December 8, 2010
GROB: The Beatle and the Bigmouth
JAMES GROB
Courier sports editor
OTTUMWA — One of my favorite quotes is, “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.”
I’ve used it many times in columns, articles, stories and other things I have written. I’ve paraphrased it aloud in conversation. I’ve always found that sentence to be both clever and honest.
The words aren’t mine. They were first uttered by John Lennon.
At the moment I am writing this, exactly 30 years ago to the minute, I was watching Monday Night Football.
It was Dec. 8, 1980. The New England Patriots were playing the Miami Dolphins. I don’t recall who won — I’m pretty sure the game went into overtime and my mother made me go to bed before a winner was determined.
Funny how who won that game isn’t important.
Sports television history was made at that game, and it wasn’t because of anything that happened on the field of play.
As one of the teams was lining up to kick a field goal, old Howard Cosell — the nasally, over-chatty sports broadcaster who everyone loved to hate — made an important news announcement.
John Lennon was dead.
Mark David Chapman had shot the singer-songwriter in the back four times at the entrance to his New York apartment building. The former Beatle was taken to the emergency room of nearby Roosevelt Hospital and was pronounced dead on arrival at 11:07 p.m. eastern time.
Earlier that evening, Lennon had autographed a copy of his latest album, “Double Fantasy” for Chapman.
Cosell was the first to announce it to the world.
I am not a “Baby Boomer.” I guess I’m a “Generation X-er.” I did not grow up listening to Beatles’ music and telling the world to “give peace a chance.”
To tell you the truth, I was more into heavy metal and punk rock. It was more like “give volume a chance.”
I was just a kid in the Midwest, watching a football game, with only limited knowledge of The Beatles and world events. But I knew at the moment that something different had happened. I knew who Howard Cosell was, I knew who John Lennon was, and I knew that Cosell announcing Lennon’s death to the world would be something a lot of people would remember for a long time. Both men were cultural icons. Something huge had just happened.
It wasn’t until years later when I began to appreciate John Lennon as a songwriter. He was prolific, idealistic — and his tunes were more than catchy.
His death was a tragedy, because he had so much more to offer the world.
He spoke often of world peace, of loving your fellow man without prejudice. Those ideas seem naive and unrealistic to many of us, but he was unapologetic about his vision.
“If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace,” he once said.
The world needs idealists like that.
Lennon was once quoted as saying, “The Beatles are bigger than Jesus.” The comment understandably drew a lot of anger from Christians and religious leaders. It seems quite inappropriate.
But, as he explained later, he didn’t mean it to compare himself to Jesus, or to be boastful. He meant that it was a very sad thing — that so many people cared more about The Beatles than they did about Jesus — that maybe some people should evaluate their priorities.
Even though those priorities made him a wealthy, successful man.
Cosell was the same way. He was rich and successful because of sports — and yet, he thought sports had become too big.
“The importance that our society attaches to sport is incredible,” Cosell once said. “After all, is football a game or a religion? The people of this country have allowed sports to get completely out of hand.”
He was right. And so was Lennon.
Don Meredith died earlier this week, so the only member of the original Monday Night Football team still alive is Frank Gifford. Meredith wasn’t in the broadcast booth as usual that night — instead former Vikings and Giants quarterback Fran Tarkenton was filling in. Cosell died in 1995.
And only two Beatles — Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr — are still alive. George Harrison died in 2001.
The Beatles. Monday Night Football. Two very important pieces to the puzzle of American Pop Culture. By chance, they crossed paths 30 years ago.
All Howard Cosell ever asked us to do was listen. And all John Lennon ever asked us to do was “Imagine.”
Maybe someday we’ll figure out how to do both.