lit a candle 18h agoDon't know anything about American college sports but this got me, 72 and surrounded by family in hospice is exactly how my gran went in the spring. Lengthy illness is such a quiet way of saying years of it. Hope his wife and the five kids are being looked after.
Their story
Frank Giardina was a West Virginia sportscaster, college athletics administrator and Christian radio host whose voice and columns shaped how generations of fans followed Marshall University and state sports. He died on Sunday morning, 11 October 2026, at a Putnam County health care facility under hospice care, after a several…
Frank Giardina was a West Virginia sportscaster, college athletics administrator and Christian radio host whose voice and columns shaped how generations of fans followed Marshall University and state sports. He died on Sunday morning, 11 October 2026, at a Putnam County health care facility under hospice care, after a several year battle with health issues. He was 72 and had recently celebrated his birthday.
Giardina spent his early childhood in McDowell County. The coal mining industry later brought his family to the Kanawha Valley, and he graduated from DuPont High School before earning a B.A. in broadcast journalism from Marshall University in 1976. Two years later he became the play by play voice of the Marshall Thundering Herd, the first Marshall graduate to hold that post since the Second World War. He called Herd games from 1977 to 1986, a stretch fans still remember for his "Yes, sir!" calls on the Huck's Herd basketball teams of the 1980s.
His broadcasting resume also included radio work for the Charleston Charlies Class AAA baseball club, anchoring late night sports for WSAZ-TV, and television play by play for the Cincinnati Reds cable network in 1982 alongside Hall of Fame broadcaster Lindsay Nelson. He was the radio voice of the East Carolina Pirates from 1986 to 1988, then spent more than 15 years at Penn State University in marketing, promotions and radio and television coordination.
In 2005 he became producer and host of the nationally syndicated Christian radio programme Sports Spectrum, interviewing athletes about their faith. He returned to Marshall in 2010 as associate athletic director for external affairs. For years he also wrote a weekly sports column for the Charleston Gazette-Mail, and colleagues described him as an encyclopedia of West Virginia sports history.
Giardina was a multiple West Virginia Sportscaster of the Year, a member of the West Virginia Broadcasting Hall of Fame and of Marshall's W. Page Pitt School of Journalism and Mass Communications Hall of Fame, and the 2023 recipient of the Gene Morehouse Award from the West Virginia Sports Writers Association. He and his wife Cindy, a 1979 Marshall graduate, raised five children and lived in Hurricane. His family planned a celebration of his life for December 2026.
Current Marshall play by play announcer Steve Cotton told MetroNews that even four decades later, fans still reminisce about Giardina's broadcasts. Cotton called him an encyclopedia of information about West Virginia players and coaches. Former WVU deputy athletic director Mike Parsons said Giardina never met a stranger and that his faith guided him every day.
Biography adapted from WV MetroNews (Jeff Jenkins, 11 Oct 2026); WCHS; Marshall University Athletics bio; WV News Morehouse Award profile.
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1by People Forever
Sorry for your loss, that's a hard thing to read twice over.