John Callaway Interviews Howard Cosell reveals sides of the sportscaster that few people suspected were there. During the interview, the outspoken Cosell addresses himself to the country's preoccupation with sports ('a kind of holy ritual,') sports scandals on a collegiate level, and the absence of responsible sports journalism. Cosell describes his Brooklyn boyhood and how he found his career in the industry he says he loves to this day. He fondly remembers associations with many of the greatest figures in sports, and at one point tearfully recalls the death of a promising athlete. "Cosell takes a candid and hard look at himself, with reference to his insecurities, the part that being Jewish has played in his life, and how he sometimes feels criticized with 'a pathological fervor to the point of vilification almost exceeding that heaped upon Richard [Milhous] Nixon or Charles Manson'".