I used to watch Bob Costas on ‘Later with Bob Costas’ and loved listening to him interview people. I’ve always liked watching him do sports, except baseball and that is because I hate baseball.
Now I just ran across this headline on AOLs news page: Bob Costas Refuses to Host Show About Holloway
The following appeared in the story:
Apparently Bob was supposed to host “Larry King Live” but he found out the whole show was going to be about the Natalee Holloway disappearence with a little about BTK thrown in.
My admiration for Bob just jumped a couple notches. I wish we had more newscasters/interviewers who would follow Bobs lead.
I just want to say that I’ve liked Bob Costas since I was a kid and he was a newbie radio-person on KMOX-radio in St. Louis. My mom liked the morning personality (Jack Carney) who always referred to the new kid as “Young Bobby Costas.” 30 years later, that’s still how I think of him!
I meant to start a thread about this yesterday. I’ve always thought Costas was alright, but I’m very happy with his decision here. If only more people would do the same.
I’ve always like Bob Costas. When I was a teenger and didn’t even care about sports, I watched him becuase I thought he was cute. Now I like him because he’s a good interviewer. I appreciate his decision.
How coincidental! I was just remarking to a friend the other day how cool Costas is, or at least that’s the way he comes across.
He also doesn’t seem too stuck on himself. One of the funniest things he ever did was during the several games of a World Series he was covering some years ago. Previous to the Series, he had been a guest on Letterman’s show and Letterman suggested some phrases for when a home run was hit. Things like, “Ladies and gentelmen, Elvis has left the building” to “Yikes! I’m sitting in a puddle of my own urine.” And Costas actually used them! It was great, you had to be there.
But, besides the willingness to be silly when it’s appropriate, I have respect for what I see in him as real journalistic integrity. I’ve seen him sports shows that discussed racism, steroid abouse, cheating and gambling, etc… and he always was the balanced one. Never slung shit for shit’s sake. Was on the side of fair play and giving someone the benifit of the doubt. And obviously truly loves sports.
I think most people know Costas through the Olympics, where he comes across as a statistic-spouting, SAT-word-using nerd. Given that Olympic coverage itself is usually pretty lame (through no fault of his own), I think he’s suffered a bit by association as well.
But his late late show was very good, and he’s a terrific interview and interviewer. Having such a high-profile gig would have been enough reason for most people to suck it up and make the most of the situation. Good for him that he had higher standards.
Pretty sure it was Letterman, because the interview I remember was some years before Kinnear even came to CBS. And it couldn’t have been while Kinnear was on cable, because I never saw the show he was on at that time.
Still, years old memories of television interviews are often fuzzy, so some details may be off. I seriously don’t think I would get the two major players in the scene wrong, tho. So I’m sticking with it as being Letterman.
Perhaps Costas was accepting phrases from both. But it was definitely Kilborn who prompted Costas say, “Ah, that’s restaurant quality lemonade” during an NBA telecast.
In fact, the more I think of it, the more it seems to be even before Letterman left NBC for CBS. When was that, 1993? 94? Like I said, this was years ago.
Well, seems Costas has a pattern of doing that, eh? You remember Kilborn (not Kinnear, sorry) and the NBA, I remember Letterman and the World Series of Baseball.
I heard today that there was more to the story: the episode Costas declined to host was also supposed to include discussion of Dennis (BTK) Rader. In a previous episode thta also dealt with Rader, the guest - whose name I can’t rediscover - appeared to really get Costas thinking when he said that Rader was doing all of this for attention, and that he had to be loving the coverage his confession was getting. Perhaps that played a role in what Costas has done.
I’ve also read that Jack Cafferty on CNN’s Situation Room was voicing similar complaints about devoting all that time to Rader. While I won’t deny these events are news, I’m glad to hear a few TV heads noting that this obsessive coverage is not a good thing. I’d like to think they’re following Jon Stewart’s lead.
