John Callaway Interviews; Howard Cosell

<v Howard Cosell>Well, that's one thing. Of course you are. <v Howard Cosell>John, the problem in rights acquisition is this. <v Howard Cosell>If you don't buy the rights, the other guy will, right? <v Howard Cosell>That problem doesn't exist in the other media. <v Howard Cosell>They all send their writers, they don't have to pay a damn dime. <v Howard Cosell>Somewhere at the very beginning, television made its mistake <v Howard Cosell>by paying moneys for rights, they should have had the same rights as the print <v Howard Cosell>media. Let us all go in there. <v Howard Cosell>Let us all carry the same event. <v Howard Cosell>Let whoever does the best job get the credit for it. <v Howard Cosell>But no. Somebody made the initial mistake. <v Howard Cosell>Now you pay millions of dollars for these rights <v Howard Cosell>and they have you. They twist you in the wind. <v John Callaway>Where do you draw the line between performance and journalism, between Howard Cosell, <v John Callaway>the man who appears in Woody Allen movies and television shows, who was an <v John Callaway>actor and a successful actor, and the man who regards <v John Callaway>himself as a, as in the Ed Murrow tradition when it comes to sports journalism. <v Howard Cosell>I had a decision to make when I got a call from nowhere <v Howard Cosell>from Woody Allen about appearing in the movie Bananas. <v John Callaway>A guy you didn't like at the time, right? <v Howard Cosell>Originally, I didn't like him. <v Howard Cosell>He had kept me out of a poker game. <v John Callaway>In London, wasn't it? <v Howard Cosell>Yes, nightclub called Pair of Shoes. <v Howard Cosell>Lee Marvin, Telly Savalas, Johnny Cassavetes, Charlie Bronson.

<v Howard Cosell>They're all there. And they invited me to play in the poker game because <v Howard Cosell>they were shooting the Dirty Dozen. Jimmy Brown. <v Howard Cosell>It's when Jimmy retired and when I got there and went into the back <v Howard Cosell>room, left Emmy, who had come with me with Jimmy Brown <v Howard Cosell>playing blackjack. <v Howard Cosell>Lee Marvin says Howard's here, give him a seat and a little voice at the other end of the <v Howard Cosell>table said no one else in the game. <v Howard Cosell>I said, what do you mean? <v Howard Cosell>No one else in the game? The little voice said, no more. <v Howard Cosell>I'm out too much. <v Howard Cosell>That was Woody Allen. <v Howard Cosell>And that was the first time I ever met Woody Allen. <v Howard Cosell>So now he came into Earthquake Lagoons and I told Bill Sheehan, I despise <v Howard Cosell>that little guy. I don't like his humor. <v Howard Cosell>He was in San Francisco shooting Take The Money and Run. <v Howard Cosell>He got done playing the clarinet and he can play. <v Howard Cosell>I mean, he plays at Michael's Pub here in New York every Monday night with his pickup <v Howard Cosell>group, and he can play. <v Howard Cosell>And then I started walking out and he called, he said, Howard aren't you talking to me? <v Howard Cosell>I said, You kept me out of that poker game. He said, you don't understand. <v Howard Cosell>And so we started to talk and I realized that I liked the guy very <v Howard Cosell>much and that he had gone to Midwood High School in Brooklyn and we had a lot in common. <v Howard Cosell>And it was out of nowhere, couple of months later that he called me and asked me if I <v Howard Cosell>would appear in Bananas. <v Howard Cosell>I thought about that. And I thought about journalism. <v Howard Cosell>And I thought about the hypocrisy involved in sports journalism. <v Howard Cosell>And I thought about Edward R. Murrow. <v Howard Cosell>And then I thought about sports and the sanctity given to it. <v Howard Cosell>And I find more personal integrity in doing a movie with Allen <v Howard Cosell>than in doing a big time college game with the bought <v Howard Cosell>and paid for players who don't even in most cases belong in college <v Howard Cosell>and who don't ever get degrees. <v John Callaway>In all of his acting roles, Howard Cosell has played himself. <v John Callaway>It would be hard, in fact, to imagine such a distinct personality trying to masquerade as <v John Callaway>someone else. Who but Cosell could do the play by play, as he did in Bananas <v John Callaway>of the assassination of a dictator. <v John Callaway>It was great parody, but it also underscored a point that Howard Cosell at the age <v John Callaway>of 61 has come to hold as a passionate belief, that Americans <v John Callaway>are afflicted with what he calls the sport's syndrome.

<v Announcer>John Callaway interviews Howard Cosell. <v John Callaway>Howard, is it? Is it just me or are we all bored by the Super <v John Callaway>Bowl? What's going on? <v Howard Cosell>The Super Bowl? I think it's another excess in the sports world. <v Howard Cosell>I think it's become a prolonged hype. <v Howard Cosell>And I think that many, many people are turning away from it. <v Howard Cosell>The game proves to be an anticlimax. <v Howard Cosell>It's a corporate enterprise. <v Howard Cosell>Most of the seats and most of the suites are held by the great cooperations. <v Howard Cosell>They're down there as 1 big bash, 1 big party. <v Howard Cosell>I think that commissioner Rozelle's party, which now costs <v Howard Cosell>anywhere from 80 to 100,000 dollars for the print medium, <v Howard Cosell>is frankly a disgrace. <v Howard Cosell>I- 1 year when the game was in Miami, I was actually frightened. <v Howard Cosell>The party was in a hangar at the Miami International <v Howard Cosell>Airport and people were streaming off busses. <v Howard Cosell>And I was actually worried that a plane would come along and hit some of <v Howard Cosell>them. Now, I'm sure there were security precautions to offset that, but <v Howard Cosell>yet I had the ungodly fear. <v Howard Cosell>And also the feeling that this was not a place to hold a party, <v Howard Cosell>not in an airport hangar with people trudging along runways. <v Howard Cosell>What if there had been a mistake? What if somebody had gone wrong in the control tower? <v Howard Cosell>No, I find that symbolic of the whole outrageous nature <v Howard Cosell>of what's happened. <v John Callaway>Howard, I'm confused about something. You, you have repeatedly warned us <v John Callaway>that we as a nation make too much of sport. <v John Callaway>And yet you have also written that it is a major part of our lives. <v John Callaway>Where is it really in our lives? Where do you focus it today and where should it be? <v Howard Cosell>I think the treatment of a sporting contest has sanctimony, a <v Howard Cosell>kind of holy ritual to be endowed with a place separate <v Howard Cosell>and apart from real life. <v Howard Cosell>I think the doctrine of winning isn't everything. <v Howard Cosell>It's the only thing. <v Howard Cosell>Make it necessary to, as I said, reexamine what I call <v Howard Cosell>the sports syndrome in this country and get a fix on it. <v Howard Cosell>And in America, we are taught almost from birth the sports <v Howard Cosell>syndrome. I might have added one other postulate to that which I had previou- <v Howard Cosell>to those which I had previously stated, and that is that all athletes <v Howard Cosell>are heroes to the point where they become surrogate parents in many American <v Howard Cosell>homes, when, as a matter of fact, an athlete may be <v Howard Cosell>an addict. He may be an alcoholic.

<v Howard Cosell>He may be a whoremonger. He could be one of any number of things and is hardly <v Howard Cosell>equipped for heroism because he can hit a baseball or catch a football. <v Howard Cosell>And then as wrong after wrong and corruption after corruption <v Howard Cosell>is exposed in the sports world, where have <v Howard Cosell>the media people been through all of the years and why are they so <v Howard Cosell>desperately afraid of and resistant to truth in sport? <v John Callaway>Well, that may have been true, Howard, many, many years ago. <v John Callaway>But it seems to me there's a whole new breed of sports writer that you may have inspired <v John Callaway>who, who talks about these things and yet they continue. <v Howard Cosell>I don't agree with you. The very hypocrisy and contradiction of our sports <v Howard Cosell>pages in this country is almost self evident. <v Howard Cosell>One need only go from city to city. <v Howard Cosell>And the sports pages appear now as a series of tout <v Howard Cosell>sheets listing the point spreads and inviting the very gambling <v Howard Cosell>that leads to the college scandals we've talked about. <v John Callaway>Are there any signs whatsoever of an attack on these problems? <v Howard Cosell>I think there are encouraging stirrings in the educational <v Howard Cosell>community. A. Bartlett Giamatti, the president of Yale, authored <v Howard Cosell>a speech to the rest of the members of the Ivy League in which he expressed <v Howard Cosell>his grave concern, even at the great universities in <v Howard Cosell>the Ivy League, perhaps the academic leaders of our nation, <v Howard Cosell>great concern over the apparent growing laxity of admissions <v Howard Cosell>standards on behalf of athletes. <v Howard Cosell>Imagine the great University of Virginia, 1 of the finest law schools <v Howard Cosell>in the nation, 1 of the finest scholastic universities in the nation. <v Howard Cosell>The university of Thomas Jefferson may now have a 7 foot 2 or 3 <v Howard Cosell>inch center who I doubt is qualified to meet the admissions standards <v Howard Cosell>of that university, but they're up there in the top 3 college <v Howard Cosell>basketball. I claim the university is the base defiled <v Howard Cosell>by that very achievement on the basketball court. <v John Callaway>Now, before you totally shatter my demystify statement, <v John Callaway>are you denying that there is a small, articulate group <v John Callaway>of writers in this country that do join you in demystifying sport? <v Howard Cosell>I think the greatest writer of sports in my lifetime quite clearly <v Howard Cosell>has been Robert Lipsyte, who became so disgusted with the <v Howard Cosell>sport syndrome that after writing 544 Sports of the Times <v Howard Cosell>columns, he quit. <v Howard Cosell>He freelances now today. <v Howard Cosell>Frank Deford of Sports Illustrated, which is not a publication

<v Howard Cosell>that I respect, but Frank Deford is a superb <v Howard Cosell>writer of sports. <v Howard Cosell>Thorough, complete, objective journalistic reportorial. <v Howard Cosell>Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times is a brilliant, brilliant <v Howard Cosell>satirist who tries to get the public to understand <v Howard Cosell>what I called earlier, a proper fix on sports. <v John Callaway>Red Smith? <v Howard Cosell>No, I do not count Red Smith up there at all. <v Howard Cosell>I owe a great deal in my life to Walter Red Smith. <v Howard Cosell>We were neighbors. He helped me a great deal in the start of my career. <v Howard Cosell>But I think that Red Smith for the past decade and more <v Howard Cosell>has forfeited himself. <v Howard Cosell>And the very vivid evidence to me will always be his tragic <v Howard Cosell>departure from the '79 World Series to go to the Republic <v Howard Cosell>of South Africa and implicitly, if not <v Howard Cosell>explicitly, by his statements on the ad during the fight telecast, <v Howard Cosell>lend himself to the promotion of apartheid <v Howard Cosell>in the Tate-Coetzee affair. <v John Callaway>I want to go back, if I can, to, to why it was <v John Callaway>that there was such a gulf between the time you made it big in broadcasting <v John Callaway>and the time that you spent away from it. <v John Callaway>Why, since you were sports editor when you were a young man and you <v John Callaway>used to crawl on your belly at Ebbets Field, why didn't you get into this at the <v John Callaway>beginning? Why so late? <v Howard Cosell>Well, circumstance took care of that. <v Howard Cosell>John had a very tender age. <v Howard Cosell>I had barely been old enough to be admitted to the bar <v Howard Cosell>when I passed the bar exam and was admitted and I got a job <v Howard Cosell>10 dollars a week. <v Howard Cosell>I got some of the best training anybody could ever get legally. <v Howard Cosell>But no sooner was I at work and admitted, Pearl Harbor came and <v Howard Cosell>I enlisted at 39 Whitehall's Street then because of my legal <v Howard Cosell>background, and I enlisted with my parents violently objecting, you know, <v Howard Cosell>Jewish parents who had a son who was a lawyer. <v Howard Cosell>And this was terrible. And wait until they call you and so on. <v Howard Cosell>I got sent to Brooklyn, where I lived. <v Howard Cosell>To the New York Port of Embarkation, which proved to be the largest collective military <v Howard Cosell>command in the history of the world, that during World War 2. <v Howard Cosell>And at the age of 24, I was the youngest major stateside in the United States <v Howard Cosell>Army. So I got an experience that I treasure. <v Howard Cosell>I know I could never have gotten such an experience at such an age in <v Howard Cosell>the wildest dreams of my life.

<v Howard Cosell>During the course of that time, I got married to a lady who was not Jewish <v Howard Cosell>and we had a mixed marriage and all the travail that goes with that. <v Howard Cosell>So I came out of the army, I felt a man. <v Howard Cosell>I never even thought about sports or broadcast. <v Howard Cosell>I thought I had far gone past that. <v Howard Cosell>I was no longer a sports fan. <v Howard Cosell>I still had an interest in the then Brooklyn Dodgers. <v Howard Cosell>But that became sociological because of the advent of Jackie <v Howard Cosell>Roosevelt Robinson, who meant a very great deal to me and what I believed in in life. <v Howard Cosell>Okay, that explains why the long lapse of time before <v Howard Cosell>I went. How did I get into broadcast? <v Howard Cosell>I was the attorney for Little League Baseball, but that was only part of it. <v Howard Cosell>I was the attorney for the Television Writers of America. <v Howard Cosell>I had many clients in broadcast and I suddenly got a call <v Howard Cosell>to do, to allow the use of Little League and a kid's radio show that was supposed <v Howard Cosell>to last 6 weeks. I agreed to do it as a hobby and it stayed on the air more <v Howard Cosell>than 5 years. And then ABC Radio made me an offer and I realized <v Howard Cosell>that I found a fulfillment in broadcast, which is the industry I love to this <v Howard Cosell>day. <v John Callaway>Even though you call it a jungle? <v Howard Cosell>Not sports. Sure. I love that jungle. <v Howard Cosell>It's in my blood. I can't change that. <v Howard Cosell>It happens to many of us, even though it's a business which all too-. <v Howard Cosell>May I light a cigarette? <v John Callaway>Please. Which, which, which all too often puts a premium <v John Callaway>just like sport does on winning as opposed to, say, <v John Callaway>quality. <v Howard Cosell>That's true. <v John Callaway>And yet you love it. <v Howard Cosell>Mhm. Because I can't change that. <v John Callaway>In his first two decades of broadcasting, Cosell had covered football, baseball, <v John Callaway>basketball, boxing, you name it. <v John Callaway>But none of it was preparation for what he faced in Munich, West Germany, on September <v John Callaway>5th, 1972. On that day, Palestinian terrorists murdered 2 <v John Callaway>Israeli Olympic athletes, kidnaped 9 others who were to die later. <v John Callaway>For more than 14 hours Cosell covered that day's major news, not sports story, <v John Callaway>and it was to have a wrenching personal impact on him. <v John Callaway>Is there any future for the Olympics? <v Howard Cosell>That depends. It's not presently, specifically <v Howard Cosell>foreseeable. I don't know what the Soviets are going to do. <v Howard Cosell>If they're going to respond in any way to what we did in Haiti. <v Howard Cosell>I don't know what the future holds for '84. <v John Callaway>Is there anything that can be done to depoliticize it?

<v John Callaway>Would it, would it help to have it in 1 site in Athens or something like that? <v Howard Cosell>Would it help? Yes, it would help. <v Howard Cosell>It would be a step. <v Howard Cosell>But unfortunately, again, you've got to get a fix on sports, my <v Howard Cosell>friend. The very men who scream that sports and politics <v Howard Cosell>don't mix are separate and apart, the very men who ?inaudible? <v Howard Cosell>our athletes deserve their rights, these are the people who have seen <v Howard Cosell>to it that they never fought for athletes' rights at the Olympic Games. <v Howard Cosell>Now I know I was there and I reported it. <v Howard Cosell>What happened in München West Germany? <v Howard Cosell>They came in and confiscated in the darkness of night in the American building Bob <v Howard Cosell>Seagren's poles. Rick DeMont was given wrongfully by an American <v Howard Cosell>doctor, a darn drug for his asthma that had nothing to do with his winning the gold medal <v Howard Cosell>and the 16 year old kid had to give it back. <v Howard Cosell>What about that track coach who got the 2 greatest American sprinters <v Howard Cosell>to the, the starting barrier to late. <v Howard Cosell>1 after- Where were they fi- What happened when the Russians were given not 1 but 3 <v Howard Cosell>chances to win a game they had already lost in basketball? <v John Callaway>The list goes on and on. <v Howard Cosell>Who was there to fight for American rights? <v Howard Cosell>And then we, the president, rightly called for a boycott and it worked. <v Howard Cosell>And he was right to add some politics with. <v Howard Cosell>But instead, what did we have screaming about athletes' rights? <v Howard Cosell>And suddenly I'm tired of falsity about the Olympics. <v Howard Cosell>Get that neutral site. Give it another try. <v Howard Cosell>I lay on my belly on the slope of a little hill 30 feet <v Howard Cosell>from building 31. I watched the West German police nap, slap <v Howard Cosell>their guns over their shoulders, snapped their belts and go up on the roof. <v Howard Cosell>And I saw those Arab faces come out of the windows and I saw all <v Howard Cosell>of them die before it was all over. <v Howard Cosell>So I say either you find a way to depoliticize it, beginning <v Howard Cosell>with a neutral site or else mark it down <v Howard Cosell>as a noble idea that didn't work. <v Howard Cosell>Put it away like the sports syndrome. <v John Callaway>You, you wrote in your book Like It Is, despite all the <v John Callaway>vanity I'm supposed to have and I do have my share of it. <v John Callaway>I have an inner insecurity about my status. <v John Callaway>What is this inner insecurity, that you, forceful, famous, <v John Callaway>now rich, powerful man possesses? <v Howard Cosell>Well, you overstate magnificently. <v Howard Cosell>My inner insecurity stems from having grown up a Jewish boy

<v Howard Cosell>in Brooklyn during the age of Hitler. <v Howard Cosell>From social insecurities that evolved out of that and also <v Howard Cosell>from being part of a poor family and always fearing <v Howard Cosell>that I would never have enough money. <v Howard Cosell>Those are the insecurities to which I refer. <v John Callaway>But could you be more specific about your childhood? <v John Callaway>What were the manifestations of being a kid who was Jewish in that part <v John Callaway>of Brooklyn. <v Howard Cosell>And poor? I couldn't I couldn't join union <v Howard Cosell>temple. My father, good enough for ?inaudible? <v Howard Cosell>I didn't live in the better apartment buildings. <v Howard Cosell>My father couldn't afford it. <v Howard Cosell>I couldn't be in a club. <v Howard Cosell>My father couldn't afford it. My father had to work like a dog and borrow every <v Howard Cosell>3 months from the bank to put me through college and through law school. <v Howard Cosell>And when it came time to go to college <v Howard Cosell>and join the fraternities, the good fraternities in that period <v Howard Cosell>of time at my campus were gentile fraternities <v Howard Cosell>and there was one I would have liked to have been a part of. <v Howard Cosell>But I couldn't be. <v Howard Cosell>And things like those. <v John Callaway>Are those insecurities that stayed with you all your life or or have you parted <v John Callaway>company with most of those? <v Howard Cosell>Well. No, I think I don't think I've ever parted company with <v Howard Cosell>the notion that there's not enough money. <v Howard Cosell>I never really because I don't know what life holds, <v Howard Cosell>and I don't think especially with the inflation, <v Howard Cosell>you ever can have enough money. I still feel that way about it. <v Howard Cosell>And thus my relationship to money. <v Howard Cosell>With regard to the others, heck, we had a stormy <v Howard Cosell>romance, Emmy and I. <v Howard Cosell>My father in law, a titan of American industry, didn't <v Howard Cosell>want his daughter to marry a Jew. <v Howard Cosell>Good Lord, he was the club champion at Baltusrol where Jews weren't allowed, <v Howard Cosell>and it wasn't comfortable for him to have me there. <v Howard Cosell>And I didn't go there. <v John Callaway>You sound like a man who, who maybe reads Job and knows <v John Callaway>the bottom can fall out any hour. <v Howard Cosell>I'm not afraid of losing my job. <v Howard Cosell>Not anymore. That was 1 great fear I always had. <v Howard Cosell>But now if I left the industry tomorrow- No, that's an insecurity I haven't <v Howard Cosell>had for years. <v Howard Cosell>That much I can say. <v Howard Cosell>But an insecurity about never having <v Howard Cosell>enough I think is still with me. <v John Callaway>Is that what-. <v Howard Cosell>And I think they'll always be an insecurity in me

<v Howard Cosell>that stems from being Jewish. And I think most people of the Jewish faith feel that <v Howard Cosell>and always will. I think it's inherent in them. <v Howard Cosell>I think many people of my faith, although I have not <v Howard Cosell>ever practiced it as such. <v Howard Cosell>I think, but I'm Jewish. Baby you lie on that slope of a hill in there <v Howard Cosell>next to building 31, 7 miles from Dachau, and, <v Howard Cosell>you know, if you never went to a synagogue in your life, <v Howard Cosell>baby you're Jewish. <v Howard Cosell>And I am. And I'm proud of it. <v Howard Cosell>But as insecurity result, yes. <v Howard Cosell>I think most of us are insecure now about the future of Israel. <v Howard Cosell>And we identify with Israel. <v Howard Cosell>And it's natural that we should, in the light of genocide, in the light <v Howard Cosell>of the Holocaust, in the light of what society has done over <v Howard Cosell>2000 years. <v Howard Cosell>Good Lord. <v John Callaway>Howard, if you know you're a Jew, and <v John Callaway>you've spoken so eloquently about what it means to be a Jew. <v John Callaway>Why don't you practice your faith? What is faith to you? <v John Callaway>Where are you religiously? <v Howard Cosell>Religiously? <v Howard Cosell>In terms of formal religion, I don't think my wife and I have ever been <v Howard Cosell>anywhere. In terms of caring about the human race, I think we've been <v Howard Cosell>everywhere. I don't think religion has to do with formality. <v John Callaway>You don't want to confuse-. <v Howard Cosell>In a church? <v John Callaway>-church with religion? <v Howard Cosell>Yeah, I think I've expressed myself very well in my lifetime <v Howard Cosell>in terms of my caring about the human race, 4 years of my life <v Howard Cosell>as national chairman of multiple sclerosis. <v Howard Cosell>I was recently honored by the University of Maryland School of Medicine and <v Howard Cosell>made National Advisory chairman of a new group they've <v Howard Cosell>created, SIDS, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, something <v Howard Cosell>so terribly important. <v Howard Cosell>What happens? There is no way to replace the loss of a child. <v Howard Cosell>Not ever. If there is any loss that's irreplacable, believe me, that's <v Howard Cosell>it. And I've been active in diabetes <v Howard Cosell>and cystic fibrosis. <v Howard Cosell>And to me, that's a very important form of religion. <v John Callaway>What kind of a person was your father? <v John Callaway>Was he like you are? <v Howard Cosell>No. My father was a very limited man, <v Howard Cosell>who borrowed from banks every 3 months to send me through college and law school. <v Howard Cosell>I'll never forget himfor it. <v Howard Cosell>He was a good father. <v Howard Cosell>I don't think he was a good husband. He traveled a lot. <v Howard Cosell>I don't think he gave adequate attention to his wife, my mother.

<v Howard Cosell>But that's- he was certainly a very good father. <v John Callaway>He played the violin. <v Howard Cosell>Yeah. Sunday mornings. <v John Callaway>Look through-. <v Howard Cosell>It's like a Studs Terkel ?inaudible? <v John Callaway>What'd they do every Sunday. He lookedthrough his shirts in the drawer? <v Howard Cosell>Yeah, count his shirts. <v Howard Cosell>Make sure they were all there properly laundered. <v Howard Cosell>He wore very expensive shirts that he could never afford. <v John Callaway>Didn't his behavior influence you as a husband? <v Howard Cosell>I believe that what was not a good marriage between my father and mother <v Howard Cosell>helped make my marriage to Emmy, and we're married 36 <v Howard Cosell>years now, about as strong a marriage as you can <v Howard Cosell>see in the contemporary society. <v John Callaway>What is it about your relationship that is so strong? <v John Callaway>When I, when I read your books and I read your references to Emmy, I feel like I'm <v John Callaway>being led into a great love story. <v Howard Cosell>I think it is. <v John Callaway>What is it? I mean, there's so much of this that fails in our lives today. <v John Callaway>What is it with you 2? <v Howard Cosell>Moral standards, values, ethics, integrity, <v Howard Cosell>cultures wrought in each of us, me in a lower middle class <v Howard Cosell>Jewish home. She with a father <v Howard Cosell>who is Welsh, a mother who was Pennsylvania Dutch. <v Howard Cosell>He a man who in the old time American <v Howard Cosell>tradition really worked his way up. <v John Callaway>I've thought about, I've thought about the great affections that you've had <v John Callaway>for men and what various men they are. <v John Callaway>I'm gonna juxtapose some of them Earl Red Blaik, <v John Callaway>the Douglas MacArthur football coach of West Point. <v John Callaway>Vincent Lombardi, task ?inaudible? <v John Callaway>Green Bay Packers. Muhammad Ali, such <v John Callaway>a multifaceted, looser person than Lombardi, <v John Callaway>and yet you embrace all of these men with real <v John Callaway>love. <v Howard Cosell>Each man had qualities that were unique, very <v Howard Cosell>special. And each man was a part of my <v Howard Cosell>life that mattered. <v Howard Cosell>I will explain. Colonel Blaik. <v Howard Cosell>I knew all of the stories about Colonel Blaik. <v Howard Cosell>I was given the first and still the only nightly network sports <v Howard Cosell>show. Back to back with John Charles Daly in the late <v Howard Cosell>'50s on ABC television, and I wanted to prove <v Howard Cosell>that I could produce people that nobody else could get in here <v Howard Cosell>and nobody could get near Colonel Blaik. <v Howard Cosell>The then head of sports information at the United States Military Academy was <v Howard Cosell>a man named Joe Cale.

<v Howard Cosell>I called Joe up and I said, I'd like to do an in-depth interview with Colonel Blaaik, <v Howard Cosell>whom I didn't even know. <v Howard Cosell>I had only been on the air a couple of weeks or so. <v Howard Cosell>He said, well, how would, you know, I'll ask him, but there's no hope. <v Howard Cosell>Forget it. <v Howard Cosell>He called me back about an hour later and he said, I'll be damned, colonel <v Howard Cosell>says he's seen you on the air and he likes what you're doing and he'll meet you at the <v Howard Cosell>battle monument tomorrow morning at 11 o'clock. <v Howard Cosell>I said, I'll be damned. I'll be there. <v Howard Cosell>And the colonel arrived just right there on time, you know, spankingly <v Howard Cosell>punctual. <v John Callaway>An austere man, right? <v Howard Cosell>Yes. Austere. <v John Callaway>Foreboding? <v Howard Cosell>No, I found that he wasn't. <v Howard Cosell>I was-. <v John Callaway>I mean, that was his reputation, wasn't it? <v Howard Cosell>Yes, I would, yes. <v John Callaway>Tough guy. <v Howard Cosell>I was frightened to death. And he does look like McArthur. <v Howard Cosell>And good Lord, he was the man who wired McArthur for mac- and for clearance <v Howard Cosell>when McArthur was in the Philippines for clearance to use the 2 platoon system at the <v Howard Cosell>academy. And we're on the battle monument. <v Howard Cosell>I mean, I don't care who you are. <v Howard Cosell>If you're a human and you're up there and you look down on that ribbon <v Howard Cosell>and you look across the plains of the academy, you <v Howard Cosell>get a feeling. And scared as I was, I felt exhilarated. <v Howard Cosell>And I started talking to him about the character and depiction <v Howard Cosell>that he had been subjected to, about the frigidity of his demeanor, <v Howard Cosell>about the apparently ruthless disciplinarian that he was, <v Howard Cosell>his relationship with MacArthur, his likeness to him, all <v Howard Cosell>of the questions that I had really wanted to ask him. <v Howard Cosell>And I found him so forthright and effusive, I couldn't believe <v Howard Cosell>it. When we got all done, he put his arm around my shoulder and he said, young <v Howard Cosell>man, I've been wanting to do that for a long, long time. <v Howard Cosell>I really enjoy it. Thank you very much. <v Howard Cosell>And off he stalks straight as a ramrod, and Joe Cale said, <v Howard Cosell>I'll be damned. And I said to Joe Cale, I'll be damned, <v Howard Cosell>but thank you very much, Joe. <v Howard Cosell>Then I saw Blaik take a young man who was <v Howard Cosell>an all-American. A young man who he had <v Howard Cosell>placed in a position that they called picturesquely a lonely <v Howard Cosell>end. <v Howard Cosell>He was the greatest in the country, and he made the position. <v Howard Cosell>The glamour term of football, but his quarterback <v Howard Cosell>graduated and this team was decimated in the next year.

<v Howard Cosell>He took the lonely and because he was his best athlete, and he tried <v Howard Cosell>to make him a t-formation quarterback, and now they called the lonely <v Howard Cosell>end Blaik's Folly. <v Howard Cosell>That quickly that they turned on him. They all but destroyed the ?inaudible?. <v Howard Cosell>During the course of that year, Army lost to Jordan Olivar <v Howard Cosell>and Yale. To Ben Schwartzwalder in Syracuse <v Howard Cosell>and to Michigan. And Fritz Crisler. <v Howard Cosell>He had had a meeting on the campus with the lonely end turned <v Howard Cosell>quarterback because the lonely end had said, take me out coach, <v Howard Cosell>for the good of the team. And Blaik said no way, son, you're my <v Howard Cosell>quarterback. <v Howard Cosell>And the night before the Navy game, with Navy overwhelmingly favorited at the <v Howard Cosell>Manufacturer's Country Club outside of Philadelphia, where the Army team stayed, <v Howard Cosell>it was his ritual, Earl's, to take his team for a walk in the darkness. <v Howard Cosell>And he said, you know, I've taken the long walk 3 times this year. <v Howard Cosell>Said I'm going to want to take that walk tomorrow if it's possible, gentlemen.I <v Howard Cosell>respect the Navy. They may have a better football team than us. <v Howard Cosell>The Navy's quarterback was a brilliant quarterback. <v Howard Cosell>His name, George Welch. <v Howard Cosell>The current Navy coach. <v Howard Cosell>A voice sang out in the darkness, not tomorrow, coach, <v Howard Cosell>no walk for you. It was the voice of the lonely end. <v Howard Cosell>I'm still touched when I have the memory of it because Army won that <v Howard Cosell>game overwhelmingly. <v Howard Cosell>And the kid wasn't Blaik's Folly anymore. <v Howard Cosell>His name was Don Hollard, he <v Howard Cosell>was killed in Vietnam. <v Howard Cosell>Blaik was his life, and I'll never forget. <v Howard Cosell>That's why I love Blaik. <v Howard Cosell>That was Blaik. <v Howard Cosell>Muhammad Ali represented what I was taught and believe in all my life, <v Howard Cosell>a government of constitutional law. <v Howard Cosell>When I supported Ali only on grounds of constitutional law, <v Howard Cosell>not out of personal affection or anything of the sort. <v Howard Cosell>Became public in that. <v John Callaway>Is that your proudest accomplishment as a journalist? <v Howard Cosell>No, I'm as proud of the work I did in the Olympics. <v Howard Cosell>I'm as proud of the work I did with Jackie Roosevelt Robinson. <v John Callaway>Speak of him for a minute, would you? <v Howard Cosell>Robinson? <v Howard Cosell>There's only 1 word for Jackie Robinson. <v Howard Cosell>They don't make human beings like that anymore. <v Howard Cosell>Maybe they never will again. <v Howard Cosell>He was unconquerable. <v Howard Cosell>He had as much character as could possibly be endowed in the human race, as Roger

<v Howard Cosell>Kahn wrote in The Boys of Summer, he was the lion. <v Howard Cosell>He was my neighbor. We drove in together every morning, home together every night. <v Howard Cosell>I lived through his every travail. <v Howard Cosell>I saw his hurt when he was never offered a job as a manager. <v Howard Cosell>I know everything he went through. I know the treatment he got from the press. <v Howard Cosell>When he resigned from baseball and nobody had a dime to give him <v Howard Cosell>or a job to give him. He took 25,000 dollars from Look <v Howard Cosell>magazine and he was pilloried by the sports writers in New York <v Howard Cosell>because they said he owed them the story. <v Howard Cosell>What they going to support Rachel and Jackie Junior and Sharon? <v Howard Cosell>Were they? No. <v Howard Cosell>He had to. And where would he get the good big job? <v Howard Cosell>Now he's back in society and he's Black. <v Howard Cosell>And the legs and the steals of home aren't going to carry him anymore. <v Howard Cosell>I mean, let's look at life in perspective. <v Howard Cosell>I think, again, let's get a fix on sports. <v John Callaway>What about Vince Lombardi? What is it, what is it that captivated you about that man? <v Howard Cosell>His honesty and his integrity and the fact that he was maligned. <v Howard Cosell>He- if you want to know about Vince Lombardi, it's very simple. <v Howard Cosell>Ask his players. <v Howard Cosell>Just go to them 1 by 1. <v Howard Cosell>There was love. <v Howard Cosell>This was a man who could see a tiny kid out of USC, <v Howard Cosell>marked no pro prospect at the other end of the field. <v Howard Cosell>And from 1 end of the field to the other, Lombardi would suddenly see this tiny <v Howard Cosell>kid from a standing position leap up and chin <v Howard Cosell>himself on the goal posts, and Lombardi would run the length of the <v Howard Cosell>field and he would say to Hector, what's the kid's name? <v Howard Cosell>And Hector would look at his paper and he'd say, Wood, Willy Wood from USC. <v Howard Cosell>You remember his name, ?inaudible?. <v Howard Cosell>He's gonna be the best defensive back in football. <v Howard Cosell>And from this, from that day to this Willy Wood, who should be a head coach in <v Howard Cosell>the National Football League, who's a head coach in the Canadian Football League will <v Howard Cosell>tell you about Vince Lombardi. <v Howard Cosell>What will Horning tell you? <v Howard Cosell>He lived in Patty O'Brien's bar right near the hospital where Lombardi <v Howard Cosell>laid when he was dying. He cried by the hour. <v Howard Cosell>Lombardi never asked more from any man than the <v Howard Cosell>man had the capacity to give. <v Howard Cosell>It was almost uncanny the way he could take men and get more from them than they <v Howard Cosell>ever thought they had to give.

<v Howard Cosell>Not with punishment. <v Howard Cosell>With belief. <v John Callaway>He was strong. <v Howard Cosell>Like Henry Jordan said, he treats us <v Howard Cosell>all the same, like dogs. <v Howard Cosell>It's like Max McGee said, coming home for the third night to <v Howard Cosell>Sensenbrenner Hall at St. Norbert's College in De Pere, Wisconsin. <v Howard Cosell>Lombardi up to catch. <v Howard Cosell>He had fined them 500 the first time, a thousand the second time. <v Howard Cosell>And now McGee thought he had a beat. <v Howard Cosell>He thought Lombardi wouldn't think he'd dare go out a third time. <v Howard Cosell>But Lombardi was there. <v Howard Cosell>And he's sang out in the darkness, Max, and McGee whirled around, <v Howard Cosell>and he said, yes, coach. <v Howard Cosell>He said this one is 2000. <v Howard Cosell>And if you're gonna try it again, take me along. <v Howard Cosell>I want to see who's worth it. <v Howard Cosell>Lombardi had a way. <v Howard Cosell>He was a marvelous man and he had a commitment to excellence. <v Howard Cosell>And what's wrong with that? <v John Callaway>What Billy Martin is the George Steinbrenner. <v John Callaway>What Tom Snyder is to Rona Barrett. <v John Callaway>What Gore Vidal is to Norman Mailer. <v John Callaway>This man is to Howard Cosell. <v John Callaway>His name is Gary Deeb. He's the nationally syndicated radio TV columnist for the Chicago <v John Callaway>Sun-Times. And his style of criticism has never been subtle. <v John Callaway>In fact, there are those that say he has separate keys on his typewriter for his favorite <v John Callaway>words, such as inept and sleaze bag. <v John Callaway>Well, for some time now, Gary Deeb has been writing less than flatteringly about Howard <v John Callaway>Cosell. <v John Callaway>For example, in his column of October 10th, 1980, Deeb called Cosell <v John Callaway>the relentless jerk who doesn't understand the first thing about baseball. <v John Callaway>He referred to his awful stuffed up voice and the oily, nervous, <v John Callaway>insincere laugh he occasionally resorts to when he's cornered like a rat. <v John Callaway>And to Cosell as Howie the shill who whips himself into fits of slobbering <v John Callaway>ecstasy. And so I think the odds are pretty good that Gary Deeb will not be <v John Callaway>mentioned in Howard Courcelles will. <v John Callaway>How do you handle a Deeb? <v Howard Cosell>I don't. He's beneath me. <v Howard Cosell>And anybody whom I would expect to reach, who is an educated person, would know <v Howard Cosell>what he is. I feel sorry for him. <v Howard Cosell>I really and truly do. <v Howard Cosell>But there are certain people. <v John Callaway>And yet he's, and yet he's read by hundreds of thousands. <v Howard Cosell>Well, that's, I think he's properly judged by most. <v John Callaway>He accused you in a column last March. <v John Callaway>He accused ABC of paying

<v John Callaway>Muhammad Ali for interviews which were, which were said to be spontaneous <v John Callaway>and which led the viewer to believe were not paid for. <v John Callaway>I don't know if you've ever discussed that. <v Howard Cosell>First place, no interview I ever did with Muhammad Ali <v Howard Cosell>was other than spontaneous. <v Howard Cosell>You can't talk to Ali but spontaneously. <v Howard Cosell>So that's a manifest absurdity. <v John Callaway>It was charged that those were set up, that Ali was given material. <v John Callaway>You know what I'm talking about, don't you? Am I reporting this accurately? <v John Callaway>That he reported it that way? <v Howard Cosell>No. He was- This related to a charge <v Howard Cosell>in a lawsuit involving a referee, Tony Perez, because Ali said <v Howard Cosell>detestable things about him as a referee in the interview with me, <v Howard Cosell>which was not doctored. <v John Callaway>Was it paid for? <v Howard Cosell>That's what led to the- Whether or not they paid Ali for that particular interview I have <v Howard Cosell>no personal knowledge of. <v Howard Cosell>Now, what we-. <v John Callaway>Did you ever ask them if they paid? <v Howard Cosell>No, it's never any of my business. <v Howard Cosell>Whenever-. <v John Callaway>You don't think it's your business if a man is paid for behind your back. <v Howard Cosell>Oh, John, you know, better than that, there's not a person- There is no sports writer in <v Howard Cosell>the world who ever went on television without requesting a fee. <v Howard Cosell>Let's not have double standards. <v Howard Cosell>When they go on, they go on as a performer as well as a subject <v Howard Cosell>of an interview. My God. Mike Wallace paid 75,000 dollars <v Howard Cosell>to H.R. Haldeman for an alleged news interview. <v John Callaway>And it was publicized. <v Howard Cosell>Sure it was publicized. <v John Callaway>The rules of CBS say that if you pay him, you announce in advance that you paid him. <v John Callaway>Is that the rule in sports at ABC? <v Howard Cosell>Not to my knowledge. <v John Callaway>Should it be? I don't think it matters. <v John Callaway>You don't think it matters if somebody is being paid to be interviewed? <v Howard Cosell>No. <v John Callaway>Why not? <v Howard Cosell>Because they go on in a public exhibition frame of reference. <v Howard Cosell>Should NBC put on that they pay. <v Howard Cosell>Pete ?inaudible? the columnist of Newsweek? <v Howard Cosell>To go on? <v John Callaway>Well, you, you assume that a journalist who was working as a commentator is paid. <v John Callaway>But you don't necessarily assume, for example, I don't pay guests for these interviews. <v John Callaway>Maybe I should. <v Howard Cosell>Well I'm doing, I'm doing this video because it's public television. <v John Callaway>Right. But I'm saying-. <v Howard Cosell>Cause I don't often give an interview like this-.

<v John Callaway>But if I, if I did pay you-. <v Howard Cosell>In fact, I've got to-. <v John Callaway>But if I did pay you, I would say so. <v Howard Cosell>Oh, I'm sorry. <v John Callaway>Isn't that fair? <v Howard Cosell>Muhammad Ali is an entertainer. <v Howard Cosell>He is a performer. If he asks for money and the sports <v Howard Cosell>department can't get him otherwise to come on and answer the same questions I <v Howard Cosell>would ask him if he weren't getting paid, then my company is <v Howard Cosell>losing out. If they can get him exclusively, they should get him <v Howard Cosell>exclusively. <v John Callaway>In other words, if I go on the Carson show, they're going to pay me. <v Howard Cosell>You're darn right. <v John Callaway>And then he's going to interview me whether I'm paid or not. <v John Callaway>Is that the point? <v Howard Cosell>Yeah. <v John Callaway>Okay. Would it help the cause of sports journalism if it were run <v John Callaway>by the news divisions of the networks? <v Howard Cosell>I don't think so. That's a problem that the man I've worked <v Howard Cosell>for through all of my years at ABC has discussed with <v Howard Cosell>me and I have discussed with him from his own point of view. <v John Callaway>Roone Arledge. <v Howard Cosell>Roone Arledge, a totally brilliant man. <v Howard Cosell>When you are the president of news, you don't <v Howard Cosell>face the problems you face if you are the president of sports. <v Howard Cosell>Because when you are the president of sports, you don't have a death <v Howard Cosell>wish and you're in a rat race business and you're in a race <v Howard Cosell>for rights because unlike the other medium, <v Howard Cosell>you can't exhibit in an event unless you buy the rights. <v John Callaway>So you're inherently in the entertainment business if you're in sports. <v John Callaway>Is Monday night football, Thursday night football, <v John Callaway>Saturday afternoon football, Sunday afternoon football, Sunday night football, <v John Callaway>all of that, is that also a part of the problem? <v John Callaway>Are you a part of the problem? Is being a part of those broadcasts-. <v Howard Cosell>That's A very fair question. Lipside once raised in my class at Yale. <v Howard Cosell>He looked at the class. He said it's entirely possible that this man is the best <v Howard Cosell>sports journalist in the country and maybe even the best sports journalist who has yet <v Howard Cosell>lived, but he must answer that question as to whether or not somewhere <v Howard Cosell>deep inside of it, he lives with a moral ambiguity <v Howard Cosell>because if Howard Cosell does an event, people will react. <v Howard Cosell>More people will watch. More people will talk about it. <v Howard Cosell>We of the press will write about it. <v Howard Cosell>And so isn't he contributing to this? <v Howard Cosell>I've thought long and hard about that because it's a fair question, an appropriate

<v Howard Cosell>one. And I have decided that I <v Howard Cosell>serve nobody by departing the scene, there has to be somebody <v Howard Cosell>who is going to speak out. A simple little thing like a Larry Holmes Scott <v Howard Cosell>LeDoux fight. My company pays a fortune for the rights <v Howard Cosell>to that fight. Otherwise, we can't exhibit it. <v Howard Cosell>At that fight was Dave Anderson of The New York Times, Dick <v Howard Cosell>Young of the New York Daily News, Schlesinger of Cleveland, so <v Howard Cosell>and so of Chicago. And they don't have to pay a dime. <v Howard Cosell>And I went on the, and the next day, the fight was excoriated <v Howard Cosell>in print as a mismatch. <v Howard Cosell>But I didn't wait till the next day. <v Howard Cosell>I went on that night and at the expense of my company, which it paid more than a million <v Howard Cosell>dollars for the fight, I said, this is a disgrace. <v Howard Cosell>It shouldn't have been licensed and so on. <v Howard Cosell>Now, isn't it better to do that? <v Howard Cosell>And doesn't that take more character and integrity? <v John Callaway>If you look at what you say in print, you're absolutely right on the nickel <v John Callaway>intellectually when you say that we take sports too seriously. <v Howard Cosell>Why make it just a nickel? <v John Callaway>And yet, and yet, Mr. Cosell, I can see <v John Callaway>you saying something as historically trivial as that <v John Callaway>right tackle is a fine young man. <v John Callaway>He plays a terrific game of football. <v John Callaway>And wasn't that a sweet tackle? <v Howard Cosell>No, I don't agree. <v John Callaway>And yet and yet you say it with such an import <v John Callaway>that it makes you out to be somebody that's taking it more seriously <v John Callaway>than you in your heart and certainly in your mind do. <v John Callaway>Do you see the paradox of that? <v Howard Cosell>I do see the paradox of that, though. <v Howard Cosell>I challenge the nature of your impartation of my <v Howard Cosell>alleged words because I'm not capable of saying what you just said I said, <v Howard Cosell>although the press will misreport my words every single day of the week. <v John Callaway>Howard, I got to get straight with this. <v John Callaway>I'm not talking about the presses, I watch you. <v John Callaway>And, and I have an I have mixed feelings about this. <v Howard Cosell>Look-. <v John Callaway>?inaudible from crosstalk? <v Howard Cosell>If I think a game stinks, I say it. <v John Callaway>Oh no, you do all of it, but I'm saying the intonations of your voice give it an import <v John Callaway>above and beyond what you intellectually would print. <v Howard Cosell>I suppose it's quite possible. <v Howard Cosell>I have a naturally dramatic delivery and, but <v Howard Cosell>I hardly think I think, John, you have to look at something else.

<v Howard Cosell>When a man is an educated man <v Howard Cosell>who edited one of the major law reviews of this nation. <v John Callaway>NYU right? <v Howard Cosell>New York University Law Center. <v Howard Cosell>When a man uniquely <v Howard Cosell>is brought back to Yale 3 times in 5 years and I'll be going back <v Howard Cosell>next year again, when a man is asked by the attorney general of <v Howard Cosell>the United States to address the Department of Justice in the Great Hall <v Howard Cosell>on sports and the law, when a man who is a sports commentator <v Howard Cosell>is asked to be the keynote speaker at the American Bar Association annual <v Howard Cosell>convention, he must be doing something <v Howard Cosell>right now. Why, then, are such facts never written <v Howard Cosell>and why the pathological fervor in print <v Howard Cosell>to a point of vilification almost exceeding that heaped upon Richard Milhous <v Howard Cosell>Nixon or Charles Manson? <v Howard Cosell>Why? <v John Callaway>I have-. <v Howard Cosell>Isn't that the real psychological question to ask? <v John Callaway>I have a theory. <v Howard Cosell>What are they afraid of? <v Howard Cosell>What is their fear and how deep is their envy? <v John Callaway>I have a theory about it, I'd like to try it out on you. <v John Callaway>I think that at one level it's anti-Semitic. <v Howard Cosell>Roone Arledge has propounded that. <v John Callaway>And I think at another level it is a good <v John Callaway>old American revulsion of and <v John Callaway>fascination with a kind of what is <v John Callaway>perceived of as a studied loud mouth know-it-all <v John Callaway>authoritarian guy who's right so much of the time it hurts to hear it. <v John Callaway>The perception of it. <v Speaker>That's a factor. <v Speaker>I don't buy the anti-Semitic fact- factor personally, although certain newspapers <v Speaker>have openly courted that which will be in my-. <v John Callaway>?inaudible from crosstalk? the anti-Semitic thing after the tens of thousands of letters <v John Callaway>you've gotten calling you what you've been called. <v Howard Cosell>Yeah, but that's-. <v John Callaway>That's overwhelming evidence, Howard. <v Howard Cosell>Well, that's a release. That's the old scapegoat thing, the frustrations of the people. <v Howard Cosell>I'd like to think it's not so. <v Howard Cosell>I also think that America has been taught from birth <v Howard Cosell>that sport is Camelot and it's pure. <v Howard Cosell>And I think that many of them don't want to hear the truth. <v John Callaway>Some of us and I don't know whether you've had much feedback on this or whether you agree <v John Callaway>with the premise at all. Some of us are very upset <v John Callaway>about the kind of continuing high level crowd sound that comes out of Monday Night <v John Callaway>Football. You know what I'm talking about.

<v Howard Cosell>I do. <v John Callaway>It's a different, it's a different sound than, say, you get on the CBS radio broadcasts <v John Callaway>or even on any others. It seems hyped and it seems continuous. <v Howard Cosell>It absolutely is not. There is a different-. <v John Callaway>There's nothing? There's no, no. <v Howard Cosell>Ah, that's that deep garbage. <v John Callaway>No, no, no. This is, this is my ear. <v Howard Cosell>No. <v John Callaway>No? <v Howard Cosell>No. It's Monday. <v John Callaway>Seriously. <v Howard Cosell>Monday Night Football- <v John Callaway>Because it's high. <v Howard Cosell>It's a special event. <v Howard Cosell>Those crowds are crazy. <v John Callaway>They're really like that? <v Howard Cosell>My God, I've had my life threatened over who is on the halftime highlights. <v John Callaway>Now, that's serious. <v Howard Cosell>Yeah. <v John Callaway>I mean, you've had a threat-. <v Howard Cosell>Sure, sure. <v Howard Cosell>That's the sports syndrome. <v John Callaway>Have you ever had a bodyguard? <v Howard Cosell>I have police protection at every arena in the country. <v Howard Cosell>So does Dandy. So does Fran. <v Howard Cosell>So does Frank. <v John Callaway>NBC. <v Howard Cosell>Not like I do. <v John Callaway>NBC tried again. <v Howard Cosell>But I remember a night when Frank Gifford's daughter Vicky was attacked in Candlestick <v Howard Cosell>Park in San Francisco. <v Howard Cosell>And Alex Karris was with us then. <v Howard Cosell>And he went after the guy and had he been able to get him he would've killed him, <v Howard Cosell>and he'd have been justified. <v John Callaway>Say you're in Chicago. You haven't had a baseball winner since '59. <v John Callaway>You haven't had a football winners since '63. <v John Callaway>If you're a Cub fan, you haven't had a winner since '45. <v John Callaway>'Given that, what are the legitimate expectations <v John Callaway>of a fan and the legitimate behavior of a fan on behalf <v John Callaway>of those expectations, and what are the fans responsibilities? <v John Callaway>Could you talk about that? <v Speaker>I think a fan has a reasonable right to expect that an ownership <v Speaker>produce a representative team in terms of winning and losing <v Speaker>over a reasonable period of years. <v John Callaway>What does representative mean? <v Howard Cosell>Contending, challenging. <v Howard Cosell>Not necessarily championship, but a team none the same. <v John Callaway>Yeah, ?inaudible? <v Howard Cosell>And that should be done in a period of 5 to 7 years. <v Howard Cosell>The nature of competition being what it is, it's not easy to do, but it should be. <v Howard Cosell>The fan is entitled to a safe, clean ballpark. <v John Callaway>Do we have a fan violence syndrome developing in this country? <v Howard Cosell>We certainly do, and it's one of the most dangerous phenomenons in this country. <v Howard Cosell>Yet every decade we're supposed to be advancing as a civilization.

<v Howard Cosell>How did this craze develop? How did sports get this way? <v Howard Cosell>Why isn't this dealt with in the media, both in television and <v Howard Cosell>in print? Why not? <v Howard Cosell>Don't these deserve to be talked about and written about? <v Howard Cosell>I tell you, the growth of that whole sports syndrome is a failure of the media. <v Howard Cosell>Mine as well as theirs. <v John Callaway>How can you have anything but the syndrome if we have thousands <v John Callaway>of hours are spent by a nation that watches television and sports <v John Callaway>is such a rich part of that. <v Howard Cosell>Which I think is totally wrong in disgrace. <v Howard Cosell>That's another part of this, totally. <v John Callaway>We're going to 24 hour a day cable sports television in this <v John Callaway>country. You can get that now. <v Howard Cosell>Well, I think what you're talking about here is ESPN. <v Howard Cosell>Is that what you're talking about? Oh, don't worry about it. <v John Callaway>But it's coming if they don't succeed, somebody else will. <v John Callaway>All sports all the time. <v Howard Cosell>I would say in a period of 5 years, sports will be basically <v Howard Cosell>pay cable and television sports on the networks <v Howard Cosell>won't be as we now see. <v Howard Cosell>The place for the networks to go now, which they've not done properly, <v Howard Cosell>is in sports journalism. <v John Callaway>This is what Van Sodder at CBS and Brant Musburger at CBS say they're going <v John Callaway>to pioneer in. How do you-. <v Howard Cosell>Pioneer? <v John Callaway>Pioneer in. How do you feel about that, Howard? He asked. <v Howard Cosell>That's funny. I have great respect for Van Sodder, but <v Howard Cosell>when you go against Roone Arledge, you must remember <v Howard Cosell>that we are recognized around the world as the leader in sports <v Howard Cosell>television and nobody's going to beat us in anything. <v John Callaway>Howard, I've I've read quotes from you going back <v John Callaway>many years that you don't know how much longer you can stay covering <v John Callaway>the trivial events, comparatively trivial events of sports. <v John Callaway>I think I saw those quotes attributed to you 10 years ago, 5 years ago, <v John Callaway>3 years ago. <v John Callaway>How are you doing on that question? <v Howard Cosell>Well, I'm afraid I'm consigned to it now for however <v Howard Cosell>much longer I want to stay in the business. <v Howard Cosell>I grew up in Brooklyn with a fellow named Jude Kerry. <v Howard Cosell>Lunched with him at 21 a couple of weeks ago. <v Howard Cosell>And I was with one of my bosses, Elton Row, the president of my company. <v Howard Cosell>And ?inaudible? talked about how he came up to Montreal in '76 <v Howard Cosell>and tried to get me to run for the United States Senate. <v Howard Cosell>And Bob Strauss called me, but my family was dead set against

<v Howard Cosell>it. And I didn't do it. Yesterday by sheer happenstance I <v Howard Cosell>spent 5 hours with Republican Senator <v Howard Cosell>Bill Cohen of Maine and Democratic Senator Gary Hart of Colorado <v Howard Cosell>and they talked to me about it. But it's too late now. <v John Callaway>How do you say it's too late? <v John Callaway>If we have a president of the United States who became that at, what, the age <v John Callaway>of 69? <v Howard Cosell>Yeah, well, it's not too late for Ronnie. <v Howard Cosell>It's too late for me. <v John Callaway>Why do you say that? <v Howard Cosell>Because it's my determination. <v Howard Cosell>Because my wife and my daughters and even now <v Howard Cosell>my growing grandchildren are entitled to some privacy and to some <v Howard Cosell>peace and the kind of print vilification in their minds <v Howard Cosell>that I would have received. had I run, although I think I would have won, was <v Howard Cosell>something they didn't want to undergo. <v John Callaway>Where are you politically? Who are you politically? <v Howard Cosell>I grew up a Franklin D. <v Howard Cosell>Roosevelt, New Dealer in a Democratic home. <v Howard Cosell>I have voted Republican in my time. <v Howard Cosell>Politically, I think I stand a humanist. <v Howard Cosell>I do believe that the great presidents of my lifetime have come from <v Howard Cosell>the Democratic Party, Roosevelt and Truman. <v Howard Cosell>And I happen to think that Lyndon Johnson domestically was a very great <v Howard Cosell>president who became tarred and feathered because of Vietnam. <v John Callaway>Where do you stand on the great economic issues of the day? <v John Callaway>Where are you with-. <v Howard Cosell>I do not think it's-. <v John Callaway>The market system and growth and those sorts of questions. <v Howard Cosell>Well, first place, I don't think it's possible to expand our military <v Howard Cosell>and at the same time reduce taxes. <v Howard Cosell>I don't think that this Chrysler thing and the underwriting of Chrysler <v Howard Cosell>by the federal government is at all a good thing. <v Howard Cosell>I think the ramifications of that are vast and are in <v Howard Cosell>some respects terrifying with regard to our traditional system <v Howard Cosell>of free enterprise. Now your question specifically, market <v Howard Cosell>growth. How do you mean? <v Howard Cosell>Will the growth product of this country continue to increase? <v Howard Cosell>Naturally, the population continues to increase. <v Howard Cosell>That's a whole other huge problem as environment <v Howard Cosell>problems now are so huge that they will not be solved in a 4 <v Howard Cosell>term- 4 year presidential term. <v Howard Cosell>It's impossible. These problems can only be solved in terms <v Howard Cosell>of history, in terms of 25 year plans now <v Howard Cosell>today.

<v John Callaway>But you're taking yourself out of consideration for the 1 thing, if I really understand <v John Callaway>you, the 1 thing, the leap that you could make out of the quagmire of sports <v John Callaway>into the arena, that would give you the full play of the intellectual curiosity that you <v John Callaway>have, the full play of the political emotion that you obviously have that you've just <v John Callaway>revealed, because of why what is this price ?inaudible? <v Howard Cosell>John, it might. But let me tell you something. <v Howard Cosell>I've thought long and hard about this. <v Howard Cosell>And I think my family probably did me a favor because <v Howard Cosell>as a freshman senator, I couldn't in a million years have the impact, <v Howard Cosell>the power of persuasion that I enjoy with my present forums. <v Howard Cosell>And as one who does teach at Yale on sports and the law and the society, <v Howard Cosell>let me tell you something. <v Howard Cosell>And I think of a brilliant speech made by the president of the Baylor <v Howard Cosell>school, a prep school in Chattanooga, Tennessee. <v Howard Cosell>He was addressing the Rotary Club and he said, <v Howard Cosell>I said to myself, coming here, no, you can't talk <v Howard Cosell>to these people about sports. <v Howard Cosell>They're not that important, but they are that <v Howard Cosell>important. They are overwhelmingly important. <v Howard Cosell>They chew up the lives of every one of you. <v Howard Cosell>You are absorbed with the game. <v Howard Cosell>Always it's the game. <v Howard Cosell>It's not with housing. It's not with education. <v Howard Cosell>It's not with essential services for the public. <v Howard Cosell>It's the game. You have the game of the week, the Monday night game. <v Howard Cosell>And if you miss a play, you have the instant replay and you can't ride <v Howard Cosell>in an elevator. You can't breathe fresh air without somebody next to you <v Howard Cosell>screaming about the game and how much he bet and won or lost about the <v Howard Cosell>game. So it is that important, and I am going to stand here <v Howard Cosell>and address you about the single facet of the American society <v Howard Cosell>that is totally out of whack, and that's sports. <v Howard Cosell>And I now incline to agree with that.