“Doc” Stevens, long-time voice of Mountaineers, dies at 75
“Doc” Stevens will speak no more, but don’t dare say his voice won’t be heard at West Virginia University again.
Stevens, the longtime P.A. announcer who coined so much of the lingo heard at Mountaineers’ sporting events today, died Tuesday at Ruby Memorial Hospital after a lengthy illness. He was 75.
“Frank Stevens was a loyal Mountaineer in every sense of the word,” WVU President David C. Hardesty said. “His voice is synonymous with the WVU marching band and other WVU endeavors. His life’s work stands as a tribute to his state and to WVU and I extend my condolences to his wife and family on behalf of a grateful university. He was a personal friend and I will miss him.”
Stevens retired in June after 44 years serving the school he loved. His announcing career began at basketball games starring Jerry West and ended two generations later.
“It is kind of ironic,” Stevens said in June. “West’s jersey number was 44 and here it is 44 years later. Maybe that’s a sign that this is a good year to do this.”
Born in Toledo, Ohio, as Frank on June 19, 1929, Stevens became known as “Doc” as a student in WVU’s dental school in the late 1950s and early 60s. The name stuck as he worked at his private practice in Bridgeport and as an assistant professor and assistant dean of external affairs back at the dental school.
Yet he truly made his name with other instruments, his voice and his lines, both great and admittedly goofy.
In the 1960s, Jim Carlen, then the football coach at WVU, wanted his players to come out onto the field as a team. Carlen left it up to Stevens to find a way to introduce the group.
The result, of course, was “Let’s bring on the Mountaineers!”
Later, at basketball games, he stumbled upon a way to turn an ordinary 3-point shot into a “thrrrreeeeeeeeeeee.”
“I was watching a game one night and I think the guy that did the Chicago Bulls on the P.A. did that,” Stevens said. “I thought maybe I’d try it out. I didn’t say anything to anybody. I just did it and everybody responded.”
Stevens even added a touch of class to the way the WVU marching band was introduced, crafting the oftrepeated “And now, from the College of Creative Arts on the campus of West Virginia University, under the direction of ...”
There were some slips that still made you smile and Stevens embraced those, too, as part of his legacy.
He once penalized the Rutgers football team five years — not five yards — for an illegal procedure penalty.
Another time, he simply misread a piece of paper someone had put in front of him before a football game and accidentally said the baton girls would be singing — not signing — for the hearing impaired while the marching band played the alma mater.
“You’re going to make mistakes,” he said with a laugh. “No question about it.”
Didn’t matter. His grace overshadowed his gaffes by an infinite margin.
Stevens graduated from Ohio State with a degree in speech/speech pathology and a minor in broadcast journalism. He worked at the school’s radio station and the football network and partnered with Hall of Fame baseball broadcaster Jack Buck.
A roommate’s father helped Stevens get a job at Wheeling’s WWVA and he later moved to television there at WTRF. It was there where Stevens met Eddie Barrett, then the sports information director at WVU, to form a relationship that proved to be quite valuable.
Stevens entered WVU’s dental school in 1958 and took a job on the late shift at WAJR in Morgantown to make some extra money. He met up with Barrett again and Barrett suggested that Stevens apply for the P.A. announcer opening.
Stevens missed most of the 2003 football season and all of the following basketball season with frequent bouts of pneumonia. This past June, he said his health had improved, but he knew his throat and lungs could not take the constant strain from announcing.
“It takes a good bit out of you,” he said. “It takes more energy to do football and basketball, especially basketball, because you are always saying something.”
He fell ill again, but was able to celebrate two milestones that meant so much to him: his 75th birthday and, two months later, his 50th wedding anniversary with his wife, Mim, at their home at Bridgeport’s Maple Lake.
“I’m glad to have been a part of a really great run,” he said. “I’m very thankful to the university. In the beginning, I didn’t know what I was doing, but they went along with some of the things I was changing and trying to bring along.”
11/3/2004
