Former longtime college athletic administrator, play-by-play announcer and West Virginia native Frank Giardina died Sunday morning following a several year battle with health issues.
Giardina, who just recently turned 72, spent his early childhood in McDowell County. The coal mining industry brought his family to the Kanawha Valley. Giardina graduated from DuPont High School.
From there it was on to Marshall University where Giardina’s love for sports blossomed into a broadcasting career.
He became the play-by-play voice of the Thundering Herd in 1977, two years after his graduation, making him the first Marshall graduate to hold that position since World War II. He left Marshall in 1986 to become the voice of the East Carolina Pirates, two years later he took an athletics administration job at Penn State. He worked there for more than 15 years in various roles related to broadcasting and promotion of Penn State sports.
Current longtime Marshall play-by-play man Steve Cotton said Giardina’s impact on Herd Nation continues today.
“Even four decades later, Marshall fans reminisce about listening to Frank’s broadcasts and his ‘Yes, sir!’ calls about Huck’s Herd Marshall basketball teams of the 1980s,” Cotton told MetroNews.
Giardina would return to Marshall in 2010-11 as an associate athletic director.
Much of Giardina’s life was also spent in Christian ministry.
In 2005, Giardina became the producer and host of a Christian-based syndicated radio show “Sports Spectrum” where he interviewed countless athletes, many of them professional athletes, concerning their Christian testimonies.
Giardina also had countless relationships with coaches encouraging them in their Christian walk.
“Frank was one of the kindest and most warm-hearted people I’ve ever met,” WVU play-by-play man Tony Caridi said. “His stories and love of West Virginia would always leave me with a smile. He defined what it means to live a Christian life.”
Cotton said Giardina, who also authored a weekly column for years for the Charleston Gazette-Mail, was an encyclopedia of information about players and coaches and their accomplishments in West Virginia.
“If it was about sports in West Virginia, Frank knew everyone and everyone knew Frank,” Cotton said.
Former WVU Deputy Athletic Director Mike Parsons was also a close friend and echoed Cotton’s thoughts.
“Frank was an encyclopedia of sports information, particularly state and local history. He seemed to know everything about my high school and we went to different schools,” Parsons said. “Frank never met a stranger. He was always thinking of others and he accomplished so much. His faith truly guided him every day.”
Giardina was a multiple winner of Sportscaster of the Year in West Virginia. He was a member of both the West Virginia Broadcasting Hall of Fame and Marshall’s W. Page Pitt School of Journalism and Mass Communications Hall of Fame.
Giardina died Sunday surrounded by family at a Putnam County health care facility where he was under Hospice care. His family is planning a celebration of his life in December.