Hard to believe, but it was 14 years ago during a "Monday Night Football" game in Miami that the often pompous and always opinionated Howard Cosell suddenly halted his byplay with Don Meredith and Frank Gifford.
On that December night, Cosell was the first to tell tens of millions of TV viewers the stunning news: John Lennon had been shot and killed outside his apartment near Central Park. A shaken Cosell spoke sincerely about the former Beatle and later quoted from Keats. "My heart aches," Cosell said. "And a drowsy numbness pains/My sense."
It was one of those moments, a chilling freeze-frame in the reel of memory, that reminds us why "Monday Night Football" became a cultural touchstone during the past 25 years. Here was a place, a common ground, for the broadcloth of America to tune in: from Capitol Hill to California, from the blue-collar bar-goers to the Soho artists, from the football fan to the feminist.
Since the inaugural game on Sept. 21, 1970, when Joe Namath led the New York Jets into Cleveland's Municipal Stadium, "Monday Night Football" has captured us with an "it's-still-the-weekend" atmosphere, riveting pictures and an intriguing chemistry in the ABC booth.
"It used to be like a little Super Bowl," said former Pittsburgh Steeler Lynn Swann, who now covers the sidelines for ABC. "Everybody, including all the other players, was watching."
Naturally, it wasn't always pretty. Remember that fateful night in Philadelphia in November 1970 when Cosell slurred his words, ++ threw up on Danderoo's cowboy boots and left for home at halftime? The following week, Cosell blamed a "virulent virus" in his inner ear, but it later was reported that Philadelphia Eagles owner Leonard Tose had sent up a slew of vodka martinis.
As Cosell would say, "a veritable plethora of players" has appeared on the telecasts, from Johnny Unitas to Lawrence Taylor. The telecast also transformed little-known players, such as Tom Dempsey, Joe Lavender, Dennis Partee and Dick Anderson, into familiar names -- at least for the following week.
Perhaps the most noteworthy coming-out party was that of a rookie running back for the Houston Oilers. Waves of light blue pompons filled the Astrodome on Nov. 28, 1978. Coach Bum Phillips said it "felt like a college bowl game." Earl Campbell, taking pitches from quarterback Dan Pastorini, rumbled around right end, outrunning safeties and corners, for 199 yards and four touchdowns, including an 80-yarder in the fourth quarter to beat the Miami Dolphins, 35-30. Many consider it the greatest "Monday Night" game.
In recent years, with the onslaught of our 24-hour information society, it has become increasingly fashionable to note that the impact of "Monday Night Football" has diminished.
The abundance of choices, not only in sports programming on wide-reaching cable TV but also in entertainment options from video rentals to video games, has attracted some fringe viewers. This season, despite the baseball strike and NHL lockout, Monday night ratings are up only about 2 percent. But ratings for Sunday AFC games and college football games are significantly higher.
Some hard-core football fans point to the preponderance of weak matchups, leading to either blowouts or low-scoring snoozers. Of course, that's the fault of the NFL schedule-makers, who argue that they have no way of foreseeing a non-Thanksgiving turkey when they divvy up the games among NBC, ESPN, TNT and now Fox, which paid $1.6 billion in rights fees for four years to broadcast NFC games.
In his "tell it like it is" mode, Cosell, who entertained and agonized fans from 1970 until 1983, once described the broadcasters and the telecast itself as celebrities "bigger than the game." Today, the solid but noncontroversial broadcast team of Gifford, Al Michaels and Dan Dierdorf, now in their eighth season together, stays focused on the game.
That can be a blessing and a curse.
If Cosell was the nerve of "Monday Night Football," Gifford has survived as the soul. Now 64, Gifford has been on "MNF" for 24 years; he played half as many years for the New York Giants.
Gifford once excelled at play-by-play but now is relegated to the role of mostly-silent partner between Michaels and Dierdorf, who last year was a heartbeat away from being shunted aside for John Madden, who eventually was wooed by Fox for a staggering $7 million a year. Some perspective: Meredith was paid $30,000 for 1970, his first season.
But neither Dierdorf nor his colleagues seem to bear any grudges. Gifford, who has worked more than 350 "Monday Night" games, says he is content "to help blend the three of us together," a far different role from the early years, when he described himself as "a psychiatrist" between Meredith, a folksy Texan, and the argumentative Cosell, who used Meredith for a foil and belittled Gifford.
"We do the game much better now," Gifford said. "Back then, we never got to the Top 10. I was there then. And let me tell you, it wasn't all that good."
Cosell left in 1983 after a season that may best be recalled for the opening game, Cowboys vs. Redskins, when Cosell referred to Washington receiver Alvin Garrett as "that little monkey," a phrase that brought an avalanche of criticism from civil rights leaders. Meredith left in 1984.
Ratings slipped from 1983 to 1985, when both Namath and O. J. Simpson appeared as analysts. When Dennis Swanson took over as president of ABC Sports in January 1986, "Monday Night Football" began an era that continues through today.
"I just felt it was time to make a change," said Swanson. "We brought in Ken Wolfe to produce the telecast and put Gifford and Michaels, who we considered our showcase talent, together that fall. We wanted a third man, but we had to make sure we had the right part."
In 1987, Craig Janoff, who had directed World Series and Triple Crown telecasts, was named director. "Kenny and Craig added some new energies to the technical side," Swanson said.
Next, Dierdorf, who had worked at CBS, joined Gifford and Michaels.
"At the time, most analysts were quarterbacks or running backs; you didn't get an offensive lineman very often," Swanson said.
The changes are continuing. This year, Swanson added a halftime studio show, featuring Brent Musburger and Peter King. Gifford now symbolizes the tradition of the game; Dierdorf brings a comic's edge and a lineman's insights; Michaels donates energy and a crisp narrative.
"It's a different style from years ago," said Swanson, acknowledging that now the focus is more on the game and less on the show in the booth. "We have a responsibility to uphold."
For example, after Simpson was charged in the June slayings of his former wife and her friend, neither Michaels, a friend of Simpson's who spoke with him in jail, nor Gifford, who worked with Simpson from 1983 to 1985, discussed the case on air. Cosell, for sure, and possibly Meredith would have found some way to comment.
In the late 1960s, the NFL fathers first sought to extend pro football's grasp on the winter weekend. But they preferred Friday night. There were initial discussions with both NBC and CBS, which were the only two networks sharing the pie.
But when the word leaked out, protests began from high schools and colleges that played their games on Fridays. Congress listened and passed legislation barring pro football games from Friday nights.
In stepped Roone Arledge, the risk-taking president of ABC Sports, who offered a compromise: What about Monday night?
CBS wasn't interested. After all, its prime-time lineup included "Gunsmoke," "The Carol Burnett Show," "Mayberry R.F.D." and "The Doris Day Show." NBC also demurred. "Laugh-In" and the "Monday Night Movie" dominated that night's slots. ABC, which was in last place in the ratings, agreed to pay $8.5 million for that first season.
Arledge's gamble succeeded. "Monday Night Football" is the longest-running prime-time show on ABC and the third-longest-running prime-time show on any network.
Richard Nixon was president and "Marcus Welby, M.D." was the top TV show during that inaugural season. In the first game, in front of 85,000 fans in Cleveland, the Browns intercepted Namath three times in a 31-21 win. Keith Jackson, who lasted only one year with Cosell and Meredith, called the action.
The first play from scrimmage was a handoff to Matt Snell for a short gain. The second was an incomplete pass from Namath to Snell in the left flat.
5 Although Namath later threw a 34-yard touchdown pass to George Sauer and ended up 17-for-28 for 232 yards, the game was a foreshadowing of Namath's futility on Monday nights. He appeared in seven games and lost them all. He threw five touchdowns and seven interceptions.
In those formative years, director Chet Forte had cameras scanning the crowd for banners, dancing girls, costumed wackos and even fans dozing off. In fact, one of Meredith's snappiest rejoinders came in 1972 when a fan, nodding off, woke and saw a camera trained on him. He flipped the one-finger salute. "Yep," Meredith said. "We're No. 1 in the nation."