Bill Hillgrove Calls Steelers Game on 82nd Birthday

Legendary Pittsburgh Steelers play-by-play broadcaster Bill Hillgrove celebrated his 82nd birthday on Sunday by calling the team’s home game against the Cincinnati Bengals.

It’s the second straight year Hillgrove, who is the lead play-by-play man for the Steelers and Pitt Panthers football and men’s basketball teams, has called a game on his birthday. He was in the same press box for Pitt’s ACC Coastal-clinching victory over Virginia on Nov. 20, 2021.

Hillgrove has been the Steelers’ play-by-play broadcaster since 1994, when he replaced the retiring Jack Fleming. Hillgrove is currently paired with color broadcaster Craig Wolfley and sideline reporter Max Starks for Steelers radio calls on WDVE-FM 102.5 and the Steelers radio network.

A 1958 graduate of Central Catholic High School, Hillgrove attended Duquesne University and also worked for WTAE-TV and WQED-TV, as well as several radio stations in the city. He began broadcasting Pitt basketball games since 1968 and started broadcasting Pitt football games in 1970.

Hillgrove won the Chris Schneckel Award, given by the National Football Foundation, in 2007. He was inducted into the Central Catholic Hall of Fame in 2020.

With the Steelers and Pitt basketball team both playing on Sunday, Jeff Hathhorn of KDKA-FM called the Panthers game.

With the three teams overlapping in schedule, there are frequently Pitt games that Hillgrove can’t make, but he shows no sign of of slowing down in his fifth decade of broadcasting Pittsburgh football.