By Tom Donelson
Woody Allen's comedy classic Bananas, featured two of boxing’s best known pundits - Don Dunphy and Howard Cosell. In a way, this movie signaled a changing of the guard. Dunphy was sparse in words, allowing the action to tell the story and he merely commented on what was in front of him. For him, the boxing match was the event and he was the storyteller. As for Cosell, boxing was a mere prop to his pomposity and verbage. What happened in the ring was less important than the man who called the event. Woody Allen once observed that Cosell could make anything an event and Cosell was the first of a new generation of sports reporters. His “tell it like it is” style of journalism was sports version of Hunter Thompson gonzo journalism. While Dunphy reported the event in front of him, Cosell was always a pundit first.
Cosell hated print journalists for he considered them to be shallow. With a unique deep Bronx voice, Cosell did not have the matinee look made for television. One strength that Cosell possessed was his ability to report off the cuff. His famous halftime highlights were done unscripted in contrast to most television newscasters who merely read the news off teleprompter.
If there was a media that emphasized the shallow nature of news, it was television and it was television where Cosell made his mark. Television highlighted the visual whereas print journalism featured the written word and depth that goes with the written word. Cosell's opinions and his confidence that made him a star. This was a man who was simultaneously voted the most loved and disliked sportscaster. Either you liked the guy or you hated him. There was no middle ground but make no mistake, Cosell was the first broadcaster who actually made a difference in the rating of a sporting event. Dunphy provided background noise to the sporting event, but Cosell was front and center of any event he covered.
Cosell broke the mode of merely reporting the news. Instead, he opined. His relationship with Muhammad Ali made Cosell a household name. While his defense of Ali and their close friendship made him a star, it also made him a target. He defended Ali's right to fight and using his legal background, he made the legal case for Ali. In the process, he garnered much of the same hatred as Ali, since his position was Ali’s position. While other reporters struggled to understand Ali, Cosell took an instant like to the young champion and supported Ali’s cause during his exile from boxing.
His defense of Ali and boxing background set the stage for his greatest success - Monday Night Football. Neither a jock or play-by-play announcer, Cosell became the third man in the booth. The first year saw Keith Jackson doing the play by play with Don Meredith in the role of color analyst. Cosell was the catalyst, setting the tone of the game while egging on Meredith. What made the Monday Night Football a success was the tension between the “jock” Meredith, who provided the comic relief to Cosell's pomposity. Jackson was the straight man, calling the action while acting as a referee. Frank Gifford would inherit the referee role when he replaced Keith Jackson.
The Frank Gifford, the typical television announcer with the silky voice and good looks, replaced Jackson the following year. He was the symbol of everything that Cosell hated about modern sports casting. Gifford was the jock that came to sports casting straight from the football field. From Gifford's point of view, he paid his own due as he had been a broadcaster for a decade by the time he reached the broadcast booth of Monday Night Football. He was the jock, who showed that one did not need to be a student of journalism to be an effective broadcaster.
Gifford undermined Cosell's own attack on the Jockocracy. By Jockocracy, Cosell criticized television practices of hiring former athletes to comment on their sports. In Cosell’s mind, these athletes were not not qualified journalists nor did they pay their dues before making the jump. While Cosell loved to complain about the Jockocracy, Cosell himself was not a trained journalist. He was a lawyer who later became a sports journalist.
Cosell's impact can be measured in many ways. In the 60’s, journalism moved from a blue-collar enterprise to a professional job dominated by journalist schools. Cosell’s own background as a lawyer added a professionalism that the entire market was evolving into. Cosell enhanced the professional aspect of the journalist trade with his legal background.
Television produced a new generation of reporters who read the news, looked the same and sounded the same. What started to disappear was the local reporter whose voice often reflected the local sporting flavor. Cosell did not have the looks or the voice but he showed that looks and voice did not have to be an obstacle for a long successful career in television journalism and kept the door open for serious journalists not blessed with Television good looks.
Cosell also had a negative impact upon journalism. His opinionated style of journalism gave rise to the present shock jock style of journalism. He preached professionalism but he was a pundit first. There were times that controversy for the sake of controversy became his staple. During the run up to the second Ali-Frazier fight, he set up a studio confrontation as ABC had Frazier sitting side by side with Ali. Frazier, wary of appearing on the show to begin with, thought that that Cosell would be between them. From Frazier's point of view, Cosell egged on the situation and both fighters wrestled each other on camera after Ali insulted Frazier.
In particular, Cosell hated other boxing reporters. Rusty Rubin once told me a story when he met Cosell for his first and only time. “I introduced myself and he responded by calling me a boxing whore,” Rubin recalled. Many boxing reporters joined their other print colleagues by returning the feeling for Cosell that he felt for them. There was no love loss, but Cosell really did not care.
In the end, Cosell became a bitter man who merely became a caricature of himself. Immerse in his self-importance, he became mere bore as the act started to wear. His controversial style could not hide the fact that he was not endowed with any more knowledge of the sports he covered than those he routinely criticized. He quit boxing broadcasting after the one-sided bout between Larry Holmes and Tex Cobb, as a protest against boxing brutality but by this time, Cosell was tired of boxing.
Cosell viewed himself as more than a sport journalist and had his own design on becoming an evening news anchor but that never happened. In the middle of the 70’s, ABC had Cosell star in his own variety show but the show bombed. As the 70’s wore on, Cosell's popularity started to wane. As Ali’s career winded down, Cosell was not far behind. By 1983, Cosell had quit broadcasting boxing but while the Cobb-Holmes fight provided the pretense; Cosell became a spent voice as a boxing announcer. Cable television networks as the USA Network, ESPN, as well as HBO and Showtime would soon take over boxing broadcasting.
The one event that sent Cosell's career spiraling was an innocent statement that became overblown in political correct America. The PC movement hoisted the liberal Cosell. In a Monday Night Football game, he called Washington Redskin receiver Alvin Garrett a “little monkey.” The receiver was a sneaky small receiver who had the propensity for getting open. Cosell meant the comment as a compliment but his comment was deemed racist since the receiver was black. (Cosell often used this term for white receivers but this did not matter. Cosell’s long time advocacy of the African-American athlete counted for nothing.) Forced to apologize, Cosell never recovered and his career on Monday Night Football soon ended.
Today, sport journalism is split between the serious and shock jocks, who seem to want to shake things up with without really moving the debate forward. Cosell stepped in both worlds. He could be the serious journalist, ready to challenge the establishment, but mostly, he was the journalist who felt more comfortable stirring up controversy since it reaped more fame. The irony is that Cosell made it easier for print journalists to step into the world of television. Shows like First and Ten, ESPN Sports Reporter and Pardon the Interruption have allowed some of the nation’s leading print journalists to become part of the television pundit class. These shows involve a lot of posturing and debates that resemble bar room discussion. Cosell opened the door to this and while many of these shows are entertaining, they are not always informative. In the end, Cosell was about Cosell and too often; he overshadowed the event. Cosell became a hero to a new generation of reporters for he gave them the right to have an opinion. In some cases, the opinion has come at the expense of facts.
I must admit that in the 70’s, I was one of those who applauded Cosell for his “tell it like it is style” and the fact that he was so damn entertaining. However, the latter Cosell soured me on the whole experience of Cosell's “tell it like is style.” Cosell ended his career as a bitter man, mad at the world and willing to blame everyone for his plight. Over the past decade, watching old fights featuring Don Dunphy gave me a new appreciation of a journalism that merely covered the story. In the end, we are mere storytellers but it is the athletes in the sporting arena that are the story. Dunphy understood this, but Cosell did not.
