Bill Campbell: Voice of Philadelphia Sports

Bill Campbell: TheVoice of Philadelphia Sports
Sam Carchidi
Moorestown, NJ: Middle Atlantic Press, 2006.

Bill Campbell was primarily known to the fans of the University of Pennsylvania football program when it was a major force in the East, the Philadelphia Warriors, the Philadelphia Eagles and the Phillies. He was as much a part of Philadelphia sports as booing. His favorite sport was baseball, his favorite sidekicks Byrum Saam and Richie Ashburn, whom he taught to keep quiet when having nothing enlightening to say about the game. Indeed, that was one of Ashburn's most endearing traits. He didn't say much but what he did say was worth hearing.

Being a broadcaster was all that Bill wanted to do. He prepared for his vocation by visiting radio stations as a youngster, got his first job in Atlantic City by describing a couch in an interesting manner and called some 3,500 sporting events in which the majority of time the home team lost.

He is best known for calling Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game in Hershey, the Eagles' NFL championship game on December 26, 1960, against the Green Bay Packers, which the Eagles won, and by the collapse of the 1964 Phillies, which he always remembered as the best 150 games ever played or managed before that end-of-season collapse. He was most disappointed by being replaced by Harry Kalas as the voice of the Phillies for the ostensible reason that he was too closely associated with Ballantine Beer which was being replaced by Schmidt's as a major sponsor. Actually, the Phillies wanted a new identify and perhaps Bill Campbell had been too closely associated with the losing Phillies. Besides, Harry Kalas was a friend of Bill Giles from their days at Houston. Bill Campbell was disappointed, but he wasn't bitter. He moved on.

His voice was comfortable. His was the voice of reason, of perspective. He was critical, but he did not criticize to humiliate. He was a font of information about the Philadelphia sports scene from the 1940s onward and even in the latter part of the century he could integrate that information into issues of contemporary interest. As a person, he always looked for the good qualities of others and always sought to learn from others. He never lost his curiosity.

The book is full of anecdotes about and praise for a sports broadcaster who loved radio best because he could use his imagination and vocabulary to paint pictures in the minds of his listeners. His commentaries on WIP and KYW are well written and quickly go to the heart of the issue. They are brief and not a word is wasted. His commentaries commanded and command today attention from the listeners. He advises young, would-be broadcasters to learn to read and to write. One could also add--and be interested in people, look beyond their unpleasant traits, and try to find the good in them. That was the character of Bill Campbell, the voice of Philadelphia sports.