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(Personal reflections on sportscaster Bill Campbell who passed away on Oct. 6th.)
“Soupy” was what his colleagues called him when he worked at 1210 AM, the old WCAU Radio, a reference to his last name being the same as the soup company. Always seemed lacking in dignity to me. When I became fortunate enough to work with him at WIP back in the 80s, I would’ve called him Mr. Campbell if he let me. He insisted on “Bill.”
Bill Campbell dominated Philadelphia’s sports media like no one else. There was a time when if you listened to any of the City’s three professional sports teams, it was Bill Campbell’s voice you heard. His was the voice who broadcast the Eagles last championship season in 1960. Monday nights he would dissect the games with the great quarterback of that team, Norm Van Brocklin. Before Harry Kalas, it was Bill Campbell who mentored Richie Ashburn’s early years as a Phillies broadcaster. And before the Warriors moved to the West Coast, it was Bill Campbell who brought us the excitement of the Wilt Chamberlain era, including the 100-point game. We all wanted to be the next Bill Campbell.
You’ve heard stories about how a young athlete will worship a superstar and then wind up playing in the big leagues with him. That’s the way I felt when in 1987, while I was a radio sports talk host on WIP, Bill Campbell came to work there. When I first heard the news, I penned a note to Campbell and put it in his mailbox. The note rambled on about how proud I was to work with the guy whom I grew up listening to. Bill often needled me about that note and teasingly told folks when I was in his company that he had grown up listening to Tom Cardella.
The sports talk business those days mostly belonged to guys who would’ve been selling snake oil off the back of wagons 150 years ago. Campbell brought professionalism to the business and made the other guys sound like carnival barkers. I watched him come into the studio hours before his shift. He would sit endlessly at one of the typewriters preparing his notes for a three-hour broadcast. His writing skills were superb, but they didn’t come easily to him.
He once mentioned to me that he had agreed to do an article for Philadelphia Magazine and couldn’t stop the rewriting process in order to submit the story. When I hosted the Eagles pre- and postgame shows and left WIP to join WYSP because the Eagles broadcasts had changed stations, Campbell was hired to do commentaries and the half-time show from back in the studio. (Hey Dad, I’m working with Bill Campbell)! No one could match the elegance of one of Bill Campbell’s commentaries, painstakingly prepared verbal works of art.
In his last years on the air, Bill’s commentaries on KYW radio were reminders of the days when his intelligence and grace ruled our airwaves. I always felt Campbell was as proud of his journalistic abilities as he was his broadcasting skills. One day, a frustrated program director on WIP called me into his office to chew me out.
“You’re not an entertainer,” he bellowed at me, “you’re a journalist.”
He didn’t know it, but he had just paid me the biggest compliment of my life because it meant that in some small way, I had a link to the great Bill Campbell.
Bill Campbell was a legendary hypochondriac, but he also battled some real illness. During his tenure at WIP, he was hospitalized several times for an intestinal ailment, and I had the honor of filling in for him. (Pinch me, is this real)? The ailment forced Bill to give up his last play-by-play job as the voice of Penn State football. He told me he just couldn’t keep to his strict diet while on the road. That was a very sad day. Bill had to know that his chances of getting back on the air doing play-by-play were over.
I have nothing against Harry Kalas. He was a great play-by-play guy. But if Bill Giles hadn’t decided to take Kalas with him when he came from Houston to the Phillies, that statue outside Citizens Bank Ballpark would be of Bill Campbell. It would be Bill who would be enshrined in the broadcast wing of baseball’s Hall of Fame. Bill never showed any bitterness at that trick of fate. He and Harry, I hear, got along just fine. Me, I feel we never paid enough respect to Bill Campbell when he was alive. I’m not saying he was ignored, but it is an unfortunate aspect of the business that the longer you live, the more easily you are forgotten. He’s not around now to hear the accolades pour in. They are inadequate and long overdue.
He was a consummate professional to the end. Never wanted to hang around too long to embarrass himself. Never did.
Bill was married 70 years to Jo. He stayed fit. Played golf well into his 80s. Wrote an excellent book about his life in sports. He enjoyed the kind of life that most can only wish for. Officially, Bill Campbell died last week, but the light really went out when Jo died last January.
A true professional.
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
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