Cosell

Howard Cosell is legendary sports broadcaster and his legendary status looms over today's sports broadcasters like a god. He opens the book writing about the 1972 Munich Olympic Games when the Palestinian terrorists shot and killed Israeli athletes in the Olympic Village. Even this incident did not stop the Olympic Games from continuing although he felt that they shouldn't go on. That would have been the defeat of the Olympic Games. He writes about being an American Jew despite non-religious in Germany with the haunts of Nazism only a generation behind and the Holocaust where the killing of Jews and non-Jews were subjugated to inhuman conditions. He also writes about Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali, two great African American athletes who pioneered and championed in their sports of baseball and boxing.

Many say that Howard Cosell (1920-1995) is best forgotten; his obnoxious egotism and nasal intonations during Monday Night Football and the baseball playoffs drove fans crazy. But away from the press box Cosell was a surprisingly well-informed sports journalist. And this book has him taking intelligent looks at the hypocrisy and power struggles that went on behind the sports scenes. Here he recounts the passing of Jackie Robinson, the politics of the NFL and amateur athletics, and his account of the tragic 1972 Olympics when terrorists murdered Israeli athletes. The book is dated, but it provides a readable look at sports and the often under-handed politics of sports.

often self-promoting, howard offers his thoughts on the great athletes of his era. the one sidestep he makes here is his addiction to alcohol that was made present during his days on monday night football. howard dores not admit to anything there.