Inside Conditions: The King is alive. Long live the King, Bill Hillgrove

On April 8, 2023, I wrote an article profiling the great Pittsburgh sportscaster Bill Hillgrove. The following excerpt is from that article. “There may be others, but Bill Hillgrove has been the voice of three sports institutions. The Pittsburgh Steelers and both the University of Pittsburgh men’s football and basketball programs for many years. He is unlike many folks who may have a limited impact on whatever life’s work they choose; this legendary radio and television broadcaster is and has always been far from being a ‘one-trick pony.’” I also wrote: “Bill Hillgrove is a rare triple-threat broadcaster who oftentimes uses his unique voice to describe the game for listeners as if it were an intimate operatic performance held in the privacy of their living rooms with his richly-layered and multi-timbered voice serving him as if he were a conductor wielding a baton. During his 55 years as a radio and television broadcaster, he has been the “voice of consistency,” a voice that has consoled Pittsburghers when they lost, celebrated with them when they won, never abandoning them and choosing to ride the roller coaster of athletic incompetency and poor performances along with them through times both good and bad.”...