Cosell
May 3, 2009
I knew the late Howard Cosell primarily from watching old fight films or other sports broadcasts dating from before my birth. I knew that he was an odd bird for a sportscaster – erudite and articulate, he was a non-athlete, and that always appealed to the bookish Burro – it seemed we shared a sensibility. Also, Cosell’s strength as a sportscaster was his ability to humanize an athletic contest, to bring out the underlying drama and narrative that make it worth watching for those not entirely absorbed by the purely technical aspects of the sport (I can only approach a true technical appreciation of boxing and baseball, for other sports I need some help caring).
Anyhow, after reading Cosell’s autobiography, it is apparent that he was a giant in his field, and the great pity is that he knew it. Cosell brought the integrity and ethical sensibilities of a crusading journalist to his sportscasting, and this, along with his other gifts, leads me to agree with him that he is the greatest sportscaster of all time. It is even worth wading through the occasionally pompous or self-righteous parts of his book to find out more about this unique man.
Another dimension to the book is its chronicle of some of the big issues in sports before my time. There is a lengthy section on the byzantine machinations of the NFL, an affectionate portrait of baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn in his embattled last days in office, and the saga of Sugar Ray Leonard’s career is presented in a concise but fascinating style. I thought I would close this post with a passage he wrote in tribute to boxing, a sport from which Cosell ultimately turned away, citing its brutality and the appalling corruption of the individuals who run it:
“Albert Camus was once an amateur boxer himself and remained a lifelong fight fan. The emotional satisfaction he got out of boxing was at odds with his intellectual opposition to violence and capital punishment, and it provoked ambivalent feelings within him.
I know exactly how he felt.
Boxing is drama on its grandest scale. No other athletic event is as electrifying as a championship fight. I continued to cover boxing perhaps longer than I should have because of my admiration for the fighters, their earthiness, and their honesty. Generally speaking, the ones who become champions spring from poverty; they work harder and sacrifice more than other athletes. Rarely do they make excuses. They have no teammates to lean on. They are out there all alone, exposed, vulnerable, valiantly summoning up reserves of courage in situations where a lot of other athletes would simply call it quits. There are no secrets in the ring, and they willingly accept the fears and the pain and the scars as part of their trade.”
