Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 24, 1995 TAG: 9504250050
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LEONARD SHAPIRO THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
``It was total, it was epic, it was cosmic,'' said Terry O'Neil, former executive producer at NBC Sports and now an executive with ABC News who began his broadcasting career in 1971 as an ABC Sports researcher often assigned to Cosell. ``He's the one guy who made it possible for the people who followed him to tell the truth. None of us could have made the attempt without him. Howard Cosell was the father of real journalism in televised sports.''
Cosell died Sunday in New York at the age of 77 of a heart embolism after a long bout with cancer. In recent years, he stopped seeing many of his friends and former colleagues and had grown increasingly bitter after ABC canceled his award-winning investigative ``Sportsbeat'' show in 1985, his last attempt at ``telling it like it is'' on network television.
Cosell often complained he was not accorded the respect he deserved, according to several in the small cadre of confidantes with whom he did stay in touch. But in recent weeks, when word began to leak that his condition was deteriorating by the day, there was no question how old friends - even old rivals from other networks - felt about his place in the history of the medium.
``Kicking and screaming, he dragged the industry into responsibility for what was said on the air and for telling the whole story,'' said Ted Shaker, former executive producer at CBS Sports who is now head of Sports Illustrated's television arm. ``He upped the ante. He offered the journalistic high-water mark for the industry. That's his legacy, and it was damned important.''
``In the modern era, he was just so unique,'' said Dick Ebersol, the current president of NBC Sports who also began as an Olympic researcher for ABC and Cosell in the 1960s. ``He got beyond what I'd call the cosmetic world of television, which said you had to look and sound a certain way.
``From the '60s to the '70s until he left in the mid-80s, it was always substance over style with Howard. He was defined by what he said, not how he looked. ... The great sadness is that he was a major figure - he created sports journalism - but his bitterness cut him off from people at a time when the whole world would have been predisposed to honor him.
``He deserved his success. He worked hard for it, but he didn't get to enjoy his success the way other people did. I've been sad he hasn't been out there receiving his due. For whatever reason, he cut himself off from the world.''
For example, Ebersol said he hadn't seen Cosell since his own 40th birthday party in July 1987, when Cosell showed up as a surprise guest and did a mock interview with him. ``He said I was a fraud who hadn't gone to Yale and was really an employee of the Yale lock company,'' Ebersol said. ``It was a memorable night.''
O'Neil, who helped edit one of Cosell's books in the early '70s, also lost touch about the same time. His last meeting with the man he worked with for almost 10 years came in the late '80s, when O'Neil did an ESPN special that picked the top 40 figures in the history of sports. Cosell was in his top five, along with the man who helped make him famous, former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali. ``Howard agreed to do a long sit-down interview with me,'' O'Neil said. ``I was able to ask all the questions about persevering against all the forces that were working against him in the '60s and '70s. He had some wonderful recollections. I still have the tape. For me, it was kind of a closure.''
David Klatell, head of the broadcast journalism department at Columbia University and author of ``Sports For Sale: Television, Money and the Fans,'' never was able to get that up-close and personal with Cosell. Nevertheless, he has no doubts about Cosell's contribution to the medium.
``Yes, he was a revolutionary and yes, he transformed the role of the on-air personality and yes, he took controversial stands and yes, he was grandly egocentric,'' Klatell said. ``But I believe he operated from two bedrock beliefs: The first was in himself; the second was that television and radio sports needed to be shaken out of their complacency, and it was his self-appointed role to do just that.
``He had a fascinating combination of beliefs and brains, and he came from a background that did not include working for a team. And he was never an athlete.
`` ... I don't think a broadcaster like him will ever come along again because I don't think they'd let it happen again. That's a condemnation of the industry. There are not any risk-takers anymore. ... People also have fewer illusions about sports, so the need for an illusion-shatterer is greatly diminished.''
Richard Lapchick, head of Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society, also viewed Cosell as a seminal figure in the industry.
``I don't think there's been any other broadcaster in the history of the art who had a greater influence on the way society viewed sports,'' he said. ``At a time when many reporters - broadcast and print - were content to feed pablum to the public, he served a full-course meal. He believed what he said, that sports needed to be changed. While people may have wanted the escape sports provided, they also needed to hear the principles he spoke about.''
by CNB