By Rick Peterson
TopSports.news
TopSports.news founder and longtime local radio broadcaster Bill Griffin passed away peacefully early Monday morning at a local hospital at the age of 69.
Bill Griffin, who passed away Monday at the age of 69, was recognized during a 2022 Washburn University football game in Yager Stadium. [Photo by Rex Wolf/TSN]
Griffin was surrounded by wife Nancy and close friends at the time of his death after a 10-month battle with esophageal cancer.
Griffin grew up in the greater Kansas City area and played baseball and football at the University of Kansas before carving out a long multi-faceted business career in Topeka, including a stint as the general manager of the Heartland Park Topeka racing facility.
It was Griffin's brainchild in 2020 to launch TopSports.news, a website dedicated to Shawnee County high school and Washburn University sports, and he was the heart and soul of the organization from its debut on Jan. 1, 2021.
“The conversation about launching this website started about a year and a half before we actually made it to the webpage,” Griffin said in a 2021 interview with TK Business Magazine. "It then accelerated when we were at a brunch in Vegas. While we were there, we said, ‘Let’s take a hard look at doing this.’
“From my side of it, it looked like there was an open opportunity in the market for someone to step in and take over coverage of high school sports.”
Griffin also put together a 30-year career broadcasting high school sports with Hall of Famer Mike Manns, with Griffin continuing to broadcast games during his cancer fight, working his final high school basketball doubleheader last Tuesday.
Manns, who was with Griffin at the time of his death, said his longtime broadcast partner was a perfectionist in everything he did.
"Even if he made a little mistake he just knocked himself out, feeling bad about making a mistake and making sure he never ever made that mistake again,'' Manns said. "He told me one time, 'This is something I really enjoy, I love doing games and I wouldn't want to be doing anything else with my life right now than doing games.'
"When we were up at Holton (this past fall) doing that (Hayden) football game, and I'll never forget this, he told me after the game, 'Mike, you're not going to believe this, but during that game I forgot I had cancer.' ''
Griffin was highly respected by local coaches, school administrators and sports fans during his long career.
"We lost a great person today,'' Hall of Fame Washburn Rural coach Kevin Bordewick said. "The athletes past and present should know what he did behind the scenes with announcing, with TopSports and with the Shawnee County Sports Awards and Hall of Fame. He did a heck of a lot that people don't realize.''
A celebration of life ceremony for Griffin is being planned and will be announced in the near future.
