New Myron Cope biography explores the man behind the catchphrase
Terrible towel creator memorialized by Pittsburgh writer
Before becoming a broadcaster with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Myron Cope already had a successful career in journalism.
A graduate of Taylor Allderdice High School and the University of Pittsburgh, Cope worked first at the Daily Times in Erie, Pennsylvania, then at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, before gaining national attention for his writing in national publications, including the Saturday Evening Post and Sports Illustrated.
His portrayal of then Cassius Clay received the E.P. Dutton Prize for “Best Magazine Sportswriting in the Nation,” and on its 50th anniversary, Sports Illustrated selected Cope’s profile of Howard Cosell as one of the 50 best written works ever published in the magazine.
Despite the accolades, that part of Cope’s career hasn’t garnered the same attention as his work as “the voice of the Pittsburgh Steelers” — which just as easily could have been dubbed “the voice of Pittsburgh.”
Cope’s catchphrases defined the sound of Pittsburgh for a generation of Steelers’ fans and included a plethora of offbeat remarks, some paying homage to his Jewish upbringing. “Mmm-hah” and “okel dokel” were common tags, as were the Yiddish-inspired “feh,” “yoi” and “double yoi.”
In his new book, “Beyond the Yoi: The Life of Myron Cope, Legendary Pittsburgh Steelers Broadcaster,” written with Cope’s daughter Elizabeth Cope, author Dan Joseph attempts to go beyond the vernacular.
“That’s one of the things I really wanted to uncover and examine when I wrote this book, because I thought that had never been appreciated,” Joseph said. “He had a very impressive career before he ever got behind a microphone, and wrote for all of the big magazines.”
Cope, Joseph said, was not only writing for Sports Illustrated and the Saturday Evening Post but also for magazines such as Life and Look, interviewing some of the biggest names in sports including Jim Brown, Arnold Palmer and, of course, Muhammad Ali.
Joseph, in fact, wasn’t necessarily enamored with Cope’s broadcast career. Instead, it was Cope’s writing that caught the author’s attention.
“I was at my high school library reading a book about old-time football players. I really liked the book and happened to glance at the spine and saw it was written by Myron Cope. The book was called ‘The Game That Was,’” Joseph recalled.
Like Cope, Joseph is a Pittsburgh native. He has written three books, two about baseball —”Baseball’s Greatest What If: The Story and Tragedy of Pistol Pete Reiser,” and “Last Ride of the Iron Horse: How Lou Gehrig Fought ALS to Play One Final Championship Season” — and one about terrorism, “Inside Al-Shabaab: The Secret History of Al-Qaeda’s Most Powerful Ally.” He is an editor in the central newsroom at the Voice of America in Washington for nearly 20 years.
While Cope grew up in Squirrel Hill, Joseph said the broadcaster wasn’t a particularly religiously observant person, although he became a bar mitzvah at Congregation Beth Shalom.
Cope’s Jewish identity, though, was never up for debate.
“When Jerome Bettis passed some rushing milestone, he didn’t say congratulations, he said ‘Mazel tov,’” Joseph said. “When Joe Gilliam, the Steelers’ first Black quarterback completed a pass to Randy Grossman, the Steelers’ first Jewish tight end, Myron’s commentary on air was, ‘Well, play that soul music and dance the Hava Nagila.’”
Cope’s signature phrase, “Yoi,” Joseph said, was a derivation of “oy.”
The sportscaster’s rise in popularity coincided with the Steelers’ 70s winning streak, Joseph noted.
“It was just perfect timing because the Steelers were beginning to rise towards a great dynasty and Myron was essential in not just making these players colorful and popular, but really bringing them to life for the radio audience,” he said.
An example was the Franco Harris fan club, “Franco’s Italian Army,” which Cope mentioned on air. The same was true of kicker Ray Gerela and “Gerela’s Gorillas.”
“It was a constant back and forth between Myron and the fans,” Joseph said.
That extended to Cope’s perhaps most famous and long-standing connection to the team: The Terrible Towel, whose proceeds go to the Pittsburgh Autism Society and Allegheny Valley School, where Cope’s son — who has a diagnosis of autism — lives.
Joseph said that the idea for the book came when he learned of Elizabeth Cope’s interest to do something with all of the papers and tapes her father saved, which grew into the Myron Cope channel on YouTube.
He said he focused on Cope’s career while Elizabeth Cope wrote about growing up in the Cope household and her relationship with her father.
“I wrote the bulk of the book, but she wrote several chapters in her own voice,” he said.
Writing a book about a hometown hero, Joseph said, touched a chord from deep in his childhood.
“It’s been hard to put into words,” he said. “I’m really glad I got to dive into this well and tell Myron’s full story to people who only saw the surface and the guy in commercials or on the 6 o’clock news. There’s a lot more and it was rewarding to bring the full story to life.”
“Beyond the Yoi: The Life of Myron Cope, Legendary Pittsburgh Steelers Broadcaster” will be published Sept. 1. PJC
David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
comments