Howard Cosell: A loved and hated man
Cosell was born on March 25, 1918, in Winston-Salem, but grew up in Brooklyn. With his time in New York, he got his law degree at New York University after passing the bar exam in 1941. He used his law degree to represent entertainment and sports figures. Cosell continued his law practice, while adding a new profession notch to his belt. In 1953, he became the host of a radio show, which included Little League baseball players asking questions to Major League Baseball sensations.
In 1958, Cosell left his practice and began his career as a full-time sports broadcaster. Amongst his various careers surrounding sports, Cosell became most controversial during his time as a sports broadcaster where he was known for being very blunt and opinionated. Cosell said, "I've been called arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose, a showoff. And, of course, I am."
He put himself on the map with a few standpoints that were much different than those around him in his profession and in society itself.
He's known as being the first person to support boxer Muhammad Ali after he was stripped of his heavyweight title due to his refusal to be drafted into the army for religious reasons. He also supported sprinters John Carlos and Tommie Smith at the 1968 summer Olympic Games after they raised their fists into Black-power salutes at their medal ceremony in Mexico City. Cosell wasn't afraid to discuss social issues, which is what made him so different from any broadcaster at the time, since many did not believe in Cosell's motto: "I'm just telling it like it is."
Cosell was a commentator for Monday Night Football and made his mark once again due to the colliding personalities of himself and former football players Frank Gifford and "Dandy" Don Meredith. Cosell was very critical and insulting when it came to his view on former players entering the broadcasting career due to their fame from playing. Therefore, he wasn't always the friendliest to these ex-pros, and he was especially critical of Meredith's laid-back approach to broadcasting.
Much of the public either hated or loved Cosell, but either way the public was captivated by his opinions and wanted to see what he would say next. As a result, Monday Night Football was a humongous success and was listed as the No. 1 rated program a lot in the weekly Nielsen ratings.
In 1980, Cosell was credited with letting many Americans know about the death of Beatles' legend John Lennon, after he announced on a Monday Night Football broadcast that the star had been shot and killed.
Cosell left his impact on Monday Night Football by coining the phrase "He could... go all... the way!", and many broadcasters have used this phrase in their commentating. Along with this phrase that occurred during kickoffs, he was credited too for popularizing the term "nachos" with his time on MNF. Nachos were born in Texas and oddly enough, during a broadcast of MNF Cosell was given a plate and introduced them to his listeners across the country and incorporated the word as an adjective for describing plays. Such as, "That was a nacho run!"
Cosell was extremely influential in growing the prominence of prime-time football programs and in the food industry, but he began his decline in 1982.
Two years after announcing Lennon's death, Cosell stopped commentating on boxing matches after a very brutal match between Larry Holmes and Tex Cobb. Shortly after, in 1983, his controversy peaked when he referred to Washington Redskins' football player Alvin Garrett as a "little monkey." Many viewed this comment as being racist, even though Garrett announced that he didn't find the comment to be demeaning.
Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson and Muhammad Ali provided support for Cosell, but the opinions of others, like the Rev. Joseph Lowery, were too overwhelming and Cosell left MNF at the end of 1983. Cosell tried to explain that he was referring to Garrett's stature, which was on the shorter side, and there is video evidence of Cosell calling Mike Adamle a "little monkey" as well. Both players were short for the NFL, but this benefited Cosell's argument that his comment wasn't racially motivated because he called them the same term even though they were different races.
Nonetheless, he moved on from MNF and published his book in 1985 called I Never Played the Game. This book included many insults about some of his former colleagues at ABC and resulted in the network getting rid of his SportsBeat program. SportsBeat was a television series hosted by Cosell, where he would interview sports figures and get to the bottom of the hard-hitting questions circling around the sports industry. After his time on television came to a close, he returned to radio until he retired in 1992. Six months before he retired he had surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in his chest. His health was declining, and he passed away at 77 on April 23, 1995, due to a cardiac embolism.
Cosell dominated the sports broadcasting game when he entered it in the mid-1950s, with his hard-hitting opinions and fearlessness to express them. He was critical of the sports he commentated on and was not afraid to call athletes, coaches and colleagues out. Commentators typically stuck to just discussing the game at hand, but Cosell made his mark by showing viewers his viewpoints on situations and by investigating situations that were going on relating to sports.
The New York Times explained Cosell's effect on the sports broadcasting world: "He entered sports broadcasting in the mid-1950s, when the predominant style was unabashed adulation, [and] offered a brassy counterpoint that was first ridiculed, then copied until it became the dominant note of sports broadcasting."
Some of Cosell's recognitions included TV Guide naming him The All-Time Best Sportscaster in its issue celebrating 40 years of television, his induction into the Television Academy Hall of Fame and his ranking of No. 47 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time in 1996. He posthumously won a Sports Emmy in 1995, which was the Lifetime Achievement Award.
As I pursue a career in sports, I will remember that it pays off to be opinionated, to be confident and to bring something to the table that differentiates me from other sports journalists.
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