Tunch Ilkin touched the lives of many, but perhaps especially those of his teammates, such as Jeff Hartings.
Teammates, you say? Surely you don’t know what you’re talking about. Tunch Ilkin retired before Jeff Hartings even came out of college. No, they never played together with the Pittsburgh Steelers. But they forged a relationship while Ilkin served as a broadcaster. Hartings talked about what Ilkin meant to him during an interview with Rob King for the team’s website.
“I think about him often, and I never come to Pittsburgh without thinking about him. Obviously, his death isn’t that far away, so you would maybe think that”, Hartings told King about Ilkin, who passed away in 2021. “But he was a mentor to me”.
“Of all the people in my life, he’s in the top five”, he added, sharing the extent of Ilkin’s impact on his life. “I’m not kidding. His faith, first and foremost, really encouraged me. I would ride on the team busses and sit next him to him and [Craig] Wolfley, and I would eat dinner with him and Wolfley on road trips”.
Wolfley, another Steelers offensive lineman, retired even before Ilkin, both out of the league by 1994. Hartings did not sign with the Steelers as a free agent until 2001. But he spent his time with the team’s broadcasting duo instead of his locker room brothers. And that’s no insult to his teammates, but a testament to the impact Ilkin had.
Ilkin revealed in October 2020 that he was diagnosed with ALS. He retired from broadcasting in June 2021, and died three months later at the age of 63. The Pittsburgh Steelers inducted him into the team’s Hall of Honor that same year.
“That was really devastating to hear the news that he had a disease”, Hartings said of learning about Ilkin’s ALS diagnosis. “Obviously, everyone was hopeful that he would last a lot longer than he did, because we just loved him and cherished our time with him. I was never actually able to have another moment with him from the time that I found out”, he recalled. “It brings sadness to my heart right now”.
The thing about Tunch Ilkin is that perhaps as much as any other player, he lived a life beyond football. And that’s remarkable to say about somebody who went into broadcasting after his playing career. And you didn’t need to twist his arm too hard for some informal coaching about the “Tunch Punch”.
But Ilkin was always about more than football. He found his “life’s work”, as his head coach Chuck Noll preached. For him, so much of that was his faith, but more than that, it was simply about spreading kindness, caring, and humanity. That’s how Jeff Hartings remembers him.
“I want to be like him and have the legacy that he has in the city”, Hartings said of Ilkin. “You want to be like that guy because you’re so jealous of the impact that he had and the love that the city had for him. He’s definitely a guy that I think this city will never forget”.
Ilkin’s legacy extends so far beyond his playing career that it’s almost easy to forget that he was really good. He was a Pro Bowl-level player and earned that distinction twice. But he was just as active in his duties with the NFLPA and was central in the team’s charity work, which he continued for the rest of his life. He continued to inspire Steelers players and coaches to better their communities long after he retired. Jeff Hartings is just one of many that he touched, a constant presence in all things Steelers until, suddenly, he wasn’t.
