Cory Hepola

KVUE sports reporter Cory Hepola is leaving after less than a year here to join the new Comcast SportsNet Houston team. Hepola, who has been a very strong sports journalist for KVUE, ended his Austin work Saturday by covering the Texas-West Virginia game.

He came to KVUE last November from WROC-TV in Rochester, New York to join his then-fiance, FOX 7 reporter Camille Williams, whom he met when they worked at competing stations in Elmira, New York. The couple was married earlier this year.  No word yet on whether Williams will be joining her husband in Houston and leaving the local Fox outlet.

When he joined KVUE, Hepola told me, “I try to go beyond the xs and os of sports. I try to find little nuggets and tell stories of athletes who have gone through something non-sports related. The biggest compliment I can get is from a non-sports fan who tells me they understood and enjoyed my story.”

In my opinion, he has delivered on that goal.

Leila Rahimi

Hepola is the second sports reporter with Austin roots to join Comcast SportsNet Houston, now in its second week. Leila Rahimi, who left KXAN last spring, also joined the start-up Houston operation several weeks ago after spending this past baseball season with Fox Sports San Diego as the field reporter on San Diego Padres telecasts.

According to a story in the Houston Chronicle, CSN Houston is owned by the NBC Sports Group (23 percent) and by the Houston Astros (46 percent) and Houston Rockets (31 percent). In addition to games, it also will feature Rockets and Astros-themed programming plus high school and college programming.