CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Whenever Pitt’s 2018-19 men’s basketball season ends, almost certainly in the next couple of days at the ACC tournament, so too will the tenure of one of the voices that has been as closely associated with the program as any player or coach over the past several decades.
Dick Groat, who is in his 40th season as the color commentator on the Panthers’ radio broadcasts, will not be returning to the role next season.
The move is a relatively sudden one, as Groat said Tuesday at the ACC tournament that he wasn’t informed of the decision by the athletic department until “a week or two ago” over a lunch.
“It was a shock,” Groat said. “It hurt, but I’ve enjoyed every minute of college basketball. Pitt has treated me extremely well. But it did come as a complete shock to me.”
Groat’s departure will end a partnership that has outlasted seven coaches, three chancellors, countless administrators and spanned several generations of Pitt fans.
Together, the 88-year-old Groat and play-by-play broadcaster Bill Hillgrove are the longest-tenured radio tandem in Division I basketball, as the latter has been at the former’s side each of his 40 years on the air. Entering this season, Groat was the second-longest-tenured Division I radio analyst while Hillgrove, in his 50th season, is second among play-by-play announcers, trailing only Duquesne’s Ray Goss (at 51 seasons).
It was Hillgrove, Groat said, who first proposed broadcasting to him and ultimately convinced him to pursue it. The fracturing of that on-air pairing and everything that comes with it, from the road trips to the hours spent together before a game preparing for the call, is what makes the move especially hard.
“Bill has been just the greatest person in the world to work with in every possible way,” Groat said. “I’ll miss being with him. We had great times together.”
Sudden as the move felt, Groat’s workload had been reduced recently. Last season, he no longer traveled for Pitt’s road games, with former Panthers standout Curtis Aiken, a regular on the team’s broadcasts for the past decade, handling solo color commentary duties.
“Dick has been a legendary voice and asset to Pitt,” said Pitt athletic director Heather Lyke in a statement. “As he steps away from the microphone at the end of the year, we are grateful for his passion and commitment to Pitt and creating so many memorable moments for our fans.
“True to form, Dick wanted the attention on our seniors and team at the last home game and did not want recognition for himself. We hope he will allow us to honor him at a game next season. On behalf of our athletic department and our loyal Pitt fans, we collectively thank Dick for 40 years of work on our radio broadcasts. Dick will always be a revered member of the Pitt family and will remain a fixture around our basketball team for many years to come.”
Though he has been known by younger fans primarily as a broadcaster, Groat is perhaps the best, most decorated athlete to ever come from the Pittsburgh area, with a background and career that would be seemingly impossible for someone to replicate in this day and age.
A graduate of Swissvale High School, Groat was an eight-time MLB All-Star, two-time World Series champion and the league’s MVP in 1960, the same year his Pirates team famously won the World Series against the Yankees on a walk-off home run from Bill Mazeroski.
Basketball, however, was always his first love.
He was drafted by the Fort Wayne Pistons with the No. 3 overall pick in 1952, playing with the team after he had finished his rookie season with the Pirates. Groat fondly recalled Tuesday being chartered back and forth by the Pistons that season to Duke, where he was finishing up his degree, meaning sometimes he would play a game one night in, for example, New York and be in class in Durham, N.C., the following morning after only a few hours of sleep.
Before his NBA career, Groat was a star at Duke, where he was a first-team all-American and the national player of the year in 1952. His No. 10 jersey was the first to be retired in the rafters of Cameron Indoor Stadium. On trips back to his alma mater in recent years for broadcasts, Groat would be honored by the school, drawing rousing ovations from the crowd. During halftime of a January 2018 game, Groat was presented at midcourt with a framed No. 10 jersey.
Pitt radio color analyst Dick Groat being honored at halftime at Duke, receiving a standing ovation. pic.twitter.com/n5UeeAKUps
— Craig Meyer (@CraigMeyerPG) January 20, 2018
As he heads into his final games on the air, Groat said he doesn’t treat the broadcasts any differently. It’s difficult not to think back to some of his favorite memories from the job, like decades of going to the Big East tournament in New York or when he and Hillgrove sat courtside to chronicle a Pitt program that had become one of the best in college basketball during the 2000s, forging connections he still maintains today (Groat said Jamie Dixon, the Panthers’ coach from 2003-16, called him last week).
He is thankful for the life broadcasting has given him for all these years, from what he saw to the people he got to know, and is hopeful for what awaits Pitt in the future with first-year head coach Jeff Capel.
“I’ve enjoyed watching them develop,” Groat said. “Coach will turn it around. He’s a real class young man. I like him very, very much. When I say that, a lot of people will say, ‘Oh yeah, you’re saying that because he’s a Duke guy.’ Well, he is a Duke guy. He worked under a great coach in Mike [Krzyzewski] and he has been a class young man as long as I’ve known him.”
On Tuesday, with an 80-70 win against Boston College in the first round of the ACC tournament, that team gave him something greater than maybe even the joy it has brought him this season – the chance to call at least one more game.
Craig Meyer: cmeyer@post-gazette.com and Twitter @CraigMeyerPG
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First Published: March 13, 2019, 6:32 p.m.
