Temple community mourns longtime play-by-play voice Harry Donahue: ‘He taught me a lot over the years’
Donahue, who was the voice of Temple men’s basketball and football for decades, died at age 77 after a battle with cancer. Many in the Owls community reflected on his impact.
When Harry Donahue began doing play-by-play for Temple football games in 1984, he often called the number of Owls running back Paul Palmer, then a sophomore. Palmer became one of Temple’s best players, finishing as runner-up for the Heisman Trophy in 1986.
Palmer recalls Donahue being the broadcaster for some of his games in a Temple uniform, but nearly 30 years later, they became broadcast partners for Owls games. Palmer was new in 2013, and the radio veteran wasn’t going to let him sink.
Early on in the partnership, the broadcast went into a television timeout. There, Donahue laid out the foundation for what was going to happen when they went live again. Donahue told Palmer what he was going to ask him — he also gave him the answer to said question.
“He was allowing me to shine a little bit,” Palmer said. “He was willing to help me along and help me get comfortable with what I was doing by setting me up nicely. Harry was a golf guy, so he put the ball on my tee perfectly and just gave it to me and set it nice for me to swing my clubs and knock it off the tee.”
It’s what Palmer will remember most. On Wednesday evening, KYW Newsradio announced that Donahue, 77, had died after a battle with cancer. Donahue was the voice of many Philadelphians commutes on KYW in the morning, while also being the commentator for Temple’s football and men’s basketball games.
» READ MORE: Harry Donahue, 77, longtime voice on KYW Newsradio and in Philly sports, has died
He was one of the biggest professionals in the industry, but he didn’t act like it. When former basketball forward John Baum began to work with Donahue in 1997, the pair had little connection to each other.
However, the two hit it off as if they had been friends for decades, Baum said. They would talk about Big 5 basketball. Baum bled Cherry and White, and Donahue was a proud St. Joseph’s alum.
“When you’re working with a guy for so many years on the road, at home, we did a lot of traveling,” Baum said. “We really got to be like brothers from another mother. We were just that close.”
They spent the basketball season traveling from city to city, calling the games of the late legendary Temple coach John Chaney. While doing so, they got a nickname from Chaney. The two traveled on the same bus as the team, and they accidentally sat in the front, famously reserved for Chaney.
“He said, ‘You guys are non-essentials, so get in the back,’” Baum recalled. “So from that point on, Harry and I were known as non-essentials by the great coach John Chaney. He enjoyed our broadcast because his family and everybody listened, but he was saying we couldn’t score a point, so we were non-essential.”
When Chaney retired from Temple in 2006, former Penn coach Fran Dunphy was hired in his place. Dunphy and Donahue graduated from high school in the same year, attending Malvern Prep and St. Joseph’s Prep, respectively.
Dunphy listened to Donahue on his morning drives. They formed a relationship while working together at Temple. Their conversations were often drawn back to the Philadelphia sports teams.
The nights before away games, Donahue and Dunphy would get dinner together. They’d talk about their families and their love of golf — Donahue hosted the Comcast SportsNet show Inside Golf.
While Donahue was going through his battle with cancer, Dunphy would visit him at his home in Avalon, N.J.
“We’re just talking life,” Dunphy said. “He knew he had a battle in front of him. He met it like he met all the challenges that he had in his lifetime. He met it head-on. He wanted to defeat cancer.
“In the end, he couldn’t do it, but he did it with such great dignity and pride in attacking this disease. He taught me a lot over the years. He taught me much about how to handle life.”
Kevin Copp, who took over Temple’s radio broadcasts for Donahue, recalled listening to KYW on snow days, patiently waiting for his school district, No. 307, to be called by Donahue.
When Copp met Donahue years later, it was like meeting an idol, he said.
“My earliest memory of Harry, before I even knew who he was, was hearing him do the school closings. As a kid, that was the highlight of any snow day,” Copp said.
“So it was so funny, you know, when I got to Temple and was able to put two and two together and actually get to meet the person that was behind that. You know, when you’re a 5-year-old, you don’t think about that being someone’s job. To grow up and get to meet Harry was a cool full-circle moment for me.”
Donahue stopped doing football broadcasts after the 2020 season, but Palmer made sure to mimic his former partner before games. While testing sound with Copp one day, he asked radio engineer Troy Wilmore “if he sounded like Harry,” prompting a laugh between the three of them in the booth.
“It’s going to be missed hearing from him and him simply saying, ‘It was a good broadcast,’” Palmer said. “It’ll be a little different, because we’re not going to get those text messages anymore. It’s not going to be easy for me whenever they have the service because I’ve known him for two-thirds of my life. It’s going to be different Saturday when we’re in the booth.”