Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 24, 1995 TAG: 9504240070
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
Cosell, who underwent cancer surgery in 1991, died of a heart embolism at New York University's Hospital for Joint Diseases, grandson Justin Cohane said.
He was the strident, colorful voice of ABC radio and television from 1953 to 1992. It was a period of phenomenal growth and change in America's pastimes, spurred by television's cascading millions and increased greed among athletes and promoters.
Cosell chronicled it that way, revolutionizing a broadcasting industry that had been more used to parroting the party line.
``Howard Cosell was one of the most original people ever to appear on American television,'' said ABC News President Roone Arledge, who was head of ABC Sports during Cosell's heyday. ``He became a giant by the simple act of telling the truth in an industry that was not used to hearing it and considered it revolutionary.''
Cosell was one of the first sportscasters to call Muhammad Ali by his new name after he changed it from Cassius Clay. He stood up for Ali when the heavyweight champion was stripped of his title after refusing to enter military service during the Vietnam War.
``Howard Cosell was a good man, and he lived a good life,'' Ali said. ``I have been interviewed by many people, but I enjoyed interviews with Howard the best. We always put on a good show. I hope to meet him one day in the hereafter. I can hear Howard now saying, `Muhammad, you're not the man you used to be.' I pray that he is in God's hands. I will miss him.''
Few, high or low, escaped Cosell's acid tongue and biting sarcasm, including the institutions that won him fame: boxing and the National Football League.
After covering a 1982 heavyweight title bout in which champion Larry Holmes pummeled Randall ``Tex'' Cobb for 15 rounds, he swore to never again broadcast a pro fight.
``I am tired of the hypocrisy and sleaziness of the boxing scene,'' he said, calling for reform or abolition.
He withdrew from ``Monday Night Football'' in 1983, after 13 years. While acknowledging his reasons were largely personal - he and his wife were tired of his constant traveling - he also complained that ``pro football has become a stagnant bore.''
He criticized the TV industry for bringing former coaches and players into broadcast booths, and deplored the transfer of football teams from city to city as ``a travesty, an affront to fan loyalty.''
Shelby Whitfield, a longtime colleague at ABC Radio, said, ``He brought a new dimension to sports reporting. He was a showman and a journalist and a person always sensitive to the underdog.''
Cosell was a TV producer, author and lecturer as well as a sportscaster.
``What people never understood is that sports are show business. I think you can make an event dull by stressing cross blocks, blitzes, spinouts and technical things,'' he once said.
``My idea is that you must give every game a story line. My hero in broadcasting was Edward R. Murrow. I learned speech variety from him - when to raise and lower the voice. The object is to grab the greatest number of people.''
Cosell's style - including his ``tell it like it is'' catch phrase - intrigued and irritated listeners and made him one of the best-known figures of his time. One survey found 96 percent of respondents recognized his name; another rated him both most popular and least popular sportscaster.
He was a tall, stoop-shouldered man with a long nose, slicked-down hair supplemented in later years by a toupee, and an inevitable cigar.
His voice was heavy, at times booming, with a nasal twang. He liked to use long words and enunciate them with a finality that defied rejoinder.
After ``Monday Night Football,'' he was host of a weekly program called ``Sportsbeat'' until 1985. He appeared regularly on ABC radio until his retirement in January 1992.
Cosell was born Howard William Cohen on March 25, 1918, in Winston-Salem, N.C., son of a Polish immigrant and grandson of a rabbi. The family later moved to Brooklyn.
He wanted to be a reporter, but his parents urged him to study law. After serving in World War II, he practiced law for nearly 10 years - doing sports writing on the side - before going into broadcasting in 1953 with ABC Radio.
He wrote three books, ``Cosell on Cosell,'' ``Like It Is'' and ``I Never Played The Game,'' in which he attacked Frank Gifford and Don Meredith, both former ``Monday Night Football'' colleagues.
Among his movie appearances was a memorable bit in Woody Allen's ``Bananas,'' when he parodies himself by offering a play-by-play of a South American revolution. And he had a fling as a TV variety host in 1975-76 with ``Saturday Night Live With Howard Cosell.''
by CNB