Howard Cosell

Howard William Cohen

• School New York University
• High School Alexander Hamilton High School

• Born March 25, 1918 in Winston-Salem, NC USA
• Died April 23, 1995 in New York, NY USA

Biographical Information

Howard Cosell is a broadcaster who covered the World Series in 1977, 1979, 1981 and 1983 for the ABC television network. He was also scheduled to work the 1985 World Series, but was removed from the assignment following controversy caused by the publication of his memoirs, which contained bitter criticisms of the network, in September of that year. He also was a commentator on Monday Night Baseball teaming up with play-by-play announcer Al Michaels and various others in a three-man booth.

Away from the diamond, he is perhaps best remembered for being a commentator on ABC's "Monday Night Football" and on numerous prime-time boxing matches, particularly those featuring Mohamed Ali, at a time when boxing was huge on network television. For a time in the late 1970s, he was the most famous sports announcer in the United States.

He was often parodied for his bombastic style in which he treated every event he covered like an earth-shattering, era-defining moment, and for his propensity for name-dropping. As a baseball announcer, he had many critics because it was clear that it was not his favorite sport - those were football and boxing - and that he had only limited knowledge of the subtleties of the game. His diction, in which he seemingly emphasized every other syllable in a distinctive nasal voice, was also widely parodied.

His grandson, Colin Cosell, became a public address announcer for the New York Mets in 2018.