Behind the Yoi

Myron Cope was the color commentator for Pittsburgh Steelers radio broadcasts from 1970 to 2005, the second-longest-serving team broadcaster in NFL history. At the peak of his popularity, an estimated 50 percent of Steeler fans turned down the volume on their TVs so they could listen to the radio as Cope, in his one-of-a-kind scratchy, raspy voice, barked out phrases like “Yoi” and “Okle-dokle,” often fueled by bursts of excitability and his own beautiful brand of homerism. About his voice, Cope said, “Mine isn’t a broadcaster’s voice; it tends to cut through concrete.” Cope helped forge the unbreakable bond between the city of Pittsburgh and its football team. His evening talk show, one of the first sports talk programs in the nation, dominated its time slot for more than twenty years, and he became the first pro football announcer elected to the National Radio Hall of Fame.

Born in Pittsburgh to parents of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry, Cope attended the University of Pittsburgh and became a journalist. Though he forged a successful career writing for magazines like Sports Illustrated, football fans grew to know Cope far more through the airwaves. Co-namer of the Immaculate Reception, he also created the Terrible Towel, the flag of Steelers Nation, when in 1975 he urged fans to bring gold towels to wave at a playoff game against the Baltimore Colts. Behind the scenes the Terrible Towel took on a deeper personal meaning, as Cope eventually assigned all royalties from the towels to the facility where his son, who was born with brain damage and never learned to speak, still resides. Throughout his life Cope, who passed away in 2008, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for children with disabilities.

Using Cope’s own papers, correspondence, and tapes, plus interviews with friends and family, Dan Joseph and Elizabeth Cope, Myron’s daughter, paint the first three-dimensional portrait of the creative, many-faceted man whom Pittsburghers still hold in high esteem and close to their hearts.