It was an unimaginable task, even for a voice as strong as Howard Cosell.
Forty years ago in the final seconds of regulation of a Miami Dolphins-New England Patriots game, the legendary voice of “Monday Night Football” told the nation of the murder of John Lennon.
Cosell questioned whether he could deliver the news. Frank Gifford, the play-by-play voice and NFL Hall of Famer, told Cosell it was his job to deliver the tragic information:
“He was shot outside his apartment, the Dakota apartment building,” Cosell can be heard saying in an off-air conversation with broadcast partner Frank Gifford. “Fellas, I just don’t know. I’d like your opinion. I can’t see this game situation allowing for that news flash.”
“You’ve got to. If you know it, we’ve got to do it,” Gifford said“Don’t hang on it. It’s a tragic moment, and this is going to shake up the whole world.”
As the clock was ticking down on a tied ball game, and New England elected to use a timeout, Gifford forced the issue: “Three seconds remaining. John Smith is on the line. And I don’t care what’s on the line, Howard, you have got to say what we know in the booth.”
“Remember, this is just a football game, no matter who wins or loses,” Cosell began before breaking the news. “An unspeakable tragedy confirmed to us by ABC News in New York City. John Lennon, outside of his apartment building on the West Side of New York City. The most famous perhaps, of all of the Beatles, shot twice in the back, rushed to Roosevelt Hospital. Dead on arrival.”
“I thought he handled it extraordinarily well,” Gifford later recalled on the ESPN program Outside the Lines. “Honestly, I was so concerned that maybe we had done the wrong thing. As it turns out, we didn’t.”
Cosell had interviewed Lennon so he had a connection with the Beatle.
40 years. By absolute accident I was back visiting my college radio station, WVBR-FM at Cornell, and of all people I was the disc jockey as the news came in of John Lennon’s shooting, and then death. Here’s part of the aircheck (and the sad news came in as we played “In My Life”) pic.twitter.com/FRdGVOAWl4
— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) December 8, 2020
