preeminent sports-talk station. He phoned in live reports from pro games, did behind-the-scenes work and nagged his bosses to let him on the air. They told him to get experience in a smaller market.

In the summer of 1994, Tepper landed at KVEG-AM, a sports-talk station in Las Vegas - for three weeks. A manager at the Las Vegas-based SportsFan network heard him and hired him to produce the overnight show. Eventually Tepper got behind the microphone and could be heard nationwide.

KJR-AM carried his show between 3 and 5 a.m. Case was tipped off. "I listened and called him immediately," he said. That was about a year ago.

By last March, Tepper was on KJR-AM, making more than twice what he was making with SportsFan. His departure from Las Vegas was not clean, with both Tepper and the network claiming breach of contract. Legal action is pending in King County Superior Court. He has a three-year contract at KUBE.

Tepper arrives just a few minutes before his show. He does no preparation. Everything is off-the-cuff, often dependent on what the caller on the next phone line is about to say. He has a New York attitude, and that includes occasional ridicule.

The talk is also personal, with Tepper relating his life outside work, chatting about his live-in girlfriend, who works at Nordstrom.

In the summer Arbitron ratings, KUBE was tied for fifth in morning drive, with news-talk KIRO-AM (710) on top. It is now the middle of the fall radio-ratings period, and The T-Man's first report card will be out in a couple of months. Report cards are what it's all about in radio. Listeners and bosses can be fickle. Longevity is elusive.

"Save your money!" is what his mother has told him.

A former boss has lent him perspective, too.

"It's strange how some guys make it quicker than others," said Eric Spitz, assistant program director at WFAN. "It's weird, like catching lightning in a bottle.

"I just hope - and I've told him this - that it's not too quick, that he won't burn out in six months. I've told him to remember the people on the way up, because you'll see them again on the way down."