Conversations: Play-by-Play with Bill Hillgrove

You can walk around a city, a museum, an art gallery, a winery, or a nature preserve, and see it for yourself. But when guided, it takes on another dimension. You’ll see things that otherwise might elude you. Think of a sports broadcast play-by-play man as a tour guide. You’ll get the score (and the score), the scoop, the dope, the skinny…all the background info you need, not knowing you even need it. That’s the purpose of the play-by-play man (Sorry, I’m not aware of any play-by-play women).
Unfortunately, if your tour guide comes across as annoying, ingratiating or effusive…and plenty do…it will taint your experience.  But, get a guy who is astute, congenial, and otherwise erudite, and has a great command of voice, delivery and language…then it’s quite entertaining.
So let’s focus on those latter guys.
After all, sports television is first and foremost, entertainment.  If you’re entertained, you watch.  If you watch, you buy what television and sports has to sell, which is mostly the stuff you crave… food, phones, beer, cars, investing, and sex (in all it’s obvious and subtle forms).
Sportscasters shape our experience of the game whether we want them to or not. Then the color analyst touts his/her perspective, which enlightens us and has us digest the game differently.  He/she tells us what we saw and what we didn’t.  Did you actually see the Steelers’ left guard pulling or trapping?  Most likely not–until Phil Simms, Troy Aikman or Tunch Ilkin pointed it out.  Radio play-by-play men have an even larger canvas to paint, due to the sightless medium.
Bill Hillgrove has been painting and guiding us through the Steelers’ radio broadcasts for 22 years, ever since Jack Fleming retired in 1994.  Fleming’s stint was 28 years with the Steelers, including calling the Immaculate Reception.  When Fleming “retired,” in the same manner that Steeler’s offensive coordinator Bruce Arians and defensive coordinator Dick Lebeau “retired,” Dan Rooney drafted Bill Hillgrove for the job.
Hillgrove was broadcasting the University of Pittsburgh football and basketball Panthers (and still does), when invited to step into the Steeler’s broadcast booth to take over for Fleming, who was partnered for 24 years with free-lance journalist and sometimes TV sports anchor (and the most unlikely of TV personalities), Myron Cope.
Cope himself was floored that anyone would want his crooked face, let alone his whiney, nasal voice on television.  But Cope had that weird and wacky magnetism about him.  He was a rascal and a bit of a tyrant, but also a well-respected writer for Sports Illustrated and other publications.  He also had heart.
Cope spent 35 years broadcasting Steeler color with Fleming and Hillgrove, inventing the Terrible Towel in the process.   Some refer to Hillgrove and the late Cope as an institution.
Hillgrove now works with former Steeler lineman Tunch Ilkin.
Hillgrove has been a DJ on radio in the ‘60s, a sports anchor and booth announcer at Channel 4 (WTAE) in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and the main Steeler tour guide since the ‘90s.
NFL football differs from other team sports.  It has no local TV broadcasting, which is handled by the networks.  Otherwise, Hillgrove might be on TV, I think.  I wondered what he would think of doing television.  I sat with him in Bella Luna Trattoria in Westmoreland County to ask him a few questions. It must be one of his favorite water stops…everyone seemed to know him.
Me:  Would you like to do television?
Bill Hillgrove:  No.
Okel Dokel…as Myron might say to that.
Despite Hillgrove’s long tenure on television as a sports anchor for WTAE, he has no desire to do television play-by-play.  Radio is his thing, and has been since he was 13.  “My first love has always been radio,” he tells me.
His schedule is demanding, juggling three balls in the air as he puts it, with Panther football, Panther basketball and his Steeler broadcasts.  I wondered how he keeps it all straight. “I have great tunnel vison and am able to lock in,” he replies to the query.  “I have the ability to block out the elevator noise.”
Over the years, Hillgrove has been influenced by some great broadcasters, like Fleming himself.  Ed Conway (the Penguins first broadcaster) from Channel 4 was a mentor as well. Hillgrove served as Conway’s assistant on Pitt basketball broadcasts.  And there was Ray Scott too, the legendary sportscaster mostly associated with the Green Bay Packers and the early Super Bowl broadcasts, whom Hillgrove met at Channel 4, when he was a part timer.  “I was an associate producer, station wagon driver, tour guide, switchboard operator…and I got to meet him (Scott) and we had some meaty conversations,” says Hillgrove. “He told me about the system I use today, with two spotters.  He was a very influential person in who I wanted to become.  He said 95% of your work is before you step into the booth.  Let the game come to you.  That’s golden advice.”
After decades and decades in broadcasting, Bill Hillgrove’s passion has not waned.  “I think if it did, you would see it in my work,” he offers.  “The guy upstairs will decide when I retire.”
 Hillgrove alludes quite a bit to his holiness upstairs (no, it’s not Dan Rooney) while sharing with me his history and view of broadcast life.  He has an aunt that is a nun.  He started in radio at 13, doing radio dramas for the diocese, playing type, as a 13-year-old brat…just what the sisters were looking for.
There is no typical work week for him. “The schedule dictates everything,” he concedes…yet there is some routine.  “On Mondays there is the Pitt news conference and Tuesdays it’s Mike Tomlin’s press conference.  Wednesdays it’s the Pat Narduzzi show for Pitt basketball and Thursday, it’s back to the Steelers,” he quips.
When I asked him what his best asset was, he paused.  “I’ve never thought of it,” he said.  I offered up his voice.  “My voice is what God gave me. But my wife is a vocal teacher and we talk from time to time about giving support to the voice.  I’ve got to project and talk over the crowd, talking from the diaphragm and not from the throat, up here” (he signals to his neck).  “If you did, then you would sound like Myron,” said I.  He threw out a hearty laugh.  “Yeah,” he replied, “but he used it well.  He took what God gave him and made a living, as only he could.”
Yoi!
I probed some more.
Me:  How hard is the travel on your family?
BH:  The family lives in punt formation.  It’s not a problem.
Punt formation…a great metaphor.  I continued.
Me:  Do you ever feel pressure or overwhelmed?
BH:  I don’t give those things time to set in.  I’m on deadlines and I’m always moving forward to the next deadline.  That has gotten me through. People expect you to be there when the game is on.
Hillgrove wasn’t really looking for the play-by-play job.  “I was a friend of Jack Flemings and when he ‘retired,’ he wasn’t happy about it,” laments Hillgrove.  “They (the Steelers) gave him a nudge and I said I’m not going there. I have the TV thing.  And then, all of a sudden, I’m a candidate for a job I never sought.  Apparently, Dan Rooney called the Pitt chancellor and asked if he would mind sharing broadcasters.  With Myron in the booth, the play-by-play guy was only along for the ride.  He was Mr. Steeler broadcast.  It was his show.  He did it uniquely and very well.”
Hillgrove then launches into his Cope imitation, which by the way, is pretty good.   Hillgrove had asked Cope why he brought in so many index cards on players and stats.  Hillgrove’s Cope says… “if the game becomes a clocker in the fourth quarter, we got to keep the listeners.”   Classic Cope.
ME:  What is your most memorable game?
BH:  For the Steelers?  Super Bowl 43 (Santonio Holmes’ winning TD catch in the corner of the end zone). That was pretty special.  In college, Tony Dorsett breaking Archie Griffin’s rushing record at Navy in October of ’76.  I started crying.  It was a once in a lifetime moment. He was the greatest college running back I ever saw.
I asked him who were some of the best partners he has worked with.  Hillgrove worked with Johnny Sauer on Pitt football broadcasts.  Sauer was his color guy for 20 years.  “Johnny Sauer taught me more about football… he just knew the game,” says Hillgrove.  Sauer’s resume was impressive…player and coach at West Point, coaching the Florida Gators, Citadel Bulldogs and Los Angeles Rams, scouting for the Vikings, and doing color for the NFL on CBS.
Me:  What athlete do you admire most?
BH:  Terry Bradshaw, Andy Russell, Rocky Bleier, Tony Dorsett, Dan Marino, Hugh Green, Ricky Jackson, Bill Fralic.  And I like Bettis.
Me:  Who should be in the hall of fame that is not?
BH:  Elroy Face. He took relief pitching from this level (pointing down) to the level it is today.  If he had toiled in Chicago, LA, Boston or New York, he would have been in already.  Pittsburgh is considered an outpost.
Me:  Who is the best player you ever covered?
BH:  Joe Greene.  He was the lynch pin of the franchise and where it is today and what it’s expectations are.   He changed the culture of the Steelers.
Me:  And the best coach?
BH:  Chuck Noll, hands down.
Hillgrove goes to the games as early as possible to prep for the day’s events after putting in about 12-15 hours of prep during the week.  For him, the game is a magic carpet and he just goes for the ride.  And when he’s not riding the carpet in the off-season, he spends his time with golf, his place in Conneaut, cleaning out his garage, and reading fiction and jazz bios.
Cope retired (actually retired) in 2005 and died in 2008.  And what might Myron say to his friend, Bill Hillgrove, on the thought of  him slowing down?  Um huh!  Gorganzola!
Lee Kann is a media producer and a writer. contact: [email protected]

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