Playboy Interview: Howard Cosell

Over the past 16 years, Howard Cosell has earned an enviable reputation for "bringing to the light of public scrutiny," as he might put it, sports' most controversial dealings and misdealings. He has also earned an unenviable reputation as an opinionated son of a bitch. As a result of both, Cosell has become the best-known and most listened-lo sports commentator in the business. Cosell's pontificating commentaries and melodramatic inquisitions--his trademarks--have made him a topic of hot debate among athletes as well, whose opinions of his worth run the gamut from Joe Namath's glowing appraisal, "He's the best there is," to Dick Butkus' succinct estimate, "Horseshit!"

Submitting to an interview with Cosell has been likened to opting for brain surgery without anesthesia, yet even his detractors are forced to admit that he has been the one sportscaster able to gain the confidence of sports' most iconoclastic performers. In fact, a good deal of Cosell's notoriety stems from his support for such maverick athletes as Namath, former Cleveland footballer Jim Brown, Muhammad Ali, Tommie Smith and John Carlos--both of whom raised their fists in black-power salutes when presented with medals at the 1968 Olympics--and, most recently, Duane Thomas of the Dallas Cowboys. Says Cosell, in his distinctively lilting Brooklynese, "Coach Tom Landry said he thinks the Cowboys could win another Super Bowl without Thomas, who, in my opinion, just happens to be the best running back in pro football. I'd like to see Landry try it." The observation was typical of Cosell's penchant for direct confrontation with the sports establishment, and whether he's regarded as an irritant or an inspiration, such remarks have caused much of the American public to regard him as the last polysyllabic word on athletic endeavor. For a man who had never confronted a microphone professionally before the age of 36, Cosell has clearly come a long way.

The son of a credit clothier, he was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on March 25, 1920. The family moved North a few years later and Cosell grew up in Brooklyn, where life was not without its difficulties. "I remember having to climb a back fence and run because the kids from Saint Theresa's parish were after me. My drive, in a sense, relates to being Jewish and living in an age of Hitler," he recently told a writer. Cosell was a student at New York University, attended NYU Law School and was admitted to the bar at 21. "I'd never really wanted to become a lawyer," he has said. "I guess the only reason I went through with it was because my father worked so hard to have a son who'd be a professional. I remember him going to the bank every three months to renew a loan that allowed me to stay in school." Before Cosell was fully decided on a career, however, America had entered World War Two and in February 1942, he enlisted as a private in the Army Transportation Corps.

After four and a half years, Cosell left the Service--as a major--and in 1946 set up legal offices on Broad Street in Manhattan, where he became friendly with another new tenant and fledgling barrister, labor negotiator Theodore Kheel. For the next ten years, Cosell steadily built up his practice, and his clients came to include people in theater, radio, television and sports (he served, as Willie Mays's counsel). Through a series of acquaintances, he was asked to incorporate little-league baseball in New York--which he did--and soon afterward, he was contacted by ABC Radio, which wanted to use the name Little League in connection with a Saturday-morning public-service program it was planning. Cosell agreed on condition that the show be noncommercial. Asked to host the show without pay, Cosell said yes. The format of the program called for the Little Leaguers to ask questions of the pros. Cosell wound up writing the questions, if one can imagine eight-year-olds mouthing supercilious Cosellisms. The 15-minute program, projected for a six-week summer run, was eventually expanded to a half hour and lasted five and a half years.

By 1956, the series' popularity led ABC to offer Cosell a professional broadcasting job. His six-week contract called for ten five-minute weekend shows, for which he was paid a below-scale $25 each. The following year, his "Sports Focus" became a summer replacement for "Kukla, Fran & Ollie"; it lasted 18 months and remains the only nighttime sports-commentary show ever attempted on TV. Cosell's radio audience, meanwhile, continued to grow, and in 1961 he went on the nightly ABC-TV New York news, where he remained until June of last year, when he asked to leave and was replaced by former baseball player Jim Bouton.

During those years, Cosell formed his own production company and produced such sports specials as "Run to Daylight," a study of the Green Bay Packers under Vince Lombardi, which is still the most highly acclaimed TV sports documentary ever made. While he was thus occupied, Cosell also began appearing regularly on "Wide World of Sports," where his haughtily contentious analyses of heavyweight boxing caused both the TV ratings and his audiences' blood pressure to rise. When ABC decided in 1970 to gamble on televising pro football on Monday nights, the natural choice was Cosell as half of a very colorful team of "color" commentators; the other half was former Dallas Cowboy quarterback Don Meredith. Although a well-known commodity then, Cosell has since become a household name and now not just New Yorkers but fans all over America have a chance to jeer him regularly.

In an effort to find out whether he's really as mean--or as knowledgeable--as he likes people to think, Playboy sent former Associate Editor Lawrence Linderman to interview Cosell. Reports Linderman, "The first thing that struck me was his appearance. No one else could possibly resemble Howard Cosell. A shade over six feet tall, he's all angles and slouch; depending on which way he decides to aim his torso, his legs seem to be either two feet in front or in back of the rest of him. His features, highlighted by a long arrow-shaped nose, are also sloping and angular and he is blessed with a face that only his loving wife and two children could find appealing.

"Though he likes to give the impression of being the original tough-minded hard-ass, Cosell is an emotional soft touch for any underdog. To a very real extent, he feels he is a champion of the downtrodden, and to a very real extent, he is. Socially, however, he is something else again. When he enters a room, Cosell--an outrageous show-off--makes his presence felt immediately, usually through put-ons that can unintentionally insult people who don't know him. Introduced to an attractive woman with her husband in tow, he once said, 'You're a girl of rare and great beauty, my dear; it must thoroughly break your heart to know that you've so obviously married beneath yourself.' But he can also encounter an old friend like Muhammad Ali and convulse him for ten minutes with a lecture on how he would still be an unknown if not for the TV build-up given him by the master. He's been known to conclude this straight-faced peroration by craning his neck upward at Ali and adding, 'I made you, Muhammad, and I can break you.'

"When he's not clowning, Cosell spends a good deal of his time making and keeping himself an authentic expert on sports, especially football. The night Fran Tarkenton was traded to Minnesota by the Giants, Cosell immediately began calling various players and football insiders to get their opinions of the trade. Then he cabbed down to Duncan's, an East Side pub owned by Duncan MacCalman, the Giants' Tucker Frederickson and former New York Jet Bill Mathis, to discuss the trade with all the players gathered there that night.

"Cosell probably works far too hard. The hectic schedule he maintains catches up with him by early evening. Whenever I stretched our taping sessions beyond an hour's length, his voice would begin to crack and there was no mistaking how tired the man was--to the point where his hands started, to shake. What makes Howard run? '1 earn a lot of money speaking at dinners,' he says, 'but I really could make twice as much as I do and I'd still have to turn down most of the invitations. I guess the real reason I go out to meet the public is to try to offset the image I have of being such a bastard.' Cosell's remark provided a logical opening for our interview, which I decided to begin as he might one of his own."

[Q] Playboy: We're talking to Howard Cosell, beloved albeit beleaguered dean of television sportscasters. Tell us, Howard, is the acerbic and abrasive manner in which you conduct yourself on the air a professional personality--or do you seriously expect the American people to believe that you're that way all the time?

[A] Cosell: That's not a professional manner, that's me. But I don't think I'm intentionally acerbic or abrasive. I haven't recently heard anyone call Mike Wallace acerbic and abrasive, nor Harry Reasoner, nor Dan Rather, nor Walter Cronkite. Why not? We all know why not: As newsmen, they're expected to ask critical questions relating to issues and figures the public has a reasonable right to know about. Well, I'm doing the same thing in sports, but it's a field in which straight, honest reporting has never really been attempted. Instead, people in this country have grown up with the carefully propagated notion that sport is somehow different, that it's a privileged sanctuary from real life, a looking-glass world unto itself.

[A] Through the years, the legend that owners have fostered, that the various sports commissioners have endorsed and that even my own industry has seen fit to perpetuate is a fairy tale in three parts: first, that every athlete is a shining example of noble young manhood; second, that every athletic competition is inherently pure; and, third, that every owner is a selfless, dedicated public servant concerned only with the public entertainment and utterly unconcerned with profit. That's been the myth of American sport and a lot of people have been indoctrinated by it, particularly those over 40 years of age.

[A] So I'm a shock treatment to them, because I won't let them live with the legend. Young people, however, don't buy the fairy tale of sport, nor should they be expected to. Young people know that some athletes drink, some are on drugs, some are racists, and that they can go to any street in any town or city in America and find it there. In other words, they know that sport is just part of the fabric of real life, that it's human life in microcosm, and that the very maladies and virtues that exist in society must exist in sport. It's as simple as that.

[Q] Playboy: You say that sport is life in microcosm, but you've also said that it's "the toy department of life." Which do you believe?

[A] Cosell: I suggest that they aren't in conflict. Sport is the toy department of human life in this sense: It doesn't really matter who wins or loses a game. The contest in the arena fulfills the primary function of sport, which is escape. In the face of the stress and complexities of daily existence, people have to have escape.

[Q] Playboy: Could it be that by introducing into sport the kinds of worries and concerns that plague so many areas of modern life, you make it less than a total escape--and therefore partially defeat what you feel is its primary function?

[A] Cosell: That's entirely possible, I suppose, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong to do it. I feel that my job as a journalist is to be constantly concerned with the vital issues in sport. One vivid example would be the three and a half years of idleness that were forced upon Muhammad Ali. As a lawyer who practiced for ten years, I knew that, constitutionally, Ali had to win. I honestly believe that much of the antagonism toward me relates back to the Ali case.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Cosell: Because I took an unpopular stand. Many people were offended by the idea that a boxing champion would declare himself to be a conscientious objector. But that was a matter for the courts to decide. My support of Ali had to do only with the fact that his championship and his right to earn a living had been unfairly taken from him. On April 28, 1967, at 701 San Jacinto Street in Houston, Texas, Muhammad Ali arrived in answer to a call for military induction and he refused to take the one step forward that would have made him a member of the United States Army. As a citizen he had a right to do that, and as a citizen he knew he would have to face the consequences. Under the law, if he were deemed a valid conscientious objector, he'd be excused from military service. If not, he could be sent to jail. Within a matter of minutes after Ali chose not to step forward, Edwin Dooley, a politically appointed boxing commissioner of New York State, stripped him of his championship and of his license to fight--in other words, of his right to earn a living.

[A] Mr. Dooley, a former Congressman, was doing the popular thing. But there had been no arraignment, there had been no grand-jury hearing, no indictment, no trial, no conviction, no appeal to a higher court, and in a matter such as this, with the Supreme Court likely to hear such a case, there had been no appeal to the Court of last resort. In other words, due process of law had not even been initiated, let alone exhausted--and under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, the fundamental law of this land, no person may be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. Secondly, in all the years of Muhammad Ali's enforced idleness, the New York State Boxing Commission's action was adopted by every state in the country. Ali couldn't fight anywhere in America and, since he was stripped of his right to leave the country, he couldn't fight overseas, either.

[A] But during these years, New York and other states were licensing men to box who had been deserters from the Army. So when the Ali case came before the Southern District New York Federal Court, Judge Walter Mansfield determined that Ali had been denied his rights under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which provides equal protection under the law. Thus, Ali got back the right to earn his livelihood. The whole story was an ugly chapter in American history and it points up a lesson we learned a couple of centuries ago but which America has to keep learning: that what is popular is not always right and what is right is not always popular. I was right to back Muhammad, but it cost me.

[Q] Playboy: Did you suffer financially because of it?

[A] Cosell: Not at all, but it caused me major enmity in many areas of this nation. During that period, thousands upon thousands of letters were written to my company, and when I began the Monday-night football telecasts in 1970, the overwhelming majority of mail typically asked the American Broadcasting Company to "get that nigger-loving Jew bastard off the air." The Ali episode also triggered threats on my life. I'm not trying to be dramatic, but the fact remains that I received a number of phone calls warning me that I was about to be killed. Occasionally, the notion of a sports announcer stirring up people to such a degree strikes me as ludicrous, but when I reconsider the Ali case, it's clear that the issue involved was hardly frivolous and does indeed account for the hostility many misguided people have for me.

[Q] Playboy: Why are you even more unpopular with sportswriters than with the public?

[A] Cosell: There are very definite reasons that motivate members of what I call the old-world sporting press to attack me. Most of them are not men of education, and it hasn't been an easy thing for these people to see life pass them by in philosophical terms they don't even understand. The old-world press relates to an era that's past. Most of these men began as--and still are--baseball writers, and they can't abide the diminution in importance of their beloved sport. Baseball simply doesn't hold the place it once did within the spectrum of sport, and whereas the baseball writer's beat was once the most prestigious job in a sports department, it has now shifted to the men covering football.

[A] Further, the old-world sportswriters don't understand many of the contemporary figures in sport today. Dick Young of the New York Daily News, a man who has devoted the past three years of his life to downing me almost daily, has feelings about Ali that are entirely antithetical to my own, nor have he and other members of the old-world press ever taken kindly to Joe Namath, another controversial figure I've been known to support. So there is a coterie of newspaper sportswriters who don't care for me and my work. But as Harry Truman once said, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." I'm not about to get out of the kitchen, especially when I consider the sources of the heat; the background, education and perception of my more rabid critics just don't stand up to my own. If that makes me egotistical, I'll accept the tag.

[Q] Playboy: You seem to have earned a good deal of enmity among TV sports announcers as well as among sportswriters. Were you surprised when Ray Scott of CBS attacked you, in The Detroit Free Press, for bringing to football "an air of false controversy"?

[A] Cosell: One virtue of this interview may be that after reading it, people will think twice before calling me relentless. I've known Ray Scott for many years. He's a decent man and a competent sports announcer for CBS. Scott is not malicious and he's achieved a place in the world of sports announcing, but I don't agree with a single thing he said in that article and I don't think even he does. But I can understand his saying what he said, for TV sports announcing is a highly competitive, cutthroat business with very few jobs, many of which are attained through opportunism, luck, circumstance and only occasionally through what I like to think of as being some dedication, perseverance, brains and talent. That's why I've gotten to the top in my industry. One of the many clichés that Alvin Pete Rozelle has uttered turns out to be true: If you're successful, expect to be attacked.

[Q] Playboy: How much of the success of ABC's Monday Night Football do you think is attributable to you, Don Meredith and Frank Gifford rather than to the sport itself?

[A] Cosell: One could probably debate that subject forever. The best test, according to Roone Arledge, president of ABC Sports, is how we do when we broadcast lackluster games. Which brings up another avenue of attack we were subject to--the idea that we had an irresistible line-up of great games. Were the Jets and the St. Louis Cardinals a great match-up? In that second game of the year, we had two teams that had lost their openers, the Jets without Namath and the Cardinals obviously with very little going for them with or without their quarterback. Pittsburgh vs. Kansas City: The Chiefs scored 28 points in the second quarter to end a game that was a mismatch to begin with. St. Louis at San Diego: Each team went into the game at three up and five down. That's a lively prospect? When Miami beat the Chicago Bears 34 to 3, the game was over in the first quarter. But our ratings held up for all of those games, so maybe there is a chemistry that's right for the country in Dandy Don Meredith, Humble Howard Cosell and Faultless Frank Gifford. And if there is, we're not going to apologize for it.

[Q] Playboy: There's no reason you should, yet you've often inveighed against the instant transformation of jocks into television sports announcers. Gifford has had the benefit of years of experience, but doesn't Meredith qualify as a classic case of jock turned broadcaster?

[A] Cosell: Meredith's greatest value hasn't really been in terms of knowledgeability because he happened to play the game. The mere fact that a man has played football, basketball or baseball has nothing to do with the requirements of such a job. Don's value as a sports commentator lies in his ability to say things like, "Well, Roger Staubach is now four for four in the passing department. He's completed two to his team and two to the other." That comes over as such a shock compared with usual jock commentary that people eat it up. Don can get away with it because he's country, corn-pone, middle America. Of course, if Howard Cosell said the same thing, the reaction would be, "Who does that vicious son of a bitch think he is? Why, he's never even played the game!"

[Q] Playboy: What was your reaction when you found out you were going to be teamed with Meredith?

[A] Cosell: When Roone Arledge asked me about working with Dandy, I told him I'd be delighted to. I'd known Meredith when he played for the Cowboys--not intimately, but I'd responded to him personally. He's a delightful guy and I thought we could work well together, but I never dreamed it would work out as well as it has. Keith Jackson was the third man in the booth our first year and he's one of the finest announcers in the country, certainly close to being as good as Curt Gowdy of NBC, whom I consider the best play-by-play announcer in the business. Don't ask me who I think is the best color man in the business.

[Q] Playboy: Howard, who do you think is the best color man in the business?

[A] Cosell: Thank you for not asking me. I really believe I'm the best, for I have sought to bring to the American people a sense of the athlete as a human being and not as a piece of cereal-box mythology. My relationship with the men who play the game--all games--is probably unparalleled in this country, and I bring information about them to the public. But at the same time, because of my relationships not just with the athletes but also with the coaches and general managers, I have an over-all view of sport as a further frame of reference. And you can add to these the irreverence with which I generally approach sport. Irreverence is probably the trademark of our Monday-night telecasts--and the reason why Dandy Don Meredith is worth his weight in gold.

[Q] Playboy: Was Meredith confident that he could make the switch from quarter-backing to announcing?

[A] Cosell: No. In fact, he almost quit before the broadcasts got started. We did a dry run of the first pre-season game of 1970, Kansas City at Detroit, with Keith Jackson, Dandy and me taping as if we were on the air. The three of us then viewed the tape in New York along with Roone Arledge and Chet Forte, our producer-director, both of whom were sharply critical of Meredith. Dandy, who'd had no broadcasting experience at all, was very upset at the session, but for other reasons. He is a terribly sensitive man, surprisingly creative and intelligent, who's been beset by a tremendous number of personal problems, including a couple of marriages that didn't work out. Don is also the father of a beautiful little girl named Heather, who was born blind and retarded. Dandy had to fly back to Dallas the night we were reviewing that tape, because the very next day he was institutionalizing the child; so he was uptight anyway, and here he was being strongly criticized.

[A] He fully realized he wasn't a professional announcer by a long shot, and finally he said, "Look, fellas, this isn't really my bag, and I don't even know that much about football. I only know the Xs and Os Mr. Landry taught me at Dallas. So I'll just leave." I quickly look Roone and Chet aside and said, "Listen, Meredith can work out. Leave him to me." I then invited Dandy to have a drink with me at the Warwick Hotel across the street. When we were seated, I said, "Don, I know you're feeling down, but I think you'd be crazy to leave. You've got a style that's natural, you've got your own kind of flair and you're a personality. People are going to love you. And you've got something else: me. I'll lead you every step of the way. I can name 60 old-world sportswriters just waiting to put me down. I'll get all the heat, you'll get all the light and in the long run we're both gonna win." And Dandy looked at me and said with his usual eloquence, "Gol dang it, How, I'm with ya!"

[Q] Playboy: You make a lot of jokes on the air about Meredith's career with the Dallas Cowboys. What did you really think of his abilities?

[A] Cosell: Meredith was a good quarterback. One of the better quarterbacks--but not one of the great ones.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think he was wise to retire when he did?

[A] Cosell: Yes. I think Dandy had the capacity to be a great quarterback, but because of a poor personal relationship with his coach, Tom Landry, it was impossible. His retirement turned out to be lucky for ABC, because he's probably the most irreplaceable member of our broadcast team.

[Q] Playboy: Since you brought up the subject of replacement, would you tell us why Keith Jackson was dropped from the telecasts last year in favor of Frank Gifford?

[A] Cosell: That was Roone Arledge's decision. Roone has great belief in Frank Gifford and feels he is a very valuable man to have in a company line-up of announcers. He was concerned, of course, about the morality of replacing Keith, who had done a fine job, and who'd done it just the way he was asked to. Arledge told me, "That's my problem and I'll make it up to him. He'll be paid more, he'll do more N. B. A. basketball and he'll go back to college football. There's no way I want to lose this guy." But Roone felt we needed Gifford on Monday nights.

[Q] Playboy: Are the three of you as friendly as you seem to be on TV?

[A] Cosell: I think so in every respect. Dandy and Frank are best friends, and Frank actually got Meredith his job. We'd wanted Gifford on the show the first year and Frank wanted to be with us but couldn't because of his contract, so he recommended Dandy instead. Meredith and I became very close very quickly. When Gifford joined us last year, there was nothing less than amiable between Frank and me but, to be perfectly honest, certain tensions were there. Frank was feeling his way along; he didn't want to appear insecure and I didn't want to appear overriding. But by the fourth or fifth week, all of that had disappeared. Frank kept getting looser and looser, until he was as ready to laugh as Dandy and I were.

[Q] Playboy: Is the comedy on the telecasts rehearsed?

[A] Cosell: No, nothing is. I don't see Don and Frank until about noon of every Monday game, when we have a meeting with the producer-director. Occasionally, though, things happen just before a game that really get us in a great state of mind for the show. Our eighth telecast of the year, for example, took place in Baltimore, and it was a crucial game for both the Colts and the Los Angeles Rams. An hour before game time, I elected to go into the Colts' dressing room, which I'm really not supposed to do, but I'm very friendly with Carroll Rosenbloom, the team's owner, and Don Klosterman, the Colts' general manager. As I walked in, I stumbled over Tom Matte's foot, so I immediately broke the silence in the dressing room by announcing in my most blustery way, "There he is, Tom Matte, number 41. Does nothing well, but somehow everything well enough to win. And thus typifies this curiously unspectacular but nonetheless championship Colt team." All the players begin laughing and even John Unitas, who's sitting next to me, is smiling, and then cracks himself up further by saying wittily, "You're talking through your asshole, Howard." Anyway, in a corner of the dressing room, I see Rosenbloom chatting with Vice-President Agnew, who's a rabid Colts rooter. Rosenbloom sees me and, with an obvious measure of resignation, says, "Mr. Vice-President, do you know this man?" The Vice-President says, "Why, yes, Carroll, Howard and I have worked the banquet circuit together." I reply, "Absolutely true, Mr. Vice-President, but presently irrelevant. Tell me, sir, what is your position on Jewish ownership?" I said it loud enough for all the players to hear and I thought Klosterman was going to hide in the shower. Rosenbloom shakes his head and begins muttering, "I might have known what to expect from Cosell."

[A] I then suggest to Agnew that it would be a nice gesture to go from cubicle to cubicle and wish the players luck. So we go around the locker room together and I see us approaching four black players--John Mackey, an old friend of mine, Willie Richardson, Ray May and Roy Hilton. Just as we get within earshot, I say, "Then your conclusion, Mr. Vice-President, is that this team is saddled with too many blacks?" The black players know me, of course, and start giggling, and Agnew recovers instantly. "I didn't put it that way, Howard," he answers almost peevishly. "What I said was that an intelligent re-examination of the quota is in order." He really has a hell of a sense of humor and is a good sport. Agnew agreed to do an interview with me to open the telecast, and after it was concluded, I turned the mike over to Dandy, who said, "I hope you all noticed that the Vice-President is wearing a Howard Cosell wrist watch." Believe me, we were very loose for that game.

[Q] Playboy: Aside from being irreverent, do you feel that your Monday-night football telecasts have made any contribution to televised sports?

[A] Cosell: Well, we've tried to eliminate the immense amount of jargon used by sportscasters to convince the public that football is a hopelessly complex game. After all, how many times can people hear that one team is "isolating a setback on a linebacker"? That theme has become the most redundant of all refrains, because it's the most obvious way to combat a zone defense, which, in turn, is presented to us as if it were a work of Aristotelian logic. We try to talk about football in plain English and treat it as no more than what it is: a game.

[A] Monday Night Football has made one other major contribution to sports, I think. I would say that Dandy Don Meredith's erratic march to the Emmy, the most treasured of all broadcast awards, has to be regarded as one of the great feats of modern times. He did it in his very first year of TV work, and that season will always be filled with priceless memories for me. The first step in Don's countdown to Emmy came on the very first Monday-night telecast: Cleveland 31, Jets 21, Cleveland gaining about 180 yards, the Jets gaining over 500 yards, people in New York complaining that I hate Namath and people in Cleveland complaining that I hate the Browns. In that game, Dandy Don gave unmistakable evidence he was on his way by establishing his profound understanding of pass interference. He made that very clear by saying, "I don't know what it is, but it's a no-no."

[A] By our fifth game, however, he really showed just what a classy announcer he had become. The Washington Redskins were meeting the Oakland Raiders and during our Monday meeting, Roone Arledge said, "We've got a fantastic game tonight, fellas: the two great quarterbacks, Sonny Jurgensen versus Daryle Lamonica. Howie, it's a terrific opportunity for you to lead Dandy into anecdotes about the quarterbacks." And I said, "Roone, we've got an instant disaster on our hands. Washington doesn't belong on the same field with Oakland." Arledge answered, "Listen, any time Oakland scores, Washington can come right back with Jurgensen's passes." OK, I would lead Meredith into stories about the quarterbacks.

[A] So the game begins with Washington kicking off and Oakland returning the ball 52 yards upfield. On the first play from scrimmage, Lamonica hands off to number 35, Hewritt Dixon, and up the middle he goes for 48 yards and a touchdown. Oakland 7, Washington 0. After Oakland kicks off, Washington goes nowhere in three downs, and they're on their own eight in a punting situation. A bad snap and Oakland gets the ball deep in Redskin territory. First play, Lamonica to Warren Wells for a touchdown. Oakland 14, Washington 0, and we're not two minutes into the game. Arledge buzzes me from the booth: "Well, Lamonica threw a TD pass, so lead Dandy into an anecdote about Daryle." Right. "Dandy," I say over the air, "Daryle really knows how to capitalize on a break, doesn't he?" Meredith gets right with it. "He sure does, Howard. That reminds me, Daryle and I were on ABC's The American Sportsman"--and Meredith proceeds to tell America how he caught a really bad case of amoebic dysentery while hunting in Africa for the network's show. Keith Jackson has his head in his hands, I'm roaring and Dandy's the only guy in the booth able to talk. Arledge buzzes me again: "You hear what I heard? What do we do?" I say, "We wait to hear from the FCC." Says Arledge, "Fuck the anecdotes."

[A] After that, Arledge runs away to Europe and we are now in Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, with the Steelers playing the Cincinnati Bengals in a driving rain. The game is an absolute fiasco, we are wet and cold and all of us are bored to tears at the start of the second quarter. Then a retread middle linebacker for the Steelers, number 58, Chuck Allen, makes a tackle after moving a half foot to his right. Chet Forte buzzes me from the booth and asks, "Should we replay that?" I say, "Why not? We have nothing better to do. And in the jargon of the ex-athlete, we will call it a demonstration of lateral pursuit." Forte tells me to lead Dandy into an anecdote about Allen. Fine. "Dandy," I say, "our old friend number 58 made that play, a real beauty. Take over." Dandy wakes up and instantly is in command. "Yeah, How, that's our old buddy number 58," he says, checking the Cincinnati chart, "Al Beauchamp, and look at that lateral pursuit." I break up and Forte buzzes me. "Howard," he says, "the fucker had the wrong player on the wrong team. What do we do?" I suggest we let ten minutes go by and then I'll allude to it with a jocular throwaway. That's not good enough for Chet, who buzzes Dandy. "Listen, you stupid son of a bitch," he tells Meredith, "you had the wrong player on the wrong team. Not another word unless Howard asks you a direct question." Dandy takes his earphones off, turns to me and asks, "What's bugging him?" And I say, "Dandy, forget it. You know the guy chokes up when Arledge isn't around." I knew then that Meredith had an Emmy locked up. I wish all aspects of football could be as much fun for me as covering the games. If football weren't becoming so institutionalized an American rite, I'd enjoy it much, much more.

[Q] Playboy: In terms of football as a national rite, how do you feel about the patriotic displays that now precede games--the playing of the national anthem, the jet-aircraft fly-overs and similar demonstrations?

[A] Cosell: I think that every time they run up the flag and fly the airplanes and everything else, they should also hold an antiwar demonstration on the field. I don't buy any of it. I don't equate professional football, major-league baseball or any other sport in this country with motherhood, apple pie and patriotism. That's part of the old-world motif that's gone forever, and young people don't buy it, either. Furthermore, I don't think the playing of our national anthem is a fitting beginning for a football game or basketball game or boxing match or any athletic contest; that opinion will probably result in 50,000 more hate letters directed my way. But how is it an evidence of patriotism to sing or hear the national anthem played before a game? That's a cheap and easy thing, and 200,000,000 Benedict Arnolds could subscribe to it and it still wouldn't make them patriots. Some of the military pageantry before games is just as embarrassing. Before last year's Super Bowl, we had the North against the South in a replay of the Civil War, and the Sugar Bowl was filled with the sounds of gunfire as a mock battle was conducted. It was disgraceful.

[A] Likewise, I feel that playing the anthem before a game debases it and cheapens the real meaning of patriotism. The importance that our society attaches to sport is incredible. After all, is football a game or a religion? Do they play it in Westminster Abbey? The people of this country have allowed sports to get completely out of hand. Can you imagine that colleges actually were once places of education and not communities whose fondest wish is to produce undefeated football and basketball teams?

[Q] Playboy: ABC, which televises major college football, will undoubtedly be pleased to learn your opinion of big-time college sport. Do you have a quarrel with it?

[A] Cosell: Purely and simply, I'm against big-time college sport, at least the way it's conducted in this country. I think big-time college sport is corruptive and hypocritical. When a great university spends a good deal of its time and money--which they almost all do--on the importation of a 6' 11-1/2" young man because he can drop a ball through a hoop, it's a distortion of emphasis and values that redounds to a school's discredit. Young people are corrupted at the very beginning by college recruiters who descend upon them offering blandishments--many of them illegal under N. C. A. A. rules. So why should the country be surprised when athletes thus corrupted take the next highest bid and engineer basketball scandals? Why is it that every ten years in recent decades we've had a basketball scandal? Who knows, maybe we're ready for another one. Basketball is the slot-machine game of sports, the easiest one to dump. There are guys who've perfected the great dump shots--back rim--front rim--back rim--and out, and you can't tell a damn thing. But it's happened. I'm not going to name names, because I'd be subject to legal responsibility. And how can you really blame the young men involved, many of whom are from the ghetto, who are in some cases black, in other cases white, but all of whom are corrupted by the great institutions that entreat them to attend without regard to their pursuit of education or anything else? In the face of the kind of shameful recruiting that goes on, nobody should be surprised if and when the next dumping scandal occurs, because the colleges have been asking for it.

[Q] Playboy: Would you give us some examples of what you define as corruptive athletic recruiting?

[A] Cosell: Certainly. I think it's a dreadful thing for a university president to allow a coach to advertise in The Washington Post for basketball players to come to his institution, which was done by Charles ("Lefty") Driesell of the University of Maryland, brought in from Davidson to make Maryland a national basketball power. A much stronger and more absurd example concerned Steve Worster, who eventually starred for the University of Texas football team. When he was a senior at Bridge City High School, Steve was the most famous high school player in America. I asked his parents if we could go into their home and film Steve and his folks in conversation with scouts there to recruit him for their colleges. I couldn't believe what I saw. I couldn't believe that the scouts would allow us to record what they had to say. In came this guy from the University of Houston. "Steve," the scout said, "I want your parents to hear this. Leave aside the car and a good part-time job and everything else you can expect. Steve, how do you like it when you play? You like it a little bit cold, 54 degrees? You got it. Or maybe you like it warm, 74 degrees? You got it. Somewhere in between, say 64 degrees? You got that, too. Steve, we play in the Astrodome. Not only can you call the game for us, Steve--we'll let you call the temperature!" Can you believe this? This is what a college is for? See it in practice and you get sick to your stomach.

[Q] Playboy: We're not trying to put words in your mouth, Howard, but you seem to be charging that the N. C. A. A. is inept at its job.

[A] Cosell: I suppose if one accepts the fact that there has to be big-time college sports, the N. C. A. A. can be presumed to be doing a good job administratively, in the sense that it oversees scheduling and gives orderliness to the whole conduct of intercollegiate sports. But in the sense of adhering to the true purposes and doctrines of a college, in the sense of building the integrity and moral fiber of young people who happen to have a bent for athletics, I think it's doing a very bad job.

[Q] Playboy: Perhaps the disillusioning college experience helps explain the cynicism with which many young players view a professional sports career--that is, if you believe veterans such as Mike Ditka of the Dallas Cowboys. He recently stated that today's athletes coming out of college are a new breed who regard their pro careers as a meal ticket and nothing more. Do you think the young pros of today differ greatly from their predecessors of a decade ago?

[A] Cosell: Sure, there's a new breed of athlete, and although I didn't read the Ditka quote you just mentioned, I remember Mike very well and his concern for a meal ticket. During the pro-football war for talent, one of the men acquired by the Houston Oilers of the American Football League was Mike Ditka, then with the Chicago Bears, who received a reported $50,000 for signing. So I don't think he's immune to the notion of a meal ticket. But the athletes of today are indeed different from those who were active when I came into the business. They are men much more aware of the society of which they are a part. They want a voice in their future, and many of them don't want to give up the whole of life just to play football. Men like Dave Meggyesy, who quit the St. Louis Cardinals, George Sauer, Jr., formerly of the New York Jets, and Chip Oliver, an erstwhile Oakland Raider, are no longer exceptions.

[Q] Playboy: What about men who feel that football isn't their entire life but want to continue playing; will they necessarily come into conflict with their coaches, many of whom believe a pro's total existence must revolve around his sport?

[A] Cosell: They'd have trouble with most of the current pro coaches, but not all of them.

[Q] Playboy: Which coaches are considered the most doctrinaire?

[A] Cosell: Don Shula is hard line. Hank Stram is surprisingly hard line. Dick Nolan is hard line. Tommy Prothro is not. Weeb Ewbank is not. Instead of giving you a rundown on every remaining pro coach, let me just say that most of the alleged new breed of athletes will come afoul of their coaches, but if the players are good enough, some of the toughest coaches will let things ride. This was true even of Vince Lombardi, probably the most disciplinary of coaches. The year Vince took over the Washington Redskins, he was watching the players report to training camp at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Sonny Jurgensen came in, Charley Taylor arrived, and then up comes this car and a Mod kid jumps out with hair down to his shoulders and he's carrying a guitar. Lombardi looks at him with suspicion and spits out to his assistant. "Who the hell is that?" And the guy says, "That's Jerry Smith, the tight end." Lombardi, who'd been studying Redskins game films all winter and spring, says, "He can play. Let him keep the hair and guitar."

[Q] Playboy: Do you think that Lombardi, who set the style for coaching authoritarianism, would be able to inspire today's young players to the excellence he achieved at Green Bay?

[A] Cosell: Absolutely. Some men are exceptional, and Lombardi was an exceptional man. He would have been exceptional in any walk of life--in industry, government or education. The man was a classics scholar, you know, and he was very much misrepresented by a certain segment of the sporting press. Nobody has ever really written about the reason Vince quit coaching the Packers when he did. It related to a very hostile piece about him in Esquire magazine by Leonard Schecter and a call Lombardi got from his mother, who was in tears, and who told him, "This is not my son. How could they write this about you?"

[Q] Playboy: Schecter portrayed Lombardi as a man so single-mindedly committed to victory that he drove his players as ruthlessly as any general would in a battle. Was that an inaccurate portrait?

[A] Cosell: It very definitely was. Lombardi was fanatical only when drilling his team on the football field. And when Schecter's Esquire article came out, Vince felt it was a thoroughly scurrilous piece, utterly unfair, and it upset him terribly. When his mother called him about it, he really became distraught, because Vince was an Old World Italian, a very devoted family man. And he decided, hell, he'd lived a clean and decent life and had done his damnedest in his profession. He was well fixed for life and he just didn't want to take that kind of criticism anymore; he felt that if he became only a general manager and stepped out of coaching, the sports-writers would ease up on him. Vince was deeply affected by and sensitive to adverse press, and he never got over it.

[Q] Playboy: Were you surprised when he later came out ot retirement to coach the Redskins?

[A] Cosell: No, not at all. I knew he was going to do it. In fact, he discussed it with me several times during his retirement period. Vince couldn't sit on the side lines, he just couldn't. He loved that goddamn game; it was his whole life.

[Q] Playboy: Lombardi set a standard of coaching excellence; are there currently any N. F. L. coaches as good as he was?

[A] Cosell: I think not. In my opinion, the three best coaches in professional football today are George Allen, Don Shula and Hank Stram, but they still cannot yet be compared to Lombardi--which is by way of illustrating how great Lombardi was, for Allen, Shula and Stram are really fine, fine coaches.

[Q] Playboy: Given the same personnel, what can these three do that other coaches can't?

[A] Cosell: React, adjust, communicate--and win. There's no question that Don Shula and George Allen can do great things with a football team; their records prove it. Hank Stram gets a lot of criticism from the fans in Kansas City, who feel he's got the personnel to win every year. But that's illusory, because Hank hasn't had great running backs, and only one, Ed Podolak, has developed.

[A] Of course, there are other excellent coaches in the N. F. L. Weeb Ewbank may be smarter than anybody else when it comes to evaluating players and their various talents. And because he had a unique appreciation for a very young Jets team, he was able to guide them to a Super Bowl championship. Weeb's weaknesses are different. He's also general manager and for him that's a bad situation; when you let him negotiate contracts with players, he can hurt the team badly. He'll save the team $2000 and cost it a quarter of a million. Verlon Biggs, the Jets' great defensive end, was traded to Washington over a meager salary difference of $1500--and he's the kind of player upon whom Super Bowl championships are built. I'm not singling out Ewbank for criticism; I criticized him for three years and I was wrong. I thought his ideas were obsolete; I thought he didn't discipline the team enough and I was wrong. I always wonder, though, about Namath under Lombardi, for Lombardi dreamed about coaching him. I think Namath could have been much greater than he has been.

[Q] Playboy: How great is that?

[A] Cosell: In terms of ability, no man has yet played the quarterback position who could really equal Joe Namath. His talent is unbelievable. John Unitas will tell you this, but John will also say, "Look at what he does with it." Joe is a young man who needs the discipline he would have gotten from Lombardi--not in his private life but in his thinking on the field. With all of his talents, he continues almost obsessively to make critical mistakes, such as challenging zone defenses when he shouldn't and thus giving up key interceptions. Namath does that constantly, so I don't think he's yet played as brilliantly as he can. The one time Namath did was in the Super Bowl, when he adhered religiously to the game plan, was totally disciplined, and then you saw the absolutely impeccable quarterback.

[Q] Playboy: Is your high regard for Namath's abilities shared by many in the sports world?

[A] Cosell: It is by people who work in professional football. There are at least live common yardsticks for the evaluation of a quarterback: reaction to pressure, quickness in setting up, quickness in delivery, leadership qualities and recognition of defenses. On a total rating of these five values, at five points apiece, Namath scores a 23 or 24, and the closest others rate is 18 or so: Len Dawson, John Brodie and Johnny Hadl, the exceptional and very underpublicized quarterback of the San Diego Chargers. Incidentally, if Unitas and Bart Starr weren't over the hill, they, too, would be up there. Then come the two young ones, Roger Staubach and Bob Griese, at the same level with Fran Tarkenton, who's a very fine quarterback and who may well take Minnesota to next year's Super Bowl. A more publicized quarterback like Roman Gabriel is well down on the list, but not nearly so far down as people like Bob Berry of the Atlanta Falcons and Jack Concannon of the Chicago Bears. Namath has all these players beat by a wide margin. His abilities are so vast that they are often his undoing.

[Q] Playboy: In what way?

[A] Cosell: His confidence in himself is awesome--as is his stubbornness. He thinks he can throw a pass anywhere, any time, regardless of defense, but he's human--and he can't. That's about the only thing Namath has to be disciplined into learning. Joe is an exceptional play caller and nobody, absolutely nobody, reads defenses better than he does; Namath is a terribly bright guy. I think Don Shula or George Allen could make him into the best quarterback ever to step on a football field. The only reason I don't mention Stram is that Namath wouldn't be good for Hank's offense; Joe can't run and Stram wants movement in a quarterback because of the Chiefs' offensive variations.

[Q] Playboy: Is the quarterback the most important man on a team?

[A] Cosell: In theory, yes, yet it has been documentarily established in recent years that you can win a title without a great quarterback. The Vikings went to a Super Bowl with Joe Kapp and last year the Cowboys got there with Craig Morton--where they were beaten by the Colts with Earl Morrall. What are these --great quarterbacks? Now you see teams winning games in the N. F. L. with the likes of Bobby Douglass and Virgil Carter.

[Q] Playboy: You pronounce these names as if each were a communicable disease. Are they really that bad?

[A] Cosell: I don't think they're that bad, but the sense in which I relate to them is this: Throughout all its years, the N. F. L. has carefully and effectively propagated the myth of its own invincibility. Presumably, every player was a superstar--and to be a quarterback in the N. F. L. you had to be perfect, or so claimed the N. F. L. If it was true then, which it wasn't, it certainly isn't true now. The Bears won the title in 1963 with Billy Wade and the Browns won it in 1964 with Frank Ryan, hardly great quarterbacks by any stretch of the imagination. I think the N. F. L.'s finest achievement has been the masterful job of propaganda it's done about itself.

[A] That's the real greatness of Joe Willie Namath: In a single afternoon, he punctured the entire myth of N. F. L. superiority. And then, the next year, along came Kansas City to stick it to the Vikings in the Super Bowl. Conversely, that's the sad thing about Miami's loss to Dallas this year; now old-line N. F. L. sportswriters and fans are chuckling as if they were club owners, such is their allegiance to the N. F. L. They're saying things like, "We still got the real teams--see what the Cowboys did to the Dolphins?" As if the Jets and Namath and the Chiefs and Stram never existed.

[Q] Playboy: What are you predicting for next season?

[A] Cosell: That we're going to witness the continued growth of the traditional N. F. L. have-nots; the Eagles, the Bills, the Houston Oilers, the New Orleans Saints, the Atlanta Falcons, the New England Patriots and the Cincinnati Bengals are all on their way to becoming formidable teams. Miami, a have-not just a couple of years ago, has already moved up. Whereas the Bears, like the Giants, another traditional old-world power, are a declining team. The Green Bay Packers have declined, but I suspect they're going to improve dramatically quite soon. I think the Kansas City Chiefs will stay up there, especially if Len Dawson doesn't retire. The San Francisco 49ers have good personnel and will be contenders, and Dallas, of course, may well reappear in the Super Bowl. Minnesota, having acquired Tarkenton, will finally have an offense to go with its murderous defense, and Baltimore has excellent personnel everywhere but at quarterback, which may be a prepossessing problem. The New York Jets have a chance to be strong for many years if Namath can merely stand up; he's a very great player.

[Q] Playboy: You're as generous with compliments as you are with criticism, but the criticism seems to be what you're known for.

[A] Cosell: That's precisely the kind of reaction I've always encountered when dealing seriously with sport, and that really started with a show I did early in my career. When the New York Mets came into existence, ABC Radio broadcast their games and I was assigned to do a post-game show. Casey Stengel had been hired as the Mets' manager and, of course, he'd been at the helm of the New York Yankees during their string of pennant and world-series victories. Stengel was a welcome figure to have on the scene, but I knew that most of the Yankees who had played under him disliked the man, and soon after he took over the Mets, I saw why. In my opinion--and I said so on the air--Stengel was bad for young people. He didn't like them and he treated them badly. But he was revered by the fans and when I criticized him, I was immediately accused of doing it "to develop a name." What a ridiculous thing to think. I was taking my professional life in my hands by doing it. I wasn't then what I am now, and I was doing it because I'd seen exactly how Stengel treated his men. Like many an ex-Yankee, most Mets players didn't like him; they thought he was cruel and a big bag of wind.

[Q] Playboy: Would you care to be more specific?

[A] Cosell: I don't mind at all. There are 25 men on a baseball team and Stengel was the only manager I'd ever heard of who didn't know the names of many of his players, such was his abiding interest in them. I think what finally bothered me most about Stengel was the manner in which he would talk to the press about his players and their failings; he would really ridicule them. Now, they may have been lousy players--and, let's face it, the early Mets were lousy players--and it's perfectly all right for a manager to chew out his players in the dressing room. But there was hardly a need to strip young men of all their pride and self-respect in public. Stengel did that. Repeatedly.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't any other members of the New York press point out these things?

[A] Cosell: Never. The sportswriters loved Stengel because he gave them copy every day. And what we soon had in New York was a press that celebrated futility. That's all Stengel was there for, to promote public relations, and the team's ineptitude became a gay thing. Well, I thought it was a pathetic thing. There I was, living in an age where, in football, Vince Lombardi was pursuing a quest for excellence while, in baseball, Casey Stengel was creating a legend out of almost purposeful futility. Between the two, I'll go with Lombardi.

[Q] Playboy: Did you disapprove of the way Stengel managed his team as well as the way he handled his players?

[A] Cosell: I don't mind telling you I thought Stengel was a good manager. I'm tempted to add, "He knew the game," but how difficult is it to know the game of baseball? Little leaguers could manage a team successfully and the game is so simple that eight-year-olds can play it and understand it and sit in a grandstand and second-guess as well as any fan who's followed a team for 20 years. Since baseball broadcasters are usually hired by the team and therefore must act as shills, it created a stir when I did my post-game show. I then learned--by reading the newspapers--that I was being controversial to advance my career. But I've learned to live with even the most mindless criticism, which began to come my way when I first started to cover boxing.

[Q] Playboy: Has prize fighting always been one of your favorite spectator sports?

[A] Cosell: At that time, no. I was drawn to boxing initially because of my interest in Floyd Patterson. I was young in the business then and I learned, after doing a few interviews with Floyd, that a number of sportswriters didn't like me because I was producing exclusive material with him. I got caught up in the man's background. Floyd had attended the Wiltwyck School and, later on, one of the "600" public schools, both of which offered special training for the disturbed child--which Floyd was. As a little black kid growing up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, Patterson used to hide in a hole in the subway and he'd sit there for hours until it was time to go home. He was a very undecipherable young man and in a real way, he fascinated me. Since I'd never really been a devotee of boxing, I suppose it would be accurate to think that Floyd was the catalyst for my interest in the sport.

[Q] Playboy: Did you think he was a great fighter?

[A] Cosell: If Patterson had been just a bit smaller, he probably would have been the greatest light-heavyweight champion in history. Floyd fought as a heavyweight at weights varying anywhere from the 180s up into the low 190s. Patterson's punching ability was little short of amazing for his size, and I mean to tell you he was as hard a puncher as I've seen. In fact, the strongest single punch I've ever seen in my life was the left hook with which Floyd knocked out Ingemar Johannson on June 20, I960, in the fifth round of their title fight at the old Polo Grounds. I'll never forget the scene; blood was coming out of Johannson's mouth, his right leg was twitching and he was still out cold when I climbed into the ring. Whitey Bimstein, the trainer, was leaning over him and a chill went through me when I saw Johannson lying there like that. "My God, Whitey, is he dead?" I asked. And Bimstein, barely looking up at me, said, "The son of a bitch should be--I told him to watch out for the left hook."

[Q] Playboy: Patterson, now 37, is well past his prime as a fighter, and supposedly is financially secure. Do you have any idea why he's still active in the ring?

[A] Cosell: Yes, I know why he fights. Boxing gave Floyd a place in society that he never dreamed he could possibly have. And he has a tremendous gratitude to the sport for that. He put it to me in quite a moving way: "It's like being in love with a woman. She can be unfaithful, she can be mean, she can be cruel, but it doesn't matter. If you love her, you want her, even though she can do you all kinds of harm. It's the same with me and boxing. It can do me all kinds of harm, but I love it." Certainly, as a fighter, Floyd is little more than a shadow of what he was. I think his abilities had diminished sharply as far back as the first Liston fight, when he lost his championship to a man whose character seems to have improved in death as it never could have while he was alive.

[Q] Playboy: What do you mean by that?

[A] Cosell: I recently read that as a product of society and what it had made him, Charles ("Sonny") Liston was more honest in his own way than many a do-gooder--such as myself--who had verbally assaulted him while he was alive. What can I tell you? I despised Sonny Liston.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Cosell: He was a congenital thug with a record of more than 20 arrests and a number of felonies--really serious crimes--to his credit, or rather discredit. He was a cheap and ugly bully without morality and I had no use for him. It's just too easy a cop-out to say that Liston was a product of a society in which the black is a second-class citizen and all the rest of that line of reasoning. Sonny was a bad apple.

[Q] Playboy: What were your dealings with him like?

[A] Cosell: Unlike my dealings with any other man I've ever encountered in sport. The first time I met Sonny, I mean really met Sonny, was in September of 1962. He was getting ready for his first title fight with Patterson and he was training at Aurora Downs, a broken-down old race track about 30 miles outside Chicago. I was doing a radio broadcast of that fight with Rocky Marciano, who'd never met Liston either. We drove out to tape Liston for our prefight show, accompanied by Oscar Fraley, a good friend of mine who'd co-authored The Untouchables and who was the feature sportswriter for United Press. When we got to this seedy old place, we had to wait quite a while before an armed guard--patrolling behind a barbed-wire fence--got permission for us to enter. The ring had been set up in the middle of what had been the clubhouse, and the floor was littered with losing horse-race tickets, and all the betting windows were smashed in. The place was so ramshackle as to be almost beyond belief.

[A] The whole thing was eerie. When we entered, Liston was in the ring, shadow-boxing to a recording of Night Train. There were about five other people there, but no one would make a sound. Suddenly, from an upper level, Liston's wife comes down the stairs, says not a word to anyone but walks straight toward the ring and climbs in. And then she and Sonny start to do the twist to Night Train. And all this time, no one has said a word. I'm telling you, the scene was weird. I pulled Marciano aside and said, "Look, as soon as the Listons finish dancing, the smart thing for us to do, champ, since you were the greatest, is for you to do the interview." Rock looks at me and says, "I want no part of it. You think I'm nuts?" So I turn to Fraley and before I can say anything, he says, "I wanna go home."

[Q] Playboy: Did you?

[A] Cosell: Not yet. A few minutes later, his manager talks to Sonny about us and from the ring Liston looks over balefully, gives us a sinister stare and then shouts, "Goddamn it, I ain't talking to no one! No one, you understand?" We understood, but we had to get that interview. When his workout was over, Liston finally allowed Marciano to approach him, but the Rock was so shook he virtually couldn't speak. So I said, "Now, look, Sonny, you're going to be the heavyweight champion of the world and it's not going to take you long. You're going to have to present a whole new image to the American public, 'cause you got a lot to make up for. I don't give a goddamn if you hate me; I don't like you either, and I just met you. But you gotta do this interview."

[Q] Playboy: You really said that to him?

[A] Cosell: Yes, I did, but I still don't know why. Liston, though, just gave me a big smile and suddenly I realized that the son of a bitch was really just a big bully. And he finally did quite a pleasant interview. When we left, they were playing Night Train again. That was the first time I met Sonny Liston.

[Q] Playboy: There are many people who still can't believe that Liston, massive and seemingly invincible, could have been knocked out so quickly---and so mysteriously--by Ali in their second bout. You were there; was the fight fixed?

[A] Cosell: I'm suspicious about that fight. I was then, I am now. I never saw a punch. Certain sportswriters saw a punch, but they see a lot of things. Jimmy Cannon, a fine boxing writer, said he was situated exactly right when the knockout occurred. Cannon said he definitely saw the punch--and that it couldn't have crushed a grape.

[Q] Playboy: Were you surprised when Ali beat Liston in their first title fight?

[A] Cosell: I couldn't have been more surprised: I thought Liston would kill him. But a strange thing happened in that bout. Rocky Marciano and I were covering the fight, and I believe it was in the third round when Ali landed a right on Liston's left cheek. Sonny had a paunchy, slightly flabby face, and the blow split the whole side of his face wide open, from the corner of his left eye down to the corner of the lip; blood just began pouring out. Ali, if you remember, used to turn his punches at the moment of impact, and they had a damaging, slicing effect. Absolutely devastating; he could really cut a man to ribbons in those days--which is what he did to Liston in that third round.

[A] I'll never forget what Marciano said to me just a few moments after that punch: "Jesus Christ, Howie, Liston's become an old man." And it was true; Sonny stood exposed from that moment on. I don't really have any questions about that first fight, because after Ali opened that wound, Sonny was ready to quit. And I think that under almost any circumstances, Ali would have won the second fight rather easily. But the curious way it ended; I remember students from Bates College running down to ringside and shouting, "Fix! Fix! Fix!" Saint Dominic's Arena in Lewiston, Maine, has to be one of the signal sites in boxing history. I still don't know what happened there on the night of May 25, 1965, and I guess I'll never know.

[Q] Playboy: Just a few months after the second Liston fight, Ali defended his title against Patterson. Though you've always been a friend and partisan of Ali's, you criticized him severely after that bout. Why?

[A] Cosell: It was clear to me that Ali purposefully tormented an outclassed Floyd Patterson for 12 rounds, at which point referee Harry Krause finally stopped die one-sided fight. Muhammad despised Floyd. He's since grown up and changed, but when they fought, Ali really felt that Floyd was a white man's black man who was a kind of surrogate white hope. Patterson, if you remember, had made a number of deprecating remarks about the Black Muslims and had even had a letter published in several newspapers in which he vowed to bring the heavyweight championship "back to America." That got to Muhammad, as did Patterson's quiet and subdued manner. Ali never took to him and Floyd's attitude about the Muslims really angered him.

[Q] Playboy: Isn't it possible that Ali was using the Muslim theme as a prefight strategical ploy in the same way he feigned insanity at the weigh-in for the first Liston bout?

[A] Cosell: That's possible but not probable. I really believe Patterson irritated Muhammad. On the other hand, Ali's attack of insanity on the day of the first Liston match was a great, great act. I, for one, left that weigh-in convinced that Ali had genuinely popped his cork.

[Q] Playboy: Since you're a fairly perceptive observer of athletes, don't you think it's possible that he really did freak out?

[A] Cosell: No chance at all, and I'll tell you why. When I got to Miami's Convention Hall, where the bout was to take place, I arrived early enough to see Muhammad's brother, Rahaman Ali, fight in a preliminary. As I was walking down to ringside, who the hell do I see standing there but Ali, who clouts me on the shoulder and shouts, "It's my man, Howard Cosell! Howard, stand here and watch my brother take care of this chump!" And I could only think to myself, "Why, that son of a bitch, what an actor! Never saw a man cooler and he's about to go up against the most feared heavyweight in a decade." I realized then he'd put on a show that had taken everyone in.

[Q] Playboy: Did Ali ever admit it to you?

[A] Cosell: Indeed he did. I remember asking him about it and Muhammad, with a straight face but twinkling eyes, said, "Oh, I was scared, man, scared. I just diought I'd let all those writers see how scared I was. Remember your radio show the afternoon of the fight? From what you said, I was just going to die when Liston stared at me in the ring." Ali then paused and said, "Well, Liston died when he got in that ring; he was the guy who was scared. And I made him scared. I wanted him to know I was crazy, because any man who's not a fool has got to be scared of a crazy man."

[A] On the night of the fight, however, no matter how cool I realized he was, I still didn't give him a chance to beat the dreaded Big Black Bear, as he'd come to call Liston. Ali always had nicknames for his opponents; Patterson was the Rabbit, Terrell the Octopus and George Chuvalo the Washerwoman. But after he'd cut and demoralized Liston in that third round, I turned to Marciano and said, "There's no way this guy can lose. We've been completely fooled, Rock. The kid's a fighter." And what a fighter he was. Before they put him into enforced idleness, Muhammad Ali was the greatest fighter I ever saw in my life.

[Q] Playboy: Is he less than that now?

[A] Cosell: Unfortunately, yes. He lost so much in the three and a half years he was out of the ring that it's almost indescribable. Muhammad has lost his two basic attributes--the swiftness of his feet and the swiftness of his hands. And when you lose that hand speed, you lose the sharpness of your punches. And Ali has totally lost that punishing ability to turn his punches the way he did against Liston nearly eight years ago. Otherwise, there's no way he could have lost to Joe Frazier. Frazier is a good, tough fighter of the club variety who leads with his head. Ali fought him after all that idleness and you know the damage he did to him. Frazier is not to be even remotely compared with Muhammad.

[A] In their title fight, I agreed completely with referee Arthur Mercante's score card; Ali was leading six rounds to four and he'd almost decked Frazier in the ninth. I'm personally convinced that the Ali of old would have knocked Frazier out within five rounds. And to me it was remarkable that Muhammad was ahead in the fight until that surprising episode in the 11th round, when he lay against the ropes with his gloves at his sides; Frazier then got in a left hook that knocked Ali silly, even though it didn' knock him down. From then on, Frazier dominated the fight and fairly won the decision. But the damage done to Frazier! Good Lord, I was standing right next to his manager, Yancy Durham, and, believe me, they had to carry Joe out. When Muhammad left the ring, he actually gave me a wink!

[A] An amazing thing then happened: Within 60 days, Ali had many people believing he had been robbed and that he'd really won the fight--which he didn't. Let's face it, the man is some personality. He's the most famous athlete in the world; there's nobody even close, and that includes Pele, El Cordobés and anyone else you might care to name. In all honesty, I feel sorry for Joe Frazier. He's the heavyweight champion of the world, but a lot of people don't accept him as that. And quite understandably, it's killing him inside. Joe wasn't responsible for Ali beingbanned. He fought Ali as hard as he could, he beat him, and yet nobody really accepts him. And so he has grown to hate Ali.

[Q] Playboy: If Frazier really feels that way, doesn't that portend another severe test for Ali in their rematch?

[A] Cosell: In all honesty, I'm not sure there will be a rematch. I'm not sure about Frazier's boxing future, but I don't know enough about the subject right now to talk authoritatively about it. First I want to be satisfied that Joe didn't suffer permanent damage in the Ali fight. While Frazier was in the hospital for three weeks, his doctor talked about blood in the urine, a kidney ailment, and so on. And now it develops that he's got recurring high blood pressure, which they maintain he's had since childhood. Maybe that's true, I don't know. I don't know, either, whether or not he suffered any head injuries. Joe may very well be completely healthy, and I don't mean to imply that there's something wrong with him. I'm just concerned about it because he's a fine young man and I wouldn't want to see him damaged for life.

[Q] Playboy: Have you talked to Ali since the Wide World of Sports show when you set the "highlights" of his fight with Buster Mathis to music and called the whole tiling a farce?

[A] Cosell: No, I haven't. But I talk to Angelo Dundee, Muhammad's trainer, all the time. Angie told me I was absolutely right in my opinion of the fight and he actually thanked me for what we did on the show. He said, "I hope this is gonna wake Muhammad up. He's gotta start training and become a fighter again." If he and Frazier meet in a rematch, by the way, I'm convinced that if Ali gets into reasonable shape, he still has enough left to give him a chance to whip Joe.

[Q] Playboy: Supposing he doesn't; is there anyone fighting today who'll be able to keep boxing alive the way Ali has?

[A] Cosell: Do you really think Ali has kept boxing alive? Boxing is a moribund sport, its death inevitable for reasons tied to economics, sociology and electronics. Historically, boxing was the sport of each succeeding wave of underprivileged minorities--the Irish, Italians, Jews, blacks and, most recently, Puerto Ricans. That's because there were never any decent jobs for minority-group members, but equal-opportunity hiring and the growth of the economy has changed all that. The electronic factor was television; Wednesday- and Friday-night fights eventually caused the sport to become oversaturated many years ago. Did Ali keep it alive? Only in the sense of the occasional heavyweight championship fight. Essentially, boxing is dead and has been for a long time.

[Q] Playboy: Do you regret its demise?

[A] Cosell: I don't have much feeling about boxing today, but the sport will always have a hold on me because of the men who fight. They are the most interesting of all athletes, for they seem to have the deepest feelings about life; maybe it's because their sport is so naked and brutal and is such a lonely pursuit. You have to get inside a ring to appreciate how small it is; you wonder how men can ever escape. There's something special about a boxer and something special about his sport, for it engages our basic emotions like no other athletic activity.

[Q] Playboy: Do you still react emotionally to a boxing match?

[A] Cosell: Yes, especially if I'm watching a heavyweight championship bout, a good heavyweight title fight, which I believe is the most exciting sports event in the world. It's the only event that can totally engulf me emotionally. The tension and anticipation that run through a crowd before the opening bell of a long-awaited heavyweight championship bout is just overwhelming, and I've never seen it reach the pinnacle that it did at the Ali-Frazier fight. The excitement was almost unbearable. On a broader, less emotional scale, the Olympic Games give you a sense of the sweep of civilized society on the planet Earth. You walk into that Olympic Village and you can't help feeling as if you've stumbled upon a utopia, a society where people love and care about one another. In spite of autocrats like Avery Brundage and the bureaucrats who make up the U. S. Olympic Committee, the overriding memory I'm left with after an Olympiad is one of understanding and friendship among the young people of the world. And then perhaps you get a chance to see a victory in the Olympics that has a very special meaning, such as Bill Toomey's gold-medal performance in the 1968 Olympic decathlon. His was probably the most extraordinary victory I've ever witnessed.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Cosell: When Bill was five years old, he was playing with a piece of ceramics that shattered; the nerves in his right wrist were severed, paralyzing the hand. Doctors said he'd never be able to use the hand again, and to this day his right hand is shriveled. But somehow he made that hand work so that he could put the shot, carry the pole for the vault, throw the discus and heave a javelin. Toomey always dreamed of becoming an Olympic champion and at age 25, he paid his own way to watch the 1964 Tokyo games. He'd dabbled in track and field for some time and because Bill couldn't do anything superbly well, he decided to diversify. Soon after the Tokyo Olympics, we began to read Bill Toomey's name in the decathlon results of international track meets. He seemed to be getting somewhere, but then he caught infectious hepatitis in West Germany. Toomey was hospitalized for six months and close to death, but finally he recovered. Then, almost incredibly, he came down with mononucleosis, and shortly after that, one of his knees got cracked up in a car accident--and what's an athlete without good knees? But Toomey overcame it all, and at 29, this schoolteacher was our country's hope in the 1968 Olympic decathlon--48 hours of the most intense competition in the world.

[A] In Mexico City, I snuck into the athletes' room because I wanted to wish Bill luck before the final decathlon event, the 1500-meter run. If he won that, he'd win the gold medal. But there was no conversation between Bill and me: Toomey lay prostrate on a rubbing table, out cold from utter exhaustion. But an hour later, he was back out on the track. Dusk had descended and Mexico City was cold, wet and windy. They ran the damned race and it was no contest: The man with the finishing kick was Bill Toomey, and as I stood next to the cinder path watching him stride to victory, I just felt exultant for the whole human race. He gave vivid evidence that man can do virtually whatever he wants to do if he wills it, and then lives by that will. Bill Toomey's Olympic victory was an absolute demonstration of the magnificence of the human spirit. And I love him for it.

[Q] Playboy: You sound like a man who's fulfilled by his work. Are you?

[A] Cosell: When I'm dealing with compelling events like an Olympiad or an Ali-Frazier heavyweight title fight, yes, I am. But those are rare occasions. To me, the biggest virtue of working in sports are some of the people you meet; you do have a brush with greatness. And I've been very lucky that way. I think Vince Lombardi was a great man. I think Bill Toomey is a great man. I think Jackie Robinson is one of the greatest men human society has yet produced. I thought Fred Hutchinson, the baseball manager, was a great man. It's a positive thrill for me to go back through my life and know that these men were my friends. And because they were in the public arena, I think each of them had a beneficial impact on society. The president of a corporation doesn't have that kind of visible impact, nor does the president of a university. Neither does a great scientist, unless he comes up with an electrifying breakthrough like Jonas Salk's. But an athlete can have it because sport has such a peculiar place in our society. But can I really take games seriously? No. Sport is not going to cause a cessation of hostilities in Vietnam. Sports will not assuage the nation's racial inequities. Sport will not rebuild a single ghetto in America. And so the answer for me is, finally, no: My work does not fulfill me.

[Q] Playboy: Aside from sport, then, what are the main passions of your life?

[A] Cosell: I have a deep and abiding interest in politics that has never been fulfilled. I don't regret for a minute leaving my law practice, but would I like to be in the United States Senate? Yes, I would. Would I like to do something about the problems of the world and especially the problems of our great cities? Yes, I certainly would. Politics, incidentally, is not my only private passion. To take you from the significant to the absurd, I don't mind admitting that I like to act.

[Q] Playboy: Was that triggered by your appearance in Woody Allen's Bananas?

[A] Cosell: I'm afraid so. Actually, I was pleasantly surprised with my work in it, because when I left Puerto Rico after the shooting, I had grave misgivings about having done it.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't you think you were the perfect choice to play yourself?

[A] Cosell: Truthfully, I thought I was in over my head. And that's because Woody Allen is a comic genius. Twenty years from now, there may very well be Woody Allen film festivals just as there are now with the movies of W. C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin and the Marx Brothers. I came home to New York worrying if I'd made a fool of myself, but then a few months later, Woody called me and said, "Howard, we've rough-cut the movie and the best thing in it is your opening." When I finally saw the film, I couldn't believe my scenes came over as well as they did. Since Bananas, I've done some comedy spots on several TV shows, and I enjoy that kind of thing. But the most satisfying TV work I've done were the times I guest-hosted the Dick Cavett and David Frost shows. Both of those allowed me the chance to let my mental curiosity come out and play.

[Q] Playboy: If you finally get weary of sports reporting, would you want to have your own TV talk show?

[A] Cosell: One of the reasons I've been doing all these things is that, to a degree, I have gotten weary of sports. You have to if you've got a mind and if you're an educated man. But I wouldn't get into the talk-show field at the expense of leaving sports, because that's a practical matter, not an intellectual one. I've been in sport too long, established too firm a base and make too much money at it to get out now. I wouldn't venture into an entirely new field unless my wife and children were taken care of for the rest of their lives in the event of my death, and that's not the case yet.

[Q] Playboy: Is that the only reason you remain in a field you find unfullfilling?

[A] Cosell: Truthfully, no. I've crested at the relatively advanced age of 51 in what is a very young man's industry, and at this stage of my life, even if the finances were right. I don't know if I'd care to risk everything I've worked so damned hard for. I think I have found, or at least created, a role for myself. But in a very real sense, sport has become too important not just in my life but in all our lives; such is the nation's need to escape from itself, a sad commentary, to be sure. If you've ever been around the world of sport, especially with most of my sportscasting colleagues and even with newspaper sportswriters, you know that all they ever talk about is the contest within the arena--who should have been sent up to pinch-hit, what the match-ups should have been, who may or may not win the next game, and so on. It's unceasing and all-pervasive, and I find myself thinking, "What's become of me? There's got to be something more to life than isolating a setback on a linebacker."

[A] Within sports journalism, however, there is something more, and that's the gut reason I feel a responsibility to stay in it. Let the operators of sport field their teams and let them play their games and let's have the fun that sport provides. But the people who run sport must not feel that they can imperiously rule a make-believe world in which everything they do is to be either applauded or excused. Never let them think for even a minute that there's nobody out there in the real world to expose them when they defy the public interest or reap injustice upon an athlete. The sports establishment has an accountability to the public, which so handsomely rewards them, and to the athlete, whose talents enable them to grow rich. And when they openly defy either, I'll be there to call them on it.