HOWARD COSELL
Howard Cosell (born Howard William Cohen; March 25, 1918 – April 23, 1995) was an American sports journalist who was widely known for his blustery, cocksure personality. Cosell said of himself, “Arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose, a showoff. There’s no question that I’m all of those things”. In its obituary for Cosell, The New York Times described Cosell’s effect on American sports coverage: “He entered sports broadcasting in the mid-1950s, when the predominant style was unabashed adulation, [and] offered a brassy counterpoint that was first ridiculed, then copied until it became the dominant note of sports broadcasting.” In 1993, TV Guide named Howard Cosell The All-Time Best Sportscaster in its issue celebrating 40 years of television. In 1996, Howard Cosell was ranked #47 on TV Guide’s 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time. (More from Wikipedia)
The Les Sinners song “La Troisieme Fuite de Mohamed ‘Z’ Ali” (“The Third Escape of Mohamed ‘Z’ Ali”) is apparently a tribute to Muhammad Ali, though this was just two years after boxer Cassius Clay joined the Nation of Islam in 1964 and changed his name as a result. With the notable exception of Howard Cosell, most in the sports world refused to acknowledge his new name for several years and continued to call him Clay.
(April 2013)
