Glen Macnow, ‘The Professor’ of Philly sports, prepares to say goodbye to WIP after three decades

While discussing his final show on WIP-FM (94.1), Glen Macnow recalled one evening on the radio he’ll never forget — March 20, 2004, the night before they blew up Veterans Stadium.

The evening went along predictably, with Macnow asking callers to share their memorable moments at the stadium. One caller wished he could see the Vet one final time before it was gone.

“It occurred to me that’s a really good idea,” Macnow said.

So Macnow put the word out he would hold an impromptu wake at the stadium when his shift ended at 11 p.m., and caller after caller pledged to join him. Pretty soon the police were involved, directing listeners where to park. When Macnow arrived at the Vet, he was surprised to see scores of listeners ready to celebrate, ready to share champagne, cigars, and cheesesteaks.

“It really showed me how the station and the fans are a community,” Macnow said. “I sit in a little box in a room looking at nobody other than my producer talking into the air hoping people out there are listening. That night, all of these people came down and had this wonderful moment.”

In a sea of outlandish opinions, Macnow has been “The Professor,” the calm voice choosing a reasoned argument over screams and shouts. If Spinal Tap had their volume set at 11, Macnow spent most of his career at about a two. It’s a voice WIP will lose on Saturday, when Macnow hosts his final show at the station after 31 years.

“He doesn’t believe in hot takes, which doesn’t mean he doesn’t have strong opinions. He just doesn’t necessarily express them as theatrically as I did,” said former WIP morning show host Angelo Cataldi. “He would not go off the deep end ever, and always had a great rationale for the point of view he had.”

Macnow didn’t grow up rooting for the Eagles — he was raised in Buffalo — but developed into a Birds fan over the 31 years he spent sharing the team’s ups and downs with generations of fans. That includes a genuine hatred of the Dallas Cowboys, which he picked up during his childhood because “America’s Team” was featured on TV nearly every Sunday afternoon.

“It made it really convenient when I moved to Philadelphia, to be in the city that hated the Cowboys more than anyone,” Macnow said. “I came across that very honestly and proudly brought that with me.”

Macnow’s road to Philly sports radio was an unlikely one. After graduating from Boston University, he covered news and politics in Florida and Detroit when a chance meeting with former Inquirer reporter Lucinda Fleeson while covering a trial in Pittsburgh landed him a job covering sports business at The Inquirer in 1986.

“I sat next to this woman, and she changed my life,” Macnow said.

At that time, the Inquirer sports department was staffed with names now known from Philly sports talk radio, including Cataldi, Al Morganti, Mike Missanelli, and Anthony Gargano. Cataldi worked on several projects with Macnow, including spending three months in 1989 reporting an investigative piece on team doctors.

“That was my first exposure to how absolutely meticulous he is,” Cataldi said. “He was probably, more than any of us, still a journalist as a talk-show host. I think he was more committed to maintaining a standard of journalism.”

Even then, Macnow knew how to tamp down the drama during high-stress situations. With Cataldi it came in the form of small pranks, mostly “because he is so damn gullible,” Macnow said. While reporting their team doctors piece in San Francisco, Macnow leaned over to Cataldi just before they walked into an interview and told him the subject was self-conscious about their nose.

“Of course, Angelo stared at his nose the whole time,” Macnow said.

WIP launched a few years before Macnow moved to Philadelphia, and sports writers like Cataldi began making the move from print to radio. Macnow got the attention of WIP with The Great Sports Debate, a sports talk TV show he helped launch on the now-defunct TV channel Prism alongside Cataldi, Jayson Stark, and Morganti. In 1993, the station hired Macnow to cohost the midday show alongside Jody McDonald, who had been working solo.

“Twenty-four-hour sports talk was all new. [Program director Tom Bigby] thought newspaper guys knew how to tell a story and had been around locker rooms,” Macnow said. “So he did these pairings of radio guys with newspaper guys and voilà, it worked.”

Macnow and McDonald, known to listeners as Jody Mac, cohosted their five-hour Mac and Mac show for nearly seven years. While there’s a lot of Philly sports history compacted into that time frame, what stands out to McDonald most was being on the air with Macnow when the O.J. Simpson verdict came down.

“It was a monumental moment in our country, and it just happened to coincide with us doing a remote broadcast from a Pizzeria Uno in King of Prussia,” McDonald said. “Producers had a tough job because people’s reactions were just visceral and over the top and not worthy of air.”

In 2002, because of bad chemistry on the afternoon show between Howard Eskin and Mike Missanelli — “they were going to kill each other,” Macnow said — Missanelli was moved to middays and Macnow ended up hosting the evening show four nights a week. But there was a silver lining — Macnow was allowed to fill out his schedule by selecting a fifth shift during any weeknight time slot he wanted.

“I said, ‘I’ll work with Ray,” Macnow said.

Macnow didn’t really know Ray Didinger well before they were paired on the air.

“Right away it clicked. I could just tell. It was a really good back-and-forth with him,” Didinger said. “We both had similar backgrounds, we were both journalists at heart. … And there were enough differences between us that we could play off of, like he was the world’s biggest Beatles fan, and I was more of a Rolling Stones guy.”

Their version of sports talk expanded to include a wide array of topics. In addition to segments like the Great Food Hunt, Macnow is a big TV fan and Didinger a giant movie buff, so discussing new shows and films become as central to their show as anything involving Philly sports. Macnow added long-form interviews — almost unheard of on sports talk radio — during the height of the COVID pandemic, when the world came to a halt.

“You can only talk about Jalen Hurts for so long,” Didinger said. “People got to the point where they would look forward to that stuff as much as the sports stuff, and that was all really Glen’s doing. He thought it would work, and he was right.”

What began as two sportswriters vaguely knowing one another morphed into a close friendship. Macnow brought up some of Didinger’s quirks — he doesn’t own a bathing suit or a cell phone and “has never worn a pair of shorts,” Macnow said — on the show, a move that tightened the bond with their listeners.

“Working with Ray wasn’t working,” Macnow added. “Working with Ray was like hanging out with a friend.”

» READ MORE: Tell us your story: After 53 years, Ray Didinger retires from a career that’s hard to match

Following Didinger’s retirement in 2022, Macnow was once again allowed to pick his radio partners, a rarity in the business. He went with two hosts — Saturdays with Inquirer columnist Mike Sielski, and Sundays with his old pal, Jody Mac.

Sielski had been a guest on Macnow’s show, but had never been a radio host. It mirrored Macnow’s entrance into the business, so “The Professor” helped another newspaper guy learn the facets of being a host, from watching the clock to getting in ad reads. That included smaller things, like announcing the caller’s name and the subject they want to talk about in order keep the conversation on track.

“Glen made the point of telling me, ‘Look, you have to look at this like you and I are the two cool uncles at the barbecue talking about sports,” Sielski said. “You have to let people into your personal life in a way that writing a column for The Inquirer doesn’t really allow.”

While Macnow’s three-decade radio career will end Saturday, he has no plans to fully retire.

In addition to acting in plays like The Diary of Anne Frank and Guys and Dolls, Macnow plans to continue talking about sports, only he’s replacing the studio with the stage. He and Didiniger have hosted a live show focused on the best sports films, and in September the duo will be joined on stage by comedian Joe Conklin for “The Greatest Moments in Philly Sports History” at the Ardmore Music Hall.

Macnow will also cohost at least one more season of NBC Sports Philadelphia’s What’s Brewing alongside Lew Bryson. He’s also a part owner of Conshohocken Brewing and is writing a history of his family. He proudly points out both his 94-year-old father and his 4-year-old grandson will be on hand Saturday during his retirement show.

Macnow isn’t planning on showing up regularly on WIP after saying a final goodbye to his loyal listeners. But true to his persona as a journalist, he’s a bit unsure how to approach his last show.

“It’s going to be odd,” Macnow said. “As someone who liked to be the setup guy, I’m not used to being the focus of attention.”