CINCINNATI — Bob Trumpy, a man whose career bridged the worlds of professional football and modern sports broadcasting, has died at age 80. The Cincinnati Bengals announced his passing Sunday, saying Trumpy died peacefully at home, surrounded by family. Before kickoff against the Chicago Bears, the team held a moment of silence to honor one of its most enduring icons.
“He was an exceptional and rare tight end who could get downfield and split zone coverages,” Bengals president Mike Brown said in a statement. “Speed was his hallmark. He was as fast as any wide receiver and was a deep threat. That was rare for a tight end then—and it’s rare now.”
From the Field to the Airwaves
Trumpy’s journey from gridiron standout to media pioneer was as unconventional as it was influential. Drafted in the 12th round of the 1968 AFL-NFL common draft, he became one of the original members of the Cincinnati Bengals, scoring the team’s first-ever receiving touchdown on a 58-yard play against Denver. Over 10 seasons, he recorded 4,600 yards, 35 touchdowns, and 15.4 yards per catch—still the best career totals for a tight end in franchise history.
Yet it was Trumpy’s second act that transformed him from athlete to cultural figure. In the late 1970s, after retiring from football, he pitched a revolutionary idea to WLW-AM: a live, nightly call-in sports talk show. When the station’s general manager rejected it, Trumpy took the concept to rival WCKY-AM—and the rest is Cincinnati radio history.
His show, Sports Talk, debuted in 1976 and became the prototype for the modern sports radio format: part analysis, part entertainment, and entirely unpredictable. “WLW-AM personalities like to call Bob Trumpy the father of Cincinnati sports talk,” one local broadcaster noted, “but they forget WLW turned him down first.”
Within four years, WLW reversed course—hiring Trumpy away to dominate local airwaves. His voice became synonymous with Cincinnati sports, influencing generations of radio hosts such as Lance McAlister, Mo Egger, Ken Broo, and Cris Collinsworth, who later succeeded him on Sports Talk in 1989.
“If you wanted to know what was going on, what he thought about it, and what you should think about it, you tuned into Sports Talk with Bob Trumpy at 6 p.m.,” said McAlister. “He had a voice and presence on the radio like no one before or since.”
A Broadcasting Legacy Beyond Cincinnati
Nationally, Trumpy joined NBC Sports in 1978 as an NFL analyst, eventually serving as the network’s lead voice alongside Dick Enberg from 1992 to 1994. He called two Super Bowls, worked three Summer Olympics, and covered three Ryder Cups—all while mentoring rising broadcasters like Collinsworth, Dave Lapham, and Solomon Wilcots.
In 2014, Trumpy’s decades of excellence were recognized when the Pro Football Hall of Fame awarded him the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award, honoring his lifetime contributions to sports media.
“He was the most brutally honest person I’ve ever met and the first one I knew to make the jump from player to national TV,” Collinsworth said Sunday. “He was the carrot in front of me—someone I aspired to be.”
Character and Compassion
Trumpy’s career wasn’t without deeply human moments. While hosting Sportstalk in 1983, he received a late-night call from a woman threatening to take her own life. Trumpy stayed on the line for more than two hours until police located her. The experience profoundly changed him.
“I sure didn’t feel like a hero after that,” he later told the Los Angeles Times. “They convinced me I hated her because of what she put me through. That’s how deeply it affected me.”
Such candor defined Trumpy both on and off the air. Whether defending a player, criticizing team management, or comforting a caller, he brought raw honesty to every interaction—a quality that earned him as many loyal listeners as detractors.
An Enduring Influence
Born March 6, 1945, in Springfield, Illinois, and educated at the University of Utah, Trumpy embodied a rare dual legacy: an elite athlete who also became a broadcasting innovator. His ability to bridge eras—from the Bengals’ founding days to the modern era of media—cemented him as a cornerstone of Cincinnati’s sports identity.
As the Bengals community reflects on his passing, colleagues agree his impact goes beyond the box scores and radio waves. “Every town has someone who’s the heartbeat,” Collinsworth said. “Bob was that for Cincinnati.”
Trumpy is survived by his family and a city that still tunes in to echoes of the format he invented—a nightly conversation between fans and the game they love.
