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Bob Costas remembers the night Muhammad Ali died.

Costas was in St. Louis calling a Cardinals game before catching a 6 a.m. flight back to New York to record a tribute for NBC. While on the flight, Costas dedicated words to not only one of the greatest boxers of all time, but “an icon of brotherhood.” Costas watched Ali’s career grow, observing his boxing success along with his charismatic personality outside the ring.

“A dazzling combination of magnetism, skill, and sheer athletic grace. That alone made him distinctive, other qualities made him meaningful. In a turbulent and transformative time, Ali was a compelling and polarizing symbol,” said Costas during the retrospective.

The story was one of a few Costas recalled when he came to Syracuse on Friday to speak with students at the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium in the Newhouse School of Public Communications. Longtime friend and former SU professor John Nicholson interviewed the 1974 alumnus.

Throughout his career, Costas hosted the Olympics on NBC, while also calling some of the biggest NFL, NBA and MLB games for the network. During his time at SU, Costas was heavily involved with WAER and WSYR-TV. He conducted play-by-play for the Eastern Hockey League’s now-defunct Syracuse Blazers.

Answering a question from Nikolsen about when he realized he could do more than just calling sports, but tell stories, Costas said he must have had some interest in storytelling to begin with.

“If I were not genuinely interested in the games, and not capable of presenting them to drama, and the theater and the excitement of the shared experience of them,” Costas said.

After graduating from SU, Costas landed a job at KMOX in St. Louis. Six years later, he started at NBC, entering an integral part of his broadcasting career. Costas’ arrival coincided with the start of the Chicago Bulls’ dynasty with Michael Jordan in the 80s. Costas said his coverage of the Bulls was his “favorite story to tell at NBC.”

Going into the 1997-98 NBA season, Costas and many other media members knew it could be the Bulls’ “Last Dance.” In their historic run, the Bulls had won five championships to that point. After Chicago’s sixth title in 1998, Costas tried to tell the story of the uncertainty surrounding the franchise’s future. 

“ I have this notion in my head that it isn’t just (the end of) Jordan. It is the end of one of the great dynasties in the history of sports,” Costas said.

In his career, Costas did not only analyze sports for what it was, but he also criticized some of its governing bodies. While discussing the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, he said on his HBO show that the International Olympic Committee was failing to uphold the ideals of the games by allowing a nation with widespread human rights violations to host.

“(A nation) whose ongoing actions are antithetical to the supposed ideals of the Olympics, and the platitudes that surround them. Seldom has the imperious nature of the IOC and its malleable definition of principle been so starkly revealed,” Costas said on his show Back On The Record With Bob Costas in 2021.

Costas has done it all in the sports broadcasting world. For him, the art of broadcasting has always been beyond describing only the plays.

“On television you have to put a caption on the pictures,” Costas said. “Moments may come up maybe 1% of the time, if that. When they do, you hope that you’re equal to them.”

Published on October 1, 2023 at 11:25 pm

Contact Landon: lmstilz@syr.edu