Memories of two voices never stilled
If you’re talking nonathlete icons in this town, you would be hard-pressed to find many bigger than Mister Rogers or Myron Cope, and Thursday marked the shared anniversary of their deaths — Fred Rogers on Feb. 27, 2003, Cope five years later.
“Two Pittsbugh jewels,” said longtime Steelers public-relations man Joe Gordon, who considered Cope his best friend.
Jewels, indeed. Rare gems. Complete originals, beloved beyond description. Generations of children grew up on Mister Rogers and Myron Cope and will hear their distinctive voices forever, be it Rogers’ warm and gentle tone or Cope’s …
well, Cope described it this way in his autobiography:
“I suppose my voice falls upon the public’s ears like china crashing from shelves in an earthquake.”
The two men were almost comically different. I wondered, did they know each other?
“I’m not sure,” Gordon said, before adding with a slight chuckle: “I think they traveled in different circles.”
That’s a safe bet. Consider the tenor of each man’s final show (Cope on radio, Rogers on television). Cope cracked jokes, smoked cigarettes and slammed Jello shots while taking calls. Rogers looked into the camera, after the trolley rang and rolled around the corner for the final time, and said, “I like being your television neighbor. It’s such a good feeling to know you’re alive.”
I wish I had met Fred Rogers. Cope I knew fairly well. In fact, my first major newspaper assignment was covering his final radio show — April 4, 1995 — and what I remember most (besides the Jello shots) is the aftermath. Once he signed off, Cope seemed so alone, desperately missing his late wife Mildred. He gave me all the time I needed for what was a very large assignment.
Cope would call Steelers games for another decade, and if you aren’t aware of just how big he was when the team started winning Super Bowls in the 1970s, Gordon can tell you.
“I’d say as big as any of the players, and the classic example was when we’d arrive in a city and take buses to the hotel,” Gordon said. “Steeler Nation was always there to greet us, and we’d walk through the lobby with Joe Greene and Franco Harris and [Terry] Bradshaw and [Jack] Lambert and [Jack] Ham, and I can tell you, they weren’t yelling, ‘Mean Joe!’ The chant would be ‘My-ron! My-ron! My-ron!’
After Myron checked in, he’d come down and drink with those people, sometimes until the wee hours of the morning. He was their man. It happened everywhere.
“They would chant, and Myron would say, ‘Gents, I’ll be right back.’ ”
Gordon has all kinds of Myron stories — tales of his generosity, his spirit, his talent (“The most creative person I’ve ever known,” he said), his devotion to Mildred, to his daughter, Elizabeth, and to his son, Danny. Gordon will remind you that Cope handed over his Terrible Towel trademark to Allegheny Valley School, a network of group homes across the state that serve people with severe intellectual and developmental disabilities (Danny, in his early 50s, is one of them and still lives there).
Cope had a great relationship with Chuck Noll. The two lived five minutes apart in Upper St. Clair, Gordon recalls, which made it convenient for
Noll to stop by Cope’s home studio Saturday nights to tape the Sunday pregame show.
Also, Cope wasn’t afraid to employ Noll’s handyman skills.
“Any time Cope had a problem with an appliance, his TV or whatever, Mildred would tell him to call a repairman,” Gordon said. “Myron would say, ‘No, no, Chuck’s coming over Saturday to fix it.’ And he would!”
Cope also had a special relationship with Harris. As Gordon tells it, Cope was in the hospital, maybe five days from his death, when Franco got word. Gordon arranged for Franco to visit, even though Cope had been in a coma-like state for days.
“I’ll never forget it,” Gordon said. “Franco goes in and stands next to Myron and says, ‘Myron!’ in the way only Franco would say it, and Myron perked up like you wouldn’t believe. He became so alert, it was almost like a miracle. I wouldn’t say they had a conversation, but Myron was very much aware Franco was there, and that was his buddy.”
It was Gordon, three years earlier, who had confronted Cope with a painful truth: It was time to retire from his Steelers radio duties. Gordon was the only person who could have convinced Cope to hang it up. And he did so within five minutes. That’s how much Cope respected him.
“He was my best friend, and I was his,” Gordon said. “I told him, ‘I think the time has come.’ ”
It had, but only in a temporary sense. Myron Cope, you see, like Mister Rogers, remains timeless.
Those of a certain age will hear their voices forever.