Edition: U.S. / Global


Published: April 24, 1995


Mr. Cosell, who had been in failing health, died of a heart embolism, said his grandson, Justin Cohane. He had undergone surgery in June 1991 for the removal of a cancerous chest tumor.

From his first days on radio in the 1950's to the peak of his fame during his 14 years on "Monday Night Football," Cosell -- once simultaneously voted the most popular and the most disliked sportscaster in America -- tended to be loved and loathed for the same undisputed characteristics: his cocksure manner and his ebullient, unqualified immodesty.

"Arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose, a showoff," Cosell once said. "I have been called all of these. Of course, I am."

Partly because he entered sports broadcasting in the mid-1950's, when the predominant style was unabashed adulation, Mr. Cosell offered a brassy counterpoint that was first ridiculed, then copied until it became a dominant note of sports broadcasting.

"I tell it like it is," was the way he put it in a signature remark that was often challenged but never to the point where Cosell would back down.

When the tape of a football game established that Cosell had referred to a black player as "that little monkey," Cosell, whose civil rights credentials were secure in any event, simply denied it.

And if there were those who were shocked when he likened the autocratic International Olympic Committee chairman Avery Brundage to "William of Orange" or offended when he suggested that most baseball players were "afflicted with tobacco-chewing mind," their complaints were music to Mr. Cosell's ears.

To Mr. Cosell, criticism was just another form of homage. If the criticism came from other broadcasters. he always considered the source: "There's one thing about this business," he once said, "there is no place for talent. That's why I don't belong. I lack mediocrity."

Mr. Cosell had radio shows on the ABC network, made many cameo appearances in movies and on television, testified before Congress, covered the Olympics and became so closely associated with Muhammad Ali that he was widely regarded as the boxer's alter ego. But he achieved his greatest fame and reached his largest audience from 1970-1983, when he was an analyst for ABC's "Monday Night Football."

Mr. Cosell owed his position on "Monday Night Football" to his outspoken ways. Roone Arledge, the ABC executive who hired him in 1969, had made it a point that his broadcasters on his new program would be independent of the National Football League. Hiring Mr. Cosell drove the point home.

Although Mr. Cosell was known for his knack for making the most straightforward observation sound as if it were being translated from the Latin, he was rarely as sesquipedalian as newspaper and magazine writers inevitably became when they described him.

He spoke in a clutched-throat, high-pitched Brooklyn twang with a stately staccato that tended to put equal stress on each syllable of every word, infusing even the most mundane event with high drama.

Howard William Cohen was born on March 25, 1918, in Winston-Salem, N.C., to Isadore and Nellie Cohen. His father, an accountant for a chain of clothing stores, eventually moved the family to Brooklyn, where Mr. Cosell played varsity basketball at Alexander Hamilton High School before attending New York University. During his college years he changed his name to Cosell, which gave rise to a famous put-down later: "Howard Cosell, a man who changed his name, wears a toupee and tells it like it is."

Mr. Cosell had so little vanity that he used to hang his toupee on a hatrack when he was off camera. But he was stung by the implication that he had changed his name from Cohen to disguise his Jewish heritage. He chose Cosell, he said, because it was close to the original spelling of the family's Polish name.

With his older brother, Hilton, following their father's profession, Mr. Cosell was steered to the law.

"I was just another Jewish boy," he said, "who became a lawyer because his parents wanted him to be one." Even so, he excelled at New York University Law School, where he was editor of the law review.

His law practice included entertainment and sports clients, including Willie Mays. After helping a client organize Little League in the New York area, Mr. Cosell came up with the idea of a radio program in which Little Leaguers would interview major league stars.

ABC bought the idea in 1953. The twice-a-week series -- once described by Mr. Cosell as a "combination of 'Juvenile Jury' and 'Meet the Press' " -- became something of a hit, largely because the questions the Little Leaguers asked were Mr. Cosell's.

"I give the youngsters leading questions," he explained at the time. "Like, 'Coach, you once called your team a load of garbage. Now what did you mean by that?' "

In 1956, he quit his law practice and began doing sports reporting and commentary for ABC. Mr. Cosell, who tended to regard his colleagues as cheerleaders, did not endear himself when he let it be known that he was not overly impressed with the world they covered, either.

"Let's face it," he said, "this is the toy department of life."