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Howard Cosell

Biography

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Moment from the life and career of the sports announcer Howard Cosell - The New Yorker

 

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Muhammad Ali Moments Alongside Sportscaster Howard Cosell

 

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Howard Cosell Monologue - Saturday Night Live

 

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Al Michaels on his rocky relationship with Howard Cosell | THE HERD

 

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John Lennon shot 12-8-80 Howard Cosell tells the world twice John Lennon was dead.

Howard William Cosell was an American sports journalist and author, who was prominent and influential on radio, television and print media from the early 1960s into the mid 1980s. He was also an actor who played minor roles in several TV programs and movies. Cosell was widely known for his blustery, confident personality. Cosell said of himself, "Arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose, a showoff. There's no question that I'm all of those things." In its obituary for Cosell, The New York Times described Cosell's effect on American sports coverage: "He entered sports broadcasting in the mid-1950s, when the predominant style was unabashed adulation, [and] offered a brassy counterpoint that was first ridiculed, then copied until it became the dominant note of sports broadcasting."
  • Personal 

  • Introduction to broadcasting 

  • Rise to prominence, support of black athletes 

  • Feuds 

  • ''Monday Night Football'' 

  • Departure from ''MNF'': Alvin Garrett incident 

  • Olympics 

  • "The Bronx is burning" 

  • Public report of the death of John Lennon 

  • Sports journalism and ''ABC SportsBeat'' magazine show 

  • Non-sports-related appearances 

  • Criticism of boxing 

  • ''I Never Played the Game'' and reaction 

  • Later life 

  • Death 

  • Legacy