Remembering the dignity of Bill Campbell

There is a difference between knowing it all and being a know-it-all.

Bill Campbell, who died at 91 on Oct. 6 and was buried Monday, was in the former category.

Campbell knew it all because his broadcasting career touched parts of nine decades. If something important happened on the Philadelphia sports scene since World War II, Campbell was either covering the event or reporting on it for radio or TV.

But what made him so special, so beloved, was that he never had a know-it-all, look-at-me persona. Campbell never talked down to his listeners or viewers; he was one of us, and he came across as your favorite uncle. That gravelly, friendly voice was never threatening, never uppity.

When he broadcast games - whether it was the Phillies, Eagles, Warriors, 76ers, or one of the local college teams - you somehow felt as if he was talking to you, personally.

When he did a talk show on WIP-AM, he never insulted the caller, even if that person's comment was so misguided that the rest of the listeners were rolling their eyes.

When he did commentaries for KYW-AM, they were so brilliant, so "spot on," that we took them back to our watercoolers or dinner tables.

The man affectionately known as The Dean and Soupy was buried Monday after a Mass at Christ the King Church in Haddonfield, where he had served as a lector for many years.

Christine Campbell delivered an emotional, 16-minute eulogy of her father that was touching, eloquent, and funny. One minute she had folks dabbing their eyes with tissues, the next minute she had them laughing out loud.

She called her father "my hero," and said the recent tributes to him, in newspapers and on the radio and TV, "lifted my children and me up off the floor."

"My daughter told me, 'Pop Pop is so popular, he had a hashtag,' " said Christine Campbell, referring to the Twitter tributes that poured in after people learned of Bill's death.

She smiled.

"My father wouldn't know what a hashtag was," she said of her old-school dad, a man who was in the business so long that he did a radio show with Connie Mack, and "broadcast" some baseball games by re-creating the action after reading the ticker tape in the radio studio. "But he would know it was cool because we would tell him."

She talked about her father's sense of humor, his storytelling, his love of Big Band music and golf, but affectionately added that he was "the most technologically challenged person I have ever seen," and had no sense of direction. His faults, she said, made him endearing. She added that eight days before he died of congestive heart failure, Bill was still writing a blog - "even though he didn't know what that was," and that he always prepared meticulously for whatever assignment he was filling.

Christine was overcome with pride as she talked of the 67-year, fairy-tale marriage of Bill and Jo, who died in January.

Bill Campbell's mother died delivering him in 1923, "a weight he carried with him on every birthday for all his life," Christine Campbell said.

He was raised by his sports-minded father in North Philadelphia, and, for a while, by his aunts, and he moved from home to home and changed schools six times during his childhood.

But instead of becoming bitter, he became the most lasting voice in Philadelphia sports history, which is why people - some famous, such as Ed Rendell, Bill Giles, and David Montgomery - and some everyday Joes filled the pews Monday.

It's why people traveled from all over the region to pay their respects.

"I wanted to express to his family just how much he meant to me for so much of my life," said Steve Dicht, 60, a longtime Campbell listener who traveled from the shore town of Ventnor to be at the viewing Sunday.

Campbell never realized how many lives he touched, I learned several years ago when I approached him about writing a book on his amazing life in sports.

"Why would anybody be interested in reading about me?" he asked. "I've worked a lot of years, but I haven't done anything that deserves a book."

I told him he was underestimating himself and gave a long list of reasons.

He smiled and shook his head, politely declining my offer to tell his story.

A couple of years later, out of the blue, he reconsidered. His wife and daughter had been badgering him to write a book. Their message: "If you won't do it for us, do it for the grandkids. Do it for the great-grandkids."

That struck a chord with Bill. We did the book, and the project turned into a labor of love for both of us. After it was finished in 2006, we did numerous book signings, and Bill was amazed at how many people cared for him, as if he was a member of their family.

At a signing on Ocean City's boardwalk, folks waited in line for 11/2 hours to get a chance to speak with him for a few minutes and tell him what he meant to them. He couldn't believe the impact he had on them.

He was the trusted soul in the broadcast booth or radio/TV studio. He was a man who never sugarcoated the truth, a man whose integrity was his calling card.

And that voice. That wonderful, magical voice, scratchy from being a two-pack-a-day smoker in his earlier years.

"His voice," a childhood friend of mine said when we were just starting the book, "is tattooed to our souls."

That might explain why, as the pallbearers wheeled the casket down the aisle and Bill Campbell exited the church Monday afternoon, he received a long standing ovation.

I can't be sure, but the words coming from above seemed to say, "Oh, baby!"

@BroadStBull