“And then they started running the ball down their throats.”

That was my first recollection of Stan Savran as a Pittsburgh sports broadcaster. I can’t remember if it was on TV or radio, but he was doing some postgame show after the Steelers defeated the Patriots, 24-20, in a preseason game in Knoxville, Tennessee, on August 14, 1982.

Perhaps, it was fitting that I don’t know if my first memories of Savran were on television or radio. I started following Pittsburgh sports in the early ’80s, and that man was always somewhere talking about them.

• In other words, Savran was omnipresent as a Pittsburgh sports broadcaster and journalist for most of my life.

Savran, who passed away at 76 on Monday after a battle with lung cancer, began his career in Pittsburgh in 1976 after a stint in Florida where he did play-by-play for the World Football League.

Savran started out at radio stations WWSW and then KQV in the ’70s, but by the time I found him in the ’80s, he was part of WTAE’s Action 4 Sports Team, a lineup that included Bill Hillgrove, who still does radio play-by-play for both the Steelers and University of Pittsburgh Panthers football and men’s basketball teams; John Steigerwald; Guy Junker; and, of course, Myron Cope, a Steelers and Pittsburgh broadcasting icon who, among other things, created The Terrible Towel.

• Can you imagine that kind of broadcasting roster on the local level today?

You talk about star power. But it was different in the 1980s. ESPN wasn’t really the worldwide leader yet, and fanatics like me looked to the local news stations for the daily scoop on the Steelers, Pirates, Penguins and Panthers. Savran served as a sports anchor and reporter for WTAE in the 1980s, and he also followed Cope with his own talk show five nights a week over on the radio side.

At various points in his career, Savran did everything from pre and postgame shows for the Steelers, Pirates and Penguins, to television, to radio. Savran even did radio play-by-play for Penn State football in the ’80s and was in the booth for the Nittany Lions‘ 1986 National Championship win over Miami. Savran also hosted the weekly Penn State football highlight show on the television side.

• Savran even wrote a weekly sports column for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in the early-2000s.

Of Savran’s many roles, however, none were more iconic than as the host of Sportsbeat from 1991-2009.

Sportsbeat was a local cable show that Savran co-hosted with Junker through 2003 before finishing out as a solo host until 2009. The show–basically, a radio show on television–saw many icons sit down and talk to Stan and Guy over nearly two decades, including Reggie Jackson, Bill Cowher, and, yes, Chuck Noll.

My favorite Sportsbeat episode was also my most therapeutic, and it aired on October 15, 1992, just one night after the Pirates lost Game 7 of the National League Championship Series to the Atlanta Braves. Pittsburgh is a proud sports town that was dubbed The City of Champions in the 1970s thanks to four Steelers Super Bowl victories, two Pirates World Series titles, and a national championship for the Pitt football team. That reputation was strengthened in the early-’90s thanks to back-to-back Stanley Cup victories for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

But as great as all of those memories were for Pittsburgh’s citizens, none of them may have matched the low that everyone felt the day after the Pirates blew a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7 in Atlanta with a trip to the World Series on the line.

• I was 20 and in tears that night. Downtown Pittsburgh was like a morgue the next morning.

I turned to Stan and Guy to talk me off the bridge (metaphorically, of course). The late, great Beano Cook was a guest on that night’s show and also did his part to make me feel better.

It’s been over 30 years since Sid Bream was safe at home plate, and I still can’t go back and watch Game 7. But I remember how a guy from Cleveland and his two colleagues got me through the worst sports loss I think I’ll ever experience.

• That’s a special kind of talent.

That’s right, Savran was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and grew up a Browns and Indians fan. But while he remained a diehard fan of Cleveland’s Major League Baseball team up until the day he died, he left Cleveland’s football team –the original one that moved to Baltimore and was renamed the Ravens in 1996 — behind many years earlier and became a supporter of the Black and Gold.

In addition to his many years covering the team on television, radio and even in print, Savran was very instrumental in the creation of the Steelers Hall of Honor in 2017.

More importantly, Savran became a supporter of Pittsburgh and called it his home over the final 47 years of his life.

“AWWW, BLEEP YOU!” ‘

That was the first call to the Steelers postgame show following a devastating 34-31 overtime loss to the Titans in the  2002 Steelers divisional-round playoff game on January 11, 2003. The caller was seeking comfort and validation after a controversial running into the kicker penalty gave Tennessee new life and a chance to win the game. But Savran, the host of this postgame show on the Steelers Radio Network, calmly said, “You can’t run into the kicker. It’s as simple as that.”

• Clearly, the caller didn’t like Stan’s answer.

As stated earlier, Savran was a fixture in the Pittsburgh sports scene for nearly 50 years, but even though he was very opinionated and told it like it was, the venom that the caller spewed that night was the exception and not the rule.

Savran often disagreed with callers and was critical of players and coaches, but he seemed to have a knack for not taking cheap shots — a lost art in the current sports landscapes, one that’s dominated by social media and one where opinions and people are often called garbage (or worse).

While just about every Pittsburgh sports personality is often a target for the venom spewed by “fans” on social media, Savran was too respected to get that kind of treatment.

Maybe that’s because he was known as “The Godfather of Pittsburgh sports,” and you never disrespect The Godfather, not if you know what’s good for you.

The whole “Mount Rushmore of…” talking point is now a tired cliche, but if there was a Mount Rushmore of Pittsburgh sports broadcasters, Stan Savran would surely have his likeness carved into it.

Rest in peace, Stan, so many of us really did love the show.

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