Frank Dill was born in the Buffalo suburb of Williamsville, NY. His family moved to the Washington, DC area where a young Frank Dill grew up as a sports fanatic. His early radio journey took him through Little Rock, Charlotte and Washington. He eventually spent a decade on radio and TV in Buffalo, working as a disc jockey, game show host, and play-by-play voice of the minor league baseball Buffalo Bisons.
In 1963, Dill was hired by KNBR. He’d seen San Francisco briefly during his Air Force service and told his wife that it was a lovely place. At age 32, he arrived at a radio station where he recalled there were “guys who used to wear tuxedoes and had voices like God”.
Itv wasn’t long before Dill’s own voice placed him in the Bay Area broadcasting Pantheon. He would spend 34 years as KNBR’s morning man–the first half on his own and most of the last half paired with Mike Cleary. The Frank and Mike Show was a cultural phenomenon, with Dill’s steady hand on the steering wheel.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Dill burned the candle at both ends, spending time doing evening television newscast sports segments on both KRON and KPIX.