Nov 22, 2024 By Brad Hundt 4 min read

By any reasonable measure, Myron Cope should not have been allowed anywhere near a radio microphone.

Far from the soothing, modulated tones of announcers and disc jockeys that have populated the airwaves almost since radio’s inception, Cope’s voice was less the equivalent of a sweetly tuned violin than a busted muffler dragging on the concrete. Perhaps reflecting his four-pack-a-day cigarette habit, Cope’s voice was a nasally, high-pitched instrument, with a Pittsburgh accent as thick as a bowlful of pierogies. To top it off, Cope was given to flights of excited chatter that made it sound like he had mixed his nicotine regimen with equally high doses of caffeine.

Any strangers to the Pittsburgh region flipping around on the radio dial and hearing Cope’s voice could well have thought, “Who is that guy?!”

“It was not a typical broadcast voice,” said Dan Joseph, a Mt. Lebanon native who co-wrote the recently published biography of Cope, “Behind the Yoi,” along with Cope’s daughter, Elizabeth Cope. “And it was incredibly unique because it didn’t sound like anybody’s voice. There’s nothing like it.”

But to Pittsburghers, Cope was the much-beloved uncle whose presence was an indispensable part of being a Pittsburgh Steelers fan. And his inimitable voice arguably made him relatable, like the fella two stools over at the bar. A color commentator on Steelers’ radio broadcasts from 1970 to 2005, Cope brought the word “yoi!” into everyday regional parlance, made the Terrible Towel the flag of Steelers Nation and became as recognizable as some of the football greats whose exploits he described.

Cope “made it 10 times as fun,” to listeners, Joseph said. “He got so excited. … He made every touchdown seem so special, and he helped cement the bond the city and the team had.”

A 1988 graduate of Mt. Lebanon High School, Joseph’s day job is editing scripts for the Voice of America radio service. A baseball enthusiast, he has also penned two books on the sport, and has co-authored a book on African terrorist organization Al-Shabaab. Along with the recollections of Cope’s daughter, he was able to access the correspondence, recordings and other material Cope left behind after his death in 2008 for “Behind the Yoi,” which was published in September by the University of Nebraska Press. Some of the TV and radio appearances that had been squirreled away have now been placed on YouTube in a channel dedicated to Cope.

Although Cope was best-known for his work in broadcast media, “Behind the Yoi” details the extensive work Cope did in print media earlier in his career. A graduate of Taylor Allderdice High School in Squirrel Hill, an editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette changed his name to Myron Cope from Myron Kopelman because the editor didn’t want so many “Jewish-sounding” bylines in the newspaper. It stuck, and Cope formally made that his last name when he was 26.

He left the Post-Gazette and embarked on a freelance career writing about sports. His work appeared in The Saturday Evening Post and Sports Illustrated, and he wrote well-regarded pieces about such luminaries as Howard Cosell and Muhammad Ali.

Cope was “an elite sportswriter,” Joseph said. “He was very plugged into the sports scene nationwide.”

His broadcasting career “came out of left field,” Joseph explained, when he started doing sports commentary for WTAE-TV in 1968. He was picked up by the Steelers two years later. He continued doing commentaries for WTAE later in his career – one clip now on YouTube has Cope jokingly dispensing “health tips” to viewers. Cope was considered to be such an indispensable part of the WTAE stable that he was allowed to smoke in the studio even as it was officially not allowed.

“He was Myron Cope,” Joseph said.

In fact, Joseph believes that “Behind the Yoi” not only tells Cope’s story, but it also tells the story of Pittsburgh and the football team to which it is so strongly attached.

“I think he will be remembered as an important historical figure,” Joseph said.