After 27 years at WEEI, including 18 as host of some incarnation of “The Big Show,’’ Friday marks his final day at the station he helped build into a sports-radio powerhouse beginning in the mid-1990s. Ordway was fired Wednesday, the victim of declining ratings, a high salary, and whether he recognizes it or not, his own hubris.

The thunderclap of news that Ordway had been fired was further confirmation that radio is a cold, vicious business populated by more than its share of people who could be described with the same adjectives. But there is grace to be found in his dismissal, and not just in the mostly frank and self-effacing way Ordway and co-host Michael Holley approached Wednesday’s show.

It’s fairly uncommon in radio for a fired employee to be allowed on the air for a farewell, the common fear being that it will turn into a vengeful, multihour hatchet-fest on the soon-to-be-former employer. When Dale Arnold was demoted in February 2011, he was permitted a proper goodbye. Ordway is getting his, too, and Friday’s show will culminate essentially a three-day, This Is Your Life, Big O send-off. While a cynic might recognize the irony that his last days could provide those recently missing big ratings, parent company Entercom deserves a nod for letting Ordway depart with dignity and a few hours of appreciation.

He’s worthy of a respectful departure for a couple of reasons, starting with his important place in the historical landscape of Boston sports radio. There was sports radio — excellent, innovative sports radio — on the Boston airwaves before Ordway made his name and concurrently while he was doing so. Old-timers remember Eddie Andelman and Guy Mainella, or Larry Claflin and Clif Keane, or Bob Lobel and Upton Bell’s “Calling All Sports’’ with great fondness.

Ordway earned his place among them at a young age during the ’70s, and he later changed the game entirely. He was the reasonable sidekick to beloved homer Johnny Most on Celtics radio broadcasts for more than a decade. He was a notorious tormentor of Don Zimmer as a host on WITS, to the point that the former Red Sox manager has often said the only two people he would not allow into his home are iconoclastic former pitcher Bill Lee, and Ordway.

His greatest feat, however, was his reshuffling of the WEEI lineup in 1995 after taking over as program director — a reshuffling that put Ordway himself in the afternoon-drive catbird seat while making an enemy of Andelman, who in a prudent move was bounced to a co-hosting role with Arnold in midday. His decisions set the stage for an extraordinary run of ratings and critical success for “The Big Show,’’ of which he was both ringleader and kingmaker.

While tributes in recent days by his media friends and peers have teetered toward the hyperbolic and even maudlin, they are understandable. Ordway, by surrounding himself on “The Big Show’’ with a rotating cast of co-hosts, helped dozens of media folks make a name or enhance their profile. In its mid- and late-’90s heyday, “The Big Show’’ made for great radio, with co-hosts such as Bob Ryan, Dan Shaughnessy, Peter Gammons, Jackie MacMullan, Steve Buckley, Gerry Callahan, and more. Sean Grande, currently the superb radio voice of the Celtics, was downright hilarious as the “Sports Flash” anchor. It was must-listen many more days than not.

So what happened? A ban on using Globe talent didn’t help the depth chart, though other voices such as Michael Felger, Tony Massarotti, and Sean McAdam did become welcome fixtures. But arrogance and cronyism eventually seeped in. Many D-list co-hosts weren’t up to past standards, but through the early and mid-2000s and an extraordinary run of success for Boston sports teams, the ratings remained high.

The mistake Ordway and the station made — beyond turning the beloved Bruins into an unfunny punch line — was believing the success was about them, and not fans’ insatiable desire for sports in this market. I wrote the following in February 2009: