Yellow Fever Kept Myron Cope Alive, Heart Dies a Champion

Myron Cope, colorful sports broadcaster and reporter whose Terrible Towel remains the banner of the Steelers nation, has died. He was 79.

In declining health since even before his 2005 retirement after a record 35 years of Steelers broadcasts, Mr. Cope died this morning of respiratory failure. One of the last of the great sports characters, Mr. Cope's life and career were nothing less than book-worthy, even if he had to write it himself. Twice.

"Double Yoi" it was called both times, the second an updated version of the original 2002 volume, the title immortalizing one of Mr. Cope's signature exclamations, which, along with "Okle-dokle," "Dumbkopf!", and "How do?", became so familiar to his radio and TV audiences.

His holds the NFL record for longest consecutive run as a color analyst with a single team. For some commercials, Cope adopted the persona of "Doctor Cope," wearing a white lab coat while pretending to examine the opposing team's strengths and weaknesses through a microscope he called "the Cope-ra-scope." Yet when the opponent became respiratory problems and heart failure in recent years, it was outside Dr. Cope's area of expertise.

[Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]

Steel Worker Copes with Pneumonia Again

Former Pittsburgh Steelers broadcaster Myron Cope is back in the hospital, battling pneumonia.

Cope, 78, has been in and out of the intensive care unit while doctors try to clear his lungs and try to figure out why pneumonia keeps recurring. In May 2006, Cope was hospitalized for pneumonia, too.

In 2004, he was diagnosed with polymyalgia, a condition that has kept the "Terrible Towel" inventor in constant pain.

For more about pneumonia in Pittsburgh, see here.

[The Pittsburgh Channel]