'i've Won. I've Beat Them'

But Cosell has always existed with contentiousness. Or, as he would have it, "I have lived on the precipice of professional peril every day of my life." He's constantly courting extremes, now bathing in affection or acclaim, forever repeating his best notices, while all the while running scared, protesting too much, playing the classic role of the lawyer who chooses to defend himself, thereby showing that he has a fool for a client. Cosell remains, even now, baffled by rejection. "He has almost a childlike inability to comprehend that he won't make friends everywhere," says his daughter, Hilary. 31. Arledge has said, "Most of the problems between us come from his insecurity." When ABC picked up Cosell's option again a few months ago—could there have been any question?—he was suddenly euphoric around the office, walking on air. His young staffers were mystified until they discovered that his elation stemmed from the fact that he knew he wasn't going to get canned.

Cosell can recall verbatim passing criticism from years ago, the one negative sentence in a sea of praise, but he'll never credit the author for the rest. "I've often told Howard he should be more forgiving of others," says Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, one of Cosell's closest friends. But to no avail. "I don't apologize for that," says Cosell. Criticism, he's sure, is only "fanned" by jealous and dull-witted print naysayers.

Cosell seldom encounters those many fans who profess to despise him. His reception in public is invariably warm, even adoring. He's such engaging company that he can enthrall any gathering he joins, which he knows full well and relentlessly enjoys proving. Those who are close to him, and who have never crossed him, agree that he's a gracious, even good, man, blemished only by a massive ego and insecurity—each of which is, of course, the flip side of the other.

The television Cosell is not turned on. Off the air, save for being even more overwhelming and for exhibiting much more humor, he is the same person. Here, for example, is a typical Cosell filibuster, delivered over cocktails after someone at the table casually alluded to the competition Monday Night Football has faced through the years: "Precisely! And how do you think it was, going against M*A*S*H and Alan Alda, who has, I might add, embarked on a new series, a man I became especially close to, a conscientious family man who still resides in Leonia, New Jersey—a house you should see—and a man whose wife I know well because of my interest in her campaign, which she is devoted to so wholeheartedly. I am speaking, of course, in reference to her campaign on behalf of women's rights, which I became an integral part of, and I chanced to be on the same airplane with Alan on one occasion as we winged our way from Los Angeles to New York, and we found ourselves seated next to one another, and Alan began the conversation by alluding to that very point, how when M*A*S*H found itself aligned against Monday Night...."

The humor, that part of Cosell seldom expressed on the air—and colleagues have urged him to exhibit it more—is rarely biting. Instead, it's teasing, even sophomoric. "I'm so sorry to hear about your paternity suit" is one of his greetings. Or upon meeting the sales manager's wife, he may say, "How regrettable that you married beneath yourself, my dear." Tee-hee. He flirts with waitresses and stewardesses in broad burlesque, while Emmy's eyes roll up into her head. Not again! He plays benignly for giggles, not guffaws.

Yet on the air Cosell seems almost to court animosity, after all these years still never showing the slightest tendency to be mollescent in those familiar places where he infuriates—stepping on lines, big-wording, declaiming, dropping diminutives, nailing his law degree to every wall. Then again, perhaps he appreciates that the bits and pieces his detractors rail at are only that, that in sum he's so different, so unmatched in his trade, that no amount of tinkering with his act would matter for those predisposed to dislike his overall style. In the first game on Monday Night Football, Sept. 21, 1970, Leroy Kelly of the Browns eked out 62 yards on 20 carries. In the second half Cosell said, "Leroy Kelly has not been a compelling factor tonight." The switchboards at ABC lit up, and for days Cosell was castigated in the press for his ignorance and callousness in making such an intemperate remark. So, why should he bother to accommodate the critics? As it is, something like one of every eight letters written to ABC about a personality concerns Cosell. No wonder he could say five years ago, "I am the most hated man on the face of the earth," and then, moments later, cite voluminous reports to prove his preeminent popularity.

No, it's not easy being a phenomenon.

What makes a phenomenon is itself phenomenal, a conjunction of coincidence and uniqueness. As Cosell the man is so much a child of his place (the Brooklyn of yore) and of his time (the Depression), so is Cosell the television figure a product of more recent mundane circumstance. Don Ohlmeyer, the former head of NBC Sports, refers to Cosell as being dominant in "the golden age of network sports." Ohlmeyer then hastens to add that that epoch has passed. Both the novelty and the monopoly of the three networks have so diminished that it's unlikely one personality, no matter how special, will ever again be so important. Cosell is the first and last of a line.

Once upon a time an American President visited China, and Peter Jenkins of The Guardian included in one of his reports to London that "On the second day of Mr. Cronkite's visit to China, Richard Nixon, who is accompanying him, went to...." So it is with Cosell and sports. Tom Shales of The Washington Post, the most respected TV critic in the country, once wrote, "Howard Cosell is not providing the commentary for the sporting event; the sporting event is providing commentary for Howard Cosell." On Mr. Cosell's second day at the World Series, the Dodgers and Yankees, who are accompanying him....

It also helped that when Cosell came to TV he was utterly in contrast to the toothy myrmidons who reigned at the microphone and who spoke no evil save for the mayhem they regularly perpetrated upon the English language. Sports broadcasting was even more humorless and liturgical when Cosell broke in than it is now, although certainly it is still mired in the horse latitudes of journalism. The other day a young woman dodged through the traffic on Manhattan's Sixth Avenue to reach Cosell, whom she had espied leaving the ABC Building. "Mr. Cosell," she said, "I have a friend who wants to be a sports announcer. How can he succeed?"