The Other Half of “WOLF”

By Faith Wolfley, Founder & President, Wolf911

When Craig was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 5th round of the 1980 NFL Draft, he didn't know a soul. He was a kid from Buffalo, New York, walking into one of the most legendary locker rooms in football history — Mean Joe Greene, Terry Bradshaw, Jack Lambert, Mike Webster — and trying to find his footing.

His roommate that first year of training camp at Saint Vincent's College was a fellow rookie named Tunch Ilkin — a 6th round pick from Indiana State University who happened to be the first Turkish-born player in NFL history.

Craig's first reaction when he heard the name?

"What's a Tunch?"

What followed was one of the most extraordinary friendships I've ever witnessed.

They were rookies together, blocking alongside each other in the trenches, surviving Chuck Noll's brutal training camps in the sweltering heat of Latrobe — full pads, twice a day, no air conditioning, horse hair mattresses, and the constant threat of being cut. Craig used to joke that the unofficial motto of a Noll training camp was "What's the worst thing they can do to you? They can keep you."

Tunch and Craig argued about everything. Football. Life. Whether the heart — being a muscle — could technically cramp up the way other muscles do. They were, as their longtime broadcasting colleague Bill Hillgrove once perfectly put it, "an old married couple."

And he wasn't wrong.

When their playing days ended, they became the voices of Steelers football together on the radio for over twenty years — and even when the team offered them separate hotel rooms on the road, they chose to room together anyway. That says everything you need to know.

Tunch was the first person Craig called when something funny happened. The last person he'd talk to before bed on a road trip. The man who made him laugh harder than almost anyone on earth. They shared a faith — a deep, genuine love for Jesus Christ — and they lived it out loud, together.

In fact, Craig and Tunch used to walk the streets of Pittsburgh together and stop on the corners to pray — not inside a church, not in private, but right there on the sidewalks of the city they both loved, lifting Pittsburgh up to God. Two big former NFL linemen, stopping on street corners to pray for their city and its people.

That was Craig. That was Tunch.

Tunch Ilkin was diagnosed with ALS — Lou Gehrig's disease — and passed away on September, 2021. Craig walked alongside his brother through every step of that journey, just as Tunch would have done for him.

And then, just three and a half years later, on March 10, 2025, Craig went home to be with Jesus too.

I have no doubt in my mind that the reunion on the other side of heaven between those two was something spectacular. I imagine Craig walking up, grinning that enormous grin of his, and Tunch saying exactly what he always said:

"I graduated. You just attended."

And Craig laughing so hard the angels had to cover their ears.

Craig told so many of his favorite Tunch stories — and so many stories of their brotherhood in the trenches, in the broadcast booth, and in life — in his book "If These Walls Could Talk: Pittsburgh Steelers," co-authored with Jim Wexell and published by Triumph Books. Craig finished writing it just one month before he passed, and it was released in November 2025. It is, in every sense, his final gift to Pittsburgh — and to everyone who ever loved Wolf.

If you want to hear Craig tell these stories in his own voice and in his own words, get the book. You won't regret it.

Wolf911 carries the spirit of both of these men — the faith, the service, the laughter, the prayer, and the fierce love for Pittsburgh and its people. Every corner we serve on, every veteran we support, every child we reach — we do it in the spirit of two men who showed us what brotherhood really looks like.

If you knew Tunch, or you knew Craig, or you just loved what they stood for — Wolf911 is your place.

Come walk the corners with us.

With love and gratitude,
Faith Wolfley
Founder & President, Wolf911
Bridge of Hope. Amplifier of Compassion.