It's fitting,
then, that this is the field in which Myron Cope triumphed. He, too,
is a dichotomy. Despite the public persona of a hammy, irrepressible
sports nut, Cope (Arts and Sciences '51) is actually a careful, deliberate
thinker and writer. His voice is kindly described as grating, yet
he himself is anything but. He's often sought out for his insight.
Yet a few--a very few, thank you--see him as a caricature, a 5' 4"
parody of a sports analyst who only works for the money, gags, and
exposure.
This last perception
is a false one, the price Cope pays for working in the reflected light
of celebrity: If you serve in the transmission tower of sports reporting,
you become a lightning rod.
There is much
that's memorable in Cope's sportscasting career--three decades as
Pittsburgh's premier radio and television commentator, a quarter century
(and counting) as the Steelers' color man, and inventor of the Terrible
Towel. But what one remembers is the voice.
"I was freelance
writing for Sports Illustrated and other magazines," he says,
"and the program director at WTAE radio said, 'We'd like you to do
commentary for us.' I said, 'Don't try to kid me. I've heard my voice
on tape.' And he said, 'That's okay. Obnoxious voices are coming into
style.'"
Cope laughs as
he retells the story. "So they put some equipment in my home, and
I started in. But I couldn't believe that I could talk at home and
people on the Parkway miles away could hear me, so I started shouting.
And I've been shouting ever since." The station heard from its share
of angry listeners. ("How can I wake up in the morning listening to
that voice?" he says, mimicking a typical call.) But his star began
its rise. By 1970, he was doing color for the Steelers and commentaries
on WTAE-TV. In 1973, he began hosting his own radio talk show.
"They had a fella
doing a talk show, and he wasn't succeeding," Cope remembers. "We
had a new general manager, and he spent his first day ensconced in
a hotel, listening to the station and jotting down ideas. I found
out years later that the first thing he wrote was Fire Cope.
That's usually the reaction to my voice. Anyway, he decided to drop
my friend's sports slot and give it to me. I didn't want it. For one
thing, it would be more of an incursion on my writing; secondly, I
didn't like talk shows. One host on another station used to insult
callers and hang up on them. I was brought up with some manners. And
I didn't want to knock my friend out of a job. Well, the station manager
put his foot on my chest, figuratively speaking. So I said, 'We'll
try it until January. If it doesn't work, okay.' But come January,
I liked it."
If he came to
broadcasting by fluke, he stayed there thanks to hard work. "I didn't
like having to say 'I don't know,'" he says. "I was a bear about preparing
myself. I suppose it stems from wanting to be sure that the show was
a continuing success. It's a competitive business."
Competitive or
not, Cope's career thrived. Partly it was his expertise: "Once people
become inured to my voice, they listen to the content." And partly
it was his honesty: "If the football team stinks, I'll say, 'They
stink.'" Mostly, however, it was his persona--the slightly wacky sportscaster
who would mug for the camera, who would agree to be filmed on a roller
coaster wearing a raincoat and holding a rubber duck, who would dress
as a doctor and peer into the "Cope-ra-Scope" to divine the Steelers'
prospects.
"I guess I found
I had natural ham in me," Cope says in stunning understatement. "I
wasn't aware of it. I think it started with the talk show. You're
ad-libbing all the time." Soon terms like "Yoy!" and "okel-dokel"
wormed their way into Pittsburgh's lexicon, as did Cope's first name,
twisted by local vernacular into a single syllable: Marn.
And soon national
offers came as well, but the Pittsburgh native has never left. "I
lived here all my life, and it's by choice," he says. "I had a number
of offers to leave, but I'm happy here."
Now retired except
for Steeler broadcasts, Cope spends his time being entirely too busy.
Although his golf game gets a better workout, he's still filming commercials
and working for his favorite charities, the Pittsburgh Autism Society
and Allegheny Valley School. "One thing I really looked forward to
when I retired was reading books that have nothing to do with sports,"
he says. "I became an ignoramus because I concentrated so much on
preparation for the talk show. So I pictured myself spending the whole
day reading at the township library. I haven't done that yet."
To those either
unaware or under a certain age, there was Cope the writer before there
was Marn the dialect-bound sports icon. There were nine years with
the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a stellar career as a feature
writer for national publications, plus four books and a host of articles
for other magazines.
And there was
a family and two kids. And decisions to be made.
His early decision--to
be a writer--was easy. "I always wanted to be a newspaper man," he
says. He worked for Taylor Allderdice's high school newspaper, then
as sports editor of The Pitt News. "I was a voracious reader,"
he recalls. "A. J. Liebling. The New Yorker. And Ring Lardner.
I used to stay awake as a kid 'til 3 a.m. reading Ring Lardner, laughing
out loud and waking up my family. Not too many years ago, I picked
him up again--and I thought, 'Why did I enjoy this guy?' Tastes change,
I guess."
Cope began his
newspaper career at The Erie Daily Times. "Thirty-eight dollars
and 50 cents a week, after taxes," he says, smiling. "I was the low
man on the totem pole in the sports department, right out of college.
So while the other guys went out to dinner, I'd answer the phones
when the bowling league scores came in. I had to take these names
down, get them spelled right. It must've taken an hour and a half
every night. Once I woke up in a cold sweat in the room I rented at
the YMCA across the street. I had a nightmare: Someone called me and
said, 'This is the Polish Falcons. We have 80 bowling scores for you.'
I went in the next day and asked for a transfer. I had to get out
of the sports department."
He ended up at
the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and, not long after, began selling
stories to True, The Man's Magazine, and other publications.
After nine years at the P-G, he still had no beat: "I was frustrated.
So in 1960, I told the boss I was leaving to take a chance on freelance
writing. He said, 'You'll be back in six months, kid. You'll starve.'
Kid? I was 30 years old. I didn't have a wife or kids yet, so I didn't
have a whole hell of a lot to lose. 'Well,' I said, 'we'll see.' Not
too long after that The Saturday Evening Post asked me to sign
a contract with them."
The Saturday
Evening Post was the pinnacle for any magazine freelancer in 1960,
but Cope soon tired of their predictable style. "As a mass magazine,
their sports stories were invariably about superstars. And most of
them were bores. Another editor had dubbed me 'the Nut Specialist,'
and I wasn't getting a chance to write about nuts."
He went to the
magazine's office to tell them he wouldn't re-sign his contract. After
that, he stopped by to see friends at Sports Illustrated--and
they hired him on the spot. "I was listed as 'Special Contributor'
in their masthead. I was proud of that because the only other real
writer with that title was George Plimpton. So I was in pretty good
company."
Cope is credited
with writing the definitive profiles of many sports legends, including
boxer Muhammad Ali, Pirates' broadcaster Bob Prince, and Howard Cosell.
"Cosell hadn't had a major magazine profile done on him, and he kept
calling me when I was writing the piece, saying 'This article will
make your career, Cope.'" But when the profile ran, Cope heard nothing.
"I knew he would be angry for three days after the story appeared,
and then I'd hear from him. His ego was such that as soon as they
started calling to him on the streets of Manhattan--'Hey, Howard,
I saw you in SI'--I was positive he'd love it. Sure enough, he called.
My attitude was, if you're sent out to write a piece, you do so objectively
and you have fun with it and point out the flaws--without invading
anyone's personal life, which we didn't do in those days."
Cope remembers
when "sensational" and "sports journalism" weren't synonymous. "Nowadays,"
Cope says, "you find the dirt, you put it in print. It's writing for
the sake of profit. I hear this excuse from the practitioners of this
crap that 'we only give the public what they want.' That's a lot of
bull. It's an abdication of responsibility."
His passion for
good writing was not enough to keep him in the business. Despite his
success, radio could offer one thing that a freelance career couldn't:
major medical insurance, a rarity then. Cope's son, Daniel, was born
in 1968 with brain damage, a condition that soon required full-time
care. The insurance offered with his radio contract was a lifesaver
amid the flood of medical costs. "I was trying to continue writing
after the talk show started," he recalls. "But one day I said, 'I'm
not going to get home at nine at night and put a piece of paper in
the typewriter and start trying to think.' Writing came very hard
to me. I could spend an entire morning working on a lead paragraph.
So I guess it was a relief to give up writing in that I was no longer
killing myself."
There's a certian
wistfulness in Cope's voice as he remembers his pieces, his profiles,
his favorite subjects. But a phone call in the middle of his reverie
interrupts his train of thought. It's a sports writer from New York,
seeking Cope's opinion on erstwhile Steeler quarterback Neil O'Donnell.
And once more he's in present tense, his great, grate voice peppered
with strong (and positive) opinions about O'Donnell's arm and the
lofty expectations of Steeler fans, yet balanced with a rational awareness
of market forces and the lure of big money. The sports writer--one
of several who will call today--thanks Cope for the quotes, and Myron
answers, "Okel-dokel. My pleasure."
He's sought out
as a source because he's quotable and he knows his subject. But he
knows something else: Myron Cope knows how seriously, and unseriously,
to take America's passion for sport. He knows, in this sports-crazed
city, his hometown, what's important versus what's entertaining, what's
faddish versus what lasts. Games come and go, memories fade, but certain
figures--Ali, Cosell...and Cope, for that matter--transcend the moment,
becoming fixed stars in our ever-changing sports horizon.
It's an ironic
honor for a man whose voice sounds better suited for writing, but,
as Myron Cope himself once said in explaining his success on the radio,
"There's no accounting for public taste."
a rerun of SportsCenter, we ask ourselves: Is sport an entertaining
diversion, or is it infantile lunacy, played by grown children and
watched by same?