By Michael Nowels | Bay Area News Group
Bay Area sports radio icon Greg Papa made an emotional return to the airwaves on KNBR Tuesday morning for “Papa & Silver” with co-host Greg Silver. The occasion marked two months to the day since a cancer diagnosis that has kept him off the air.
“I’ll be here for a while right now. We’re between cycles. They started the hardcore chemo on the PICC line last week. I had a 10-day cycle on Sunday, which made watching football a blast,” Papa said, pointing out an IV in his arm. “… I got a little break between Cycle A and Cycle B. I will be with you as many days as I can.”
Papa, who discussed everything from Mac Jones’ start, Bryce Eldridge’s debut to his own new bearded look, shared that he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia b-cell, a blood cancer. He said he was feeling well Tuesday, but acknowledged that the treatment means his energy and mood wax and wane. Because a simple cut could turn deadly, Papa explained, he’s been growing out his facial hair for the first time.
He said that he is in remission after two months of treatment but will need to continue chemotherapy and eventually receive a bone marrow transfusion.
Papa’s brother Ron turned out to be a match to donate his stem cells toward that transfusion, he learned about a week ago.
“I never got a perfect score on any paper in school,” Papa recalled Ron telling him. “Perfect match — 12 out of 12.”
Papa mentioned several times Tuesday that legendary 49ers coach Bill Walsh died of leukemia at age 75 in 2007. Papa’s own brother Gary, a media figure in Philadelphia, died in 2009 of prostate cancer at 54, and several other family members have been diagnosed with forms of cancer, so he had been “obsessed” with the disease.
The longtime play-by-play and radio personality said his leukemia cell count is down to just 14 after it was so high in July that he “came very close to dying,” with a white blood cell count of 0.2. He hasn’t reached the finish line yet, though.
“There’s still 14 damn suckers floating around out of a million. I want them all out. I want them never to come back. I want my brother’s transplant to hold. I’m going to have the bone marrow stem cell transplant and I want to live a normal life.”
Papa said he has received well wishes from people across the sporting sphere in the Bay Area and beyond, including from his alma mater Syracuse.
Papa graduated from Syracuse University in 1984, as part of the same class as ESPN’s Sean McDonough. Papa is among the latest inductees into the WAER Hall of Fame, though the school said it will celebrate his induction in 2026 as a result of his cancer treatments.
“Cancer is random, cancer is sudden and cancer is unfair, and it cripples you in all forms of your life,” he recalled NBC Sports broadcaster Mike Tirico telling him shortly after his diagnosis.
Papa has been the 49ers’ radio voice since 2019 and a Bay Area radio figure since the 1980s when he called Warriors games. He has also called A’s, Giants and Raiders games in his time and is involved with NBC Sports Bay Area’s coverage of the Giants and Niners.
The 49ers announced last month that they’d use a five-man rotation to cover radio announcing duties while Papa is out.
He noted that the idea of traveling with the 49ers for road games was still far off, as he won’t be able to board a plane for a year. But there’s another game he’s hoping he could make within driving distance.
“The Niners are hosting the Super Bowl this year. The Buffalo Bills look pretty good in the AFC. That would be a dream matchup for me,” he said. “I got a ways to go — I got a lot of work to go to get there.”