Be grateful to have known Tunch Ilkin

Joe Fryz, like Tunch Ilkin, died much too young. He was 58 when he passed in June 2017 from complications from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), better known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, the same horrific disease that took Ilkin on Saturday, just 19 days before his 64th birthday. Fryz played basketball at Moon High with John Calipari and at West Virginia with Bob Huggins. It was Huggins who called to tell me I should go see Fryz at his Sewickley home and write about his courageous battle, which he was fighting with the help of his wife, Linda, the best caregiver I have known.

“Not everybody has been lucky enough to have what we have together and some people never have it,” Linda Fryz said that day of their 24-year marriage. “Being thankful and grateful for that leaves little time for sadness.”

What an amazing outlook on life.

What a perfect way to look at Ilkin’s death.

We should be thankful we had the chance to watch Ilkin as a player with the Steelers. He was an undersized offensive lineman who made himself into a Pro Bowler with his smarts and his technique. He always was the brightest guy in the locker room. He was the team’s player rep and led his teammates through some turbulent labor times.

We should be grateful we had the chance to listen to Ilkin on the Steelers’ radio broadcasts for the past 23 seasons. His observations and insights made Bill Hillgrove and Myron Cope so much better and added so much to the game calls. Ilkin made you feel like he was talking directly to you, almost as if you were watching the Steelers with him over a beer at a local bar. He had that gift.

We should be indebted to Ilkin for always caring about others more than himself. His tireless work with the Light of Life Rescue Mission — a homeless shelter and addiction recovery ministry on the North Side — made life better for countless individuals. So did his work as pastor of Men’s Ministry for The Bible Chapel in McMurray. His awesome faith was inspiring.

I feel especially lucky that I got to know Ilkin personally as a player and a broadcaster. His mood never wavered. It always was

uplifting. In the later years of our relationship, there wouldn’t just be a handshake when we saw each other. There always was a hug. It was easy to feel safe in his company. He always was so welcoming, so calming.

I remember seeing Ilkin in the press box at Cincinnati’s Paul Brown Stadium a few years ago. He could see I was troubled about a close friend losing an entire family that she loved in a matter of a few months. The mother, just in her 40s, died of an aneurism while playing tennis. Her young daughter was killed in a car crash a few weeks later while texting. The husband/ father committed suicide soon after because he saw no reason to go on.

Ilkin listened to the story and immediately grabbed my hand. “Let’s pray together,” he said. And we did, bowing our heads, unabashedly, right there in the middle of that press box before the game.

I’ll never forget that moment.

I’ll always cherish it. That takes me back one more time to my visit with Fryz and his amazing wife. I asked him if he was afraid of what was ahead. That’s how comfortable I felt in that living room that day, how comfortable those two remarkable people made me feel.

“Yes, sometimes,” Fryz said, softly.

But then there was a quick smile.

“I’ve never died before,” Fryz said.

I knew right then the man wasn’t afraid of death.

I know the same thing about Ilkin, who was honored with a memorial service Tuesday morning.

“He’s not afraid at all,” his best friend Craig Wolfley told me a few weeks ago. “He loves Jesus and he knows Jesus loves him.”

I saw that same belief in Ilkin when his first wife, Sharon, died at 55 in February 2012 after a long, brutal fight with breast cancer. They were married for almost 30 years and had three children.

“We were all there when she took her last breath,” Ilkin told me when I visited him in his Upper St. Clair home a few days after Sharon’s funeral. “We knew she was in a more joyful place than she ever was on her best day on Earth. We also knew we would be with her one day again.”

Sadly for us, that day has come.

I was hoping to get another 25 years or so with Ilkin. But I’m not going to complain. I’m too thankful for the 40 years or so I knew him. As Linda Fryz might say, not everyone gets to meet a man like him. I was lucky I did. So many of you did, as well. You’re lucky, too,

Ilkin spent his adult life making this world a better place. I believe with all my heart he’s doing the same thing for heaven right now.