Gary Tanguay hesitates just a bit when asked what the greatest aspect of his job is.

As co-host of Fox Sports Net’s New England Sports Tonight, he meets lots of celebrities, covers a lot of premier sporting events, and travels to all kinds of interesting locales around the country.

“You know, covering the Patriots and the Super Bowl was great and going to see the Red Sox at Fenway never gets old,” said the Rumford native. “I’ve interviewed Ted Williams and had a beer with him after.”

Here comes the “but.”

“But the thing that thrills me the most is talking to the guys I followed growing up like John Havlicek, Jo Jo White and Tommy Heinsohn,” he added. “I had a chance to do play-by-play with Rico Petrocelli, who I saw hit a home run for the Sox with my dad as a kid.”

It’s been a circuitous route to Boston and the FSNNE studios for Tanguay from Orono, where he graduated from the University of Maine in 1986 with a journalism-speech degree.

The first stop was the Bangor Hildreth Street studios of WABI radio (910 AM) and television (Channel 5), where Tanguay worked as a disc jockey for three years and a TV intern for a semester.

“I did an occasional football game, but mostly it was DJ stuff,” said Tanguay, a member of one of the last graduating classes at now-defunct Mexico High School (1982). “They already had plenty of guys doing games at WABI with Bob Dow, Gary Thorne and George Hale.”

After graduation, it was off to Biddeford and WIDE (1400 AM), where he played music and looked out for any opportunity to do sportscasts. A year later he moved to Exeter, N.H., to be sports director at AM station WMYF. He did morning sports reports and called high school football games for two years. Tanguay’s road to cable television then took a major detour.

“I was 25 and I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue in radio, so I went into sales for a bank design firm,” said Tanguay, now 40. “I handled national accounts and traveled across the country for five years.”

He was reeled back into broadcasting as a part-time announcer for Boston radio station WEEI. As much as he liked it, however, Tanguay dropped the weekend job after a couple years. But the broadcasting gods weren’t done with him just yet. Several months later, a friend called from WBZ in Boston’s and wanted him to get back into the business.

“I offered to work on the weekends and then I got the bug again,” he said. “So at age 29 or so, I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do for the rest of my life and decided to give radio another chance.”

Tanguay hosted the Calling All Sports talk show on WTKK in Boston and also worked part-time for WEEI. In 1995, he made his first foray into TV by filling in as a sportscaster for WBZ-TV (Channel 4) in Boston. Later, he started filling in for Jimmy Young at New England Cable News, where he won an Associated Press award for a feature on a local boxing champion.

The part-time gigs led to a full-time one at WLVI (Ch. 56), where he was a reporter-anchor for two years. He also started working for Rhode Island’s Cox Cable as a play-by-play man for University of Rhode Island football and basketball and Pawtucket Red Sox games.

The year 2000 was a big one for Tanguay. He married wife Randi and accepted a job offer from FSNNE to co-host with Greg Dickerson. The job was just what he was looking for.

“It’s been terrific. I feel our show has developed a real niche. We get e-mails from people all over the country,” Tanguay said while keeping one eye on Thursday afternoon’s Red Sox game and providing updates to his interviewer.

Tanguay especially likes the flexible script for the free-flowing show, which airs at 6:30 and 10 p.m. weeknights.

“I love the freedom of my job. It’s just ad-libbing all the time. I have no idea what Greg’s opinion is 95 percent of the time. The spontaneity is awesome.”

Despite living in Boston and enjoying his fast-paced life with Randi and 21/2-year-old daughter Harper, Tanguay doesn’t stray far from his Maine roots.

“My sister, my brother-in-law and dad still live in Rumford,” he said. We were back there for Christmas and went up again in the spring, and I’m coming back up in July.”

Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600 or at aneff@bangordailynews.net