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Full Description
Myron Cope was the color commentator for Pittsburgh Steelers radio broadcasts from 1970 to 2005, the second-longest-serving team broadcaster in NFL history. At the peak of his popularity, an estimated 50 percent of Steeler fans turned down the volume on their TVs so they could listen to the radio as Cope, in his one-of-a-kind scratchy, raspy voice, barked out phrases like "Yoi" and "Okle-dokle," often fueled by bursts of excitability and his own beautiful brand of homerism. About his voice, Cope said, "Mine isn't a broadcaster's voice; it tends to cut through concrete." Cope helped forge the unbreakable bond between the city of Pittsburgh and its football team. His evening talk show, one of the first sports talk programs in the nation, dominated its time slot for more than twenty years, and he became the first pro football announcer elected to the National Radio Hall of Fame.
Born in Pittsburgh to parents of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry, Cope attended the University of Pittsburgh and became a journalist. Though he forged a successful career writing for magazines like Sports Illustrated, football fans grew to know Cope far more through the airwaves. Co-namer of the Immaculate Reception, he also created the Terrible Towel, the flag of Steelers Nation, when in 1975 he urged fans to bring gold towels to wave at a playoff game against the Baltimore Colts. Behind the scenes the Terrible Towel took on a deeper personal meaning, as Cope eventually assigned all royalties from the towels to the facility where his son, who was born with brain damage and never learned to speak, still resides. Throughout his life Cope, who passed away in 2008, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for children with disabilities.
Using Cope's own papers, correspondence, and tapes, plus interviews with friends and family, Dan Joseph and Elizabeth Cope, Myron's daughter, paint the first three-dimensional portrait of the creative, many-faceted man whom Pittsburghers still hold in high esteem and close to their hearts.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
A Few Words of Thanks
Prologue: Original Passion
1. Sports Nut in Squirrel Hill
2. "An Industrious Young Journalistic Prospect"
3. The Nut Specialist
4. A Trend toward Obnoxious Voices
5. Into the Steelers' Booth
6. Gorillas, Franco, and Frank
7. Great Name for a Kosher Play
8. Growing Up Cope
9. The Lines Are Open
10. Super-Steelers Years
11. Enter the Towel
12. The Eighties
13. Myron the Contrarian
14. Rolling with the Nineties
15. The Towel Returns
16. That Terrible Towel
17. "I'm Done"
18. Thankful
19. Bye Now
Afterword: Honored
Appendix: Cope's Catalog
Index
