Tag Archives: Mary Carillo

Costas Carillo Cosell

I’ve put these three C’s together because alliteration wasn’t foreign to any of these three. My biggest miss for cancelling cable has been the celebration of athletic feats through language. There was Bob Costas’ deployment of vocabulary atypical of the arena but succulent to the scholastic. Mary Carillo triumphed with unrehearsed back seat colour laden with one- liners. Howard Cosell’s deliberately slurred maligned characterizations injected fodder for the fortunate fans of Wide World of Sports.

Costas is in the news because of an opinion in the face of the sports machine. He’ll retire after a good run and his legacy will be steeped in his affinity for the formidable phrase fitting to the forum (okay, I can do alliteration too).

I have no idea what happened to Mary but her charisma simply shone through the TV.

Although young as an admirer during the Cosell years, I remember Cosell as an obvious stalwart in and industry critical to extracting entertainment value from sport. There were the Muhammad Ali interviews and the Monday Night Football mantras such as “he could go all the way”. As a boy, it became evident that there was eloquence in sport beyond finesse on the field. In spite of having snipped the cable, my sense is that the market and mystique of midfield monologue has now left the broadcast booth. Was Cosell’s opinion that ex-athletes were not best equipped for the microphone correct? I suspect yes with exceptions.   ���F�z�Q4 �h