Former sports broadcaster, columnist Terry Boers dies at 75

Former Chicago sports talk radio host Terry Boers died Friday at age 75, 670 The Score announced. He died of liver failure and had been battling cancer since 2017, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

“It’s with a heavy heart that we share the sad news that the great Terry Boers passed away today,” 670 The Score wrote in a statement on X. “He was a one-of-a-kind Score original who we’ll remember forever. We love you, Terry. RIP.”

Boers was one of the original hosts on The Score when the station launched in 1992. His first program “Heavy Fuel Crew,” where he worked alongside Dan McNeil, is considered by early listeners as the best show in Chicago sports radio history. Seven years later, the station partnered Boers with Dan Bernstein for “Boers and Bernstein” which became the longest-running sports talk show in the Windy City, airing until Boers’ retirement in 2017.

Before joining the sports radio landscape in the early 1990s, Boers was a reporter for two decades. He was a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, and also served as a beat writer covering the Chicago Bulls. Making the decision to transition away from print journalism was a gutsy one.

“It was a risk moving from the Sun-Times,” said Mitch Rosen, Operations Director and Vice President of The Score. “At the time, print journalism was thriving. He was a young father. To step over into a daytime radio station, there was a lot of uncertainty, but he took the risk and it paid off in so many ways.”

Rosen joined The Score in 2005 and moved “Boers and Bernstein” to a prime afternoon slot. It became a very popular show in Chicago.

“He was all of what you heard,” said Bernstein, who now hosts “The Dan Bernstein Unfiltered Podcast.”

“He was edgy and he did not suffer fools. He had a very low tolerance for idiots. But he simultaneously never was a cynic, in a lot of ways. He always had a big heart. He was able to be a very, very loving warm soul while also being wonderful at his job as a critic,” Bernstein said.

The duo became known for their segment “Who You Crappin?” where listeners were given an opportunity to call out sports figures for hypocrisy or lies.

The segment name stemmed from a Boers’ interview with Mike Ditka, the former Chicago Bears’ coach that guided the franchise to its lone Super Bowl title in 1985. Boers had implied that Ditka no longer possessed the same passion to coach. In response, Ditka said Boers was being hypocritical, reminding him that he had called the coach too fiery during his reporting days. He asked Boers, “Who you crappin?”

Boers, known for making humorous noises, could be goofy on the air, but could quickly pivot to acidic criticism. Off the air, he was beloved in the office.

“Everybody loved him in the hallways, everybody loved him on the air,” Rosen said. “Just a great human. He was great on the air. He was sarcastic and funny but also very real. I think that’s what people loved about him.”

When “Boers and Bernstein” moved to the afternoon time slot, they developed an entirely new following. Many have reached out to Bernstein in recent days to express their love for the show. He has been moved by the “avalanche of sadness and love.”

“A lot of responses I’m getting is from younger people who say they grew up listening to our show and said, ‘he taught me how to be a smarter fan,’” Bernstein said. “It’s a wonderful legacy if people believe that’s a role he played.”

Bernstein had kept in touch frequently with Boers since his retirement. The Score helped arrange annual dinners near Boers’ home in Mokena, Ill. Boers split his time between there and his Florida residence, where he died. Boers would make occasional appearances on The Score after his retirement.

“He had a great soul,” Rosen said. “Even (Saturday) night, at the Bulls game, walking by [former Bulls executive] John Paxson, he stopped me and said he was ‘really sorry about your loss.’ I said it’s not my loss, it’s our loss. It’s the listeners’ loss, our teammates, people who worked with him in the past.”

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