Bill Currie, known as the "Mouth of the South" during his days as a popular radio and television personality in North Carolina, died "a Tar Heel fan to the core," his daughter said Tuesday.

Margaret Currie Granger said her father, 83, died at 11:40 p.m. Pacific time Monday in an Olympia, Wash., hospital as the result of a brain hemorrhage.

"But until the final few days of his life, he was alert and as feisty as ever," Granger said. "He never lost that famous spirit of his, and he certainly never lost that deep love for Carolina football and basketball."

Born in High Point, Currie attended Catawba College.

Witty and irreverent, he did the radio play-by-play for UNC football and basketball during much of the 1960s. He left in 1971 to take a job with KDKA television in Pittsburgh, where he remained into the 1980s.

"He was one of those one-in-a-million characters," former UNC football coach Bill Dooley said.

"I would bet that Bill probably had more funny stories and jokes than almost anybody in the world. You couldn't print any of them, though. They weren't exactly meant for mixed company."

One of Currie's more memorable lines occurred during his broadcast of N.C. State's 12-10 win over Duke during the semifinals of the 1968 ACC basketball tournament in Charlotte. In the days before the shot clock in college ball, neither team forced the action. The halftime score was Duke 4, State 2.

Currie advised listeners that the action was about as exciting as "artificial insemination."

"That line may not have been in good taste, but it was one that a lot of people still talk about," said Woody Durham, who took over UNC broadcasts the following season.

"As a humorist, Bill had very few rivals, if any. You never knew exactly what he might say, but he definitely had a way of keeping your interest."

Bob Lamey, now the voice of the Indianapolis Colts, was Currie's color analyst in those days.

"People thought it was all just Bill's act, but that was just who he was," Lamey said. "When he was working at WSOC in Charlotte, he kept a casket in his office. I'm not kidding. Almost every afternoon, he'd get in that casket, lie down and take a nap. ... He'd actually go to sleep. Talking about freaking folks out."

But there was another side to Currie, according to Lamey. That was the Currie who "remained true to his roots and had interests beyond fun and jokes."

"There were nights when he would say he was too tired to do the late sports segment on WSOC and would ask me to fill in for him," Lamey said. "He did it for one reason: He knew how much I needed the money."

Granger said her father, in declining health, moved near her home in Yelm, Wash., about eight years ago and spent much of his time pursuing his musical interests.

"He bought an organ and really enjoyed learning to play it," she said. "He loved to play the guitar, too. He had all of his creature comforts. He'd get on his computer and keep up with the Tar Heels and what was going on back in North Carolina and the Pittsburgh area.

"He never lost that edge or his ability to relate to people. There was a fire in his apartment building about a year or so ago. Everyone had to be evacuated and wait outside. By the end of the night, Dad had every fireman there in stitches telling them stories and jokes."

Granger said plans for a memorial service are incomplete.

"We'll do something, but I'm just not certain at the moment when or where," she said. "Dad had donated his body to research. It was sent to the University of Washington medical school not long after he died. But I was there with him along with my husband [Kelly] when he went. It was very peaceful. He didn't suffer at the end. He had a long, happy life, and he made a lot of people laugh along the way."

Currie is also survived by another daughter, Susan Smith of Hickory, and a son, Bob Currie of Wimberley, Texas.