Background
Born William Thomas Hillgrove in Pittsburgh"s Lawrenceville neighborhood, he grew up in nearby Garfield.
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Bill Hillgrove
Edit ProfileEducation
He attended Central Catholic High School and Duquesne University. Hillgrove graduated from Duquesne in 1962 with a degree in journalism.
Career
He is currently the lead play-by-play broadcaster for the football network (1025 WDVE) and for the University of Pittsburgh sports network (937 The Fan). He calls Pitt football games with former Pitt quarterback Pat Bostick, and Pitt basketball games with National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Famer Dick Groat and former Pitt guard Curtis Aiken. He worked as a student sports broadcaster for Duquesne basketball games while in college.
Hillgrove"s first job was as a disk jockey with WKJF (now KDKA-FM 937 The Fan), and in 1968, he joined WTAE-television as the station"s booth announcer.
A year later, he swapped jobs with WTAE Radio announcer Delegate Taylor, wishing to get back into radio. In the mid-1960s, he served for a short period of time as "proprietor" (the name given to the host) of "The Place", a television show on WQED (Channel 13) that was a coffee-house style format.
In 1969, he was hired as a road game broadcaster for the Pitt Panthers basketball team The following year, he became the regular color announcer for Pitt football play-by-play man Editor Conway.
Following Conway"s death in 1974, he assumed the play-by-play announcer duties.
Hillgrove was named the sports director for WTAE-television in 1978 and acted as sports anchor for WTAE News. In 1994, Hillgrove was handpicked by Steelers owner Dan Rooney to replace the retiring Jack Fleming as the play-by-play broadcaster for the He also continues to broadcast Pitt football and basketball games. His current partner is Bostick, who took over after Fralic stepped down.
