Hours And Hours Without Howard

ABC Sports will conclude its 25th anniversary season of “Monday Night Football” in grand style Sunday, with close to 7 hours of coverage of Super Bowl XXIX from Joe Robbie Stadium.

Yet, with all those minutes squeezed in around all those commercials, ABC has no plans to make time to pay tribute to the broadcaster most responsible for making that Monday night broadcast, not to mention the entire sports division, a national institution.

That would be Howard Cosell, the love-him-or-hate-him lightning rod of the wildly successful football telecast from 1970 to 1983, when he left the network and, at his own choosing, went off to a bitter retirement from television. He wrote several self-serving books that purported to tell it like it was, but instead managed to infuriate most of his former colleagues with his caustic commentary on their talent, or, in his egomaniacal mind, lack thereof.

These days, Cosell reportedly is in ill health and rarely has much contact with the outside world. Frank Gifford, who worked in the booth with Cosell for 13 years and was savaged by him in one book, says he’s tried to call a number of times the past few months just to say hello, but never heard back. Other longtime friends and colleagues echo the same experience.

And so, at ABC Sports, Cosell has essentially become a non-person. In a two-page, 15-paragraph history of “Monday Night Football” in the ABC Sports Super Bowl media kit, Cosell’s name is mentioned just once, and only in passing. In his heyday, there would have been no need to list his accomplishments; Cosell would have done that himself with a mouth that roared at a decibel level no broadcaster has matched.

Now, at a time when he should be revered for all those years of mostly good work - however grating he might have been - he is instead generally reviled in the corridors and control rooms of the company that really owes him a debt of gratitude.

During the past few days, several ABC Sports executives were asked why the network couldn’t take just a few seconds of Super Bowl programming to acknowledge Cosell’s contribution in making “Monday Night Football” the success it became.

“In terms of acknowledging Cosell, he gets acknowledged all the time,” said ABC Sports president Dennis Swanson. “We did not do a 25th anniversary special this year. When we did our 20th anniversary show, we did acknowledge him. Our feeling is people want to see the game. I think in a Super Bowl they want to know about the teams and the players. We’re going to focus on the game and the stories around the game.”

Jack O’Hara, ABC Sports’ executive producer, said the network tried to get Cosell to be involved in that 20th anniversary telecast five years ago.

“He didn’t want any part of it,” O’Hara said. “We certainly recognize better than anyone what an impact he had. … He was ‘Monday Night Football,’ no question. He’s the one who introduced the other aspect - the entertainment part of it. “In our telecast (Sunday), we’re not spending a whole lot of time on the history of ‘Monday Night Football.’ … We’d have loved to have Howard Cosell be the elder statesman of broadcasting. I think there are people who would have loved to remain close to Howard, but it’s not going to happen.”

There are also some people at ABC who mince few words in saying why they believe a Cosell tribute would not be appropriate on Sunday. One is Al Michaels, who will handle the play-by-play for the game.

Michaels never worked with Cosell on “Monday Night Football,” but the two were paired for several years in baseball, including four World Series, and it’s an experience Michaels will never forget.

“For a long time, I got along with him,” Michaels said. “Then he became just impossible to work with. He sucked all the joy out of doing the telecast. I thought it was despicable what he did in his book, blasting everyone at ABC, people who were his friends.

And so, the Super Bowl telecast will go on and on and on Sunday, starting at 1 p.m. PST and lasting almost to the end of prime time. Michaels will do down and distance, time remaining and offer all those wonderful anecdotes and insights that make him the best play-by-play man in pro football. Dan Dierdorf, also a mega-talent with a lineman’s eye and Pavarotti pipes, will pontificate as only he can. And The Giffer will be there to fill in all the blanks, however blandly, though he would be advised not to speak while the national anthem is being sung.

But there will be no precious seconds spared to make mention of Howard Cosell, even if this would be the appropriate opportunity - maybe the last opportunity - for ABC Sports to take the high road for a man who sadly lost his way down the low one.