For the past generation, Cosell has shadowed, sometimes overshadowed, the American sports scene for ABC. As a broadcast journalist, he has had no equal in sports. While most easily linked to Muhammad Ali, boxing and “Monday Night Football,” Cosell’s indelible mark on the sports landscape has been established by his singular pursuit of truth in controversial areas ignored by his peers.
He has been right and he has been wrong. Most importantly, he often has brought messages, uttered in his self-styled staccato delivery, that demanded attention if also disturbed much of his audience. He was, at once, the nation’s most recognized and most disliked sportscaster.
Now, at age 67, Cosell slowly is stepping back. He quit doing professional boxing in December 1982. He retired from “Monday Night Football” telecasts before the 1984 season. Aside from doing two Triple Crown races, Tournament of Champions tennis and some major league baseball, Cosell’s commitments to the network this year are reduced to his weekly “SportsBeat” show and to daily sportscasts for ABC Radio.
He is simultaneously reflective and resentful; thoughtfully continuing his coverage of topical issues no one else in the business will handle, bitterly denouncing those critics those critics who keep chipping away at a reputation that they believe is largely a creation of his mind.
Cosell senses his mortality more than ever, but he’s not willing yet to give up the forum—television—that has breathed life into him for 20 years.
“I don’t even think about retiring. It doesn’t matter to me. All that matters to me in my life is my wife’s health and my health, the health of my two girls and four grandchildren. That’s all. That’s primary in my life.”
Then he adds matter-of-factly in the familiar nasal cadence, “My place in the history of the industry is obviously secured.”
Cosell, in fact, gladly will detail his proper place, “Who have been the largest figures in American television?” he asks. “In news, Walter Cronkite. In entertainment, Johnny Carson. And in sports, Howard Cosell.”