NEW YORK — Bob Goodrich had one thought: Was it a hoax? No way this was true. No way. It was late in the night on Dec. 8, 1980, and Goodrich was sitting in a television production truck at the Orange Bowl in Miami. A young producer at ABC Sports and a former college football star, Goodrich was in his first season on “Monday Night Football,” the cultural force that had changed television. The visiting New England Patriots were tied with the Miami Dolphins in the waning minutes of the fourth quarter. The phone rang inside the truck. The voice on the other end of the telephone delivered stunning news: John Lennon, the musical icon and founding member of the Beatles, had been shot in New York City and died on the way to the hospital.

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Goodrich turned to Chet Forte, the telecast’s director. They needed confirmation. That was first. They needed to talk to Roone Arledge, the head of ABC’s sports and news divisions. If this was true, they needed to notify the three men in the broadcast booth — Frank Gifford, Fran Tarkenton and Howard Cosell. And they needed to do it soon.

Moments later, Goodrich heard Arledge’s voice on the phone. The report was accurate. They could deliver the news on the broadcast. But before hanging up, Arledge offered something else, another piece of advice: Be careful how you tell Howard.

“He was friends with Lennon,” Goodrich says. “Howard had kind of a hard time talking about it.”

“This is Howard Cosell. The name of the show is ‘Speaking of Everything.’”

On the week Howard Cosell met John Lennon, President Gerald Ford was grappling with the fallout of Watergate. The Patty Hearst saga was still in the headlines. New York’s sports writers were focused on the end of the baseball season, a “close but no cigar” campaign in the Bronx, as the Daily News put it, and a disaster in Flushing. It was the first week of October 1974, and Lennon had shown up at WABC studios in Manhattan to record an interview with Cosell, who was hosting a show. Lennon was there, ostensibly, to promote his latest album, “Walls and Bridges,” which he had recorded in six weeks that summer at The Record Plant studio on West 44th Street. Cosell, the most famous sports broadcaster in the country, began the interview in Cosellian fashion, bluntly asking Lennon why the United States government kept trying to deport him.

“How did it actually get started?” Cosell asked.

Lennon had moved to New York in the summer of 1971, nearly two years after departing the Beatles. He settled with partner Yoko Ono into a temporary spot on the seventh floor of the St. Regis Hotel on East 55th Street, embracing the city’s cultural milieu and artistic possibilities. He found an apartment in Greenwich Village before settling at The Dakota, an apartment building on the Upper West Side, at the edge of Central Park. Dogged by his ongoing immigration case and energized by his new city, Lennon proceeded with his solo career, releasing the album “Some Time in New York City” in 1972 and immersing himself in the scene, in new friends and life experiences. “When you come out of your cocoon,” he would say of New York, “there’s all this wonderful madness to play with.”

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By the fall of ’74, he was separated from Ono, releasing another album and sitting in a radio studio with Cosell, as both Arledge, then the head of ABC Sports, and Rick Sklar, the program director at WABC, looked on. He seemed to be in good spirits. “It’s a pleasure to be here,” Lennon told Cosell. “And it’s great to meet you after seeing you on TV so much.”

If any broadcaster, sports or otherwise, understood the “wonderful madness” of New York City, it was Cosell, the acerbic, cigar-chomping showman who had reinvented the medium in his own tell-it-like-it-is style. Raised in Brooklyn, on a block where he could hear roars from Ebbets Field, he had earned a law degree from NYU, taken a chance on a broadcasting career ($250 per week to start) and worked tirelessly as a local radio reporter. Through sheer ingenuity and intellectual acumen, he earned a reputation as a fresh voice in boxing circles and a worthy verbal foil for Muhammad Ali, the voluble, incandescent star.

Sklar, in his memoirs, would write that Cosell had a “computerlike mind with seemingly unlimited capacity.” Yet it was his ability to position himself as a broadcasting anti-hero amidst the counter-culture era of the ’60s that thrust him into the national spotlight. “It was a turbulent time,” said Dennis Lewin, a former ABC Sports executive. “You were just coming out of the Vietnam War, there was a whole different energy amongst a lot of young people that were anti the old establishment, and I think Howard became a magnetic force because of that.” Cosell criticized athletes with an insouciant arrogance. He spoke in a Brooklyn staccato. He was cocksure, pompous and an antidote to everything that had come before. “I was right for my time,” Cosell would say.

By the time Cosell first sat down with Lennon, he was in his fifth season of “Monday Night Football,” which had transformed televised sports. He wore the black hat alongside Frank Gifford and “Dandy Don” Meredith. He was, as The New Yorker’s David Remnick once described, “theatrically blunt.” He was also curious and overly high-brow; he liked to dabble in topics beyond the gridiron, interviewing shaggy-haired, anti-establishment men like Lennon, another product of the ’60s.

Cosell and Lennon sat together in a radio studio and discussed his immigration status — the result of a cannabis charge back in England — the future of rock ‘n’ roll, a possible Beatles reunion, and the process of creating art. At various points, Lennon appeared to charm his interviewer, infusing the conversation with sports analogies. When Cosell asked about the Beatles initiating a new form of musical culture in the 1960s, Lennon stated that the Beatles represented a society in transition; they didn’t instigate it. To illustrate his point, Lennon noted that the longer hairstyles made famous by the Beatles had come from the streets — and by now, they were now everywhere, including on “all the footballers” of England.

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“That’s good,” Cosell said. “All the footballers. Very good.”

Lennon seemed to understand his audience. As Cosell zeroed in on his artistic ambitions and writing process, Lennon said the greatest feeling, the one he searched for, was creating work that would hold up forever, the “songs that will outlive me.”

“That’s where I get my kicks,” Lennon said, in his distinctive Scouse accent.

“That’s where you get your kicks,” Cosell repeated back, in his own famous cadence. “That’s the whole of your life, the fullness of your life?”

“Well, no, there is sex and fun, you know?” Lennon answered. “But creatively, at the moment, it’s still that feeling of always trying to make either the perfect record or the perfect song. I know it’s impossible. But that’s the thing that keeps you going. I guess in sport, it would be the perfect play.”

Moments later, after a brief discussion of life and happiness, Cosell wrapped up the interview. “You’re an interesting man, and already a proven genius in your field. I’ve enjoyed it very much.”

“Thank you, Howard,” Lennon answered. “So did I. See you at a football game.”

“Yes, indeed,” Cosell said. “At halftime in our ‘Monday Night’ booth.”

It’s unclear if Cosell had something in mind, or if he was just planting a seed, but two months later the “Monday Night Football” crew was in Los Angeles to broadcast a game between the Rams and Washington at the Los Angeles Coliseum. To spice up the production, the crew had booked Ronald Reagan, then the governor of California, to appear as a special guest. The appearance of actors, politicians and musicians had become a staple on “Monday Night Football,” offering cultural cachet. But on the day of the game, a chance encounter added a layer of serendipity. Gifford, the former New York Giants star, bumped into Lennon at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. They exchanged pleasantries and Gifford extended an invite: If Lennon wanted to come to the game, he could arrange passes.

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It was an intriguing offer. “Monday Night Football” was in its first decade on ABC, delivering prime-time football across America. In the era of three networks and few choices, it was already an institution, pioneering the way networks broadcast the sport — more cameras, more production, more pageantry — and changing the way Americans consumed television. It wasn’t an athletic event; it was entertainment. The broadcasters were not passive caretakers; they were part of the show. Nobody understood the dynamic better than Cosell, who had spent the first season in a three-man crew with Keith Jackson and Don Meredith, the former Cowboys quarterback, before the chemistry of Gifford, Meredith and Cosell made the show a sensation. “It was like playing a mini Super Bowl every Monday night because you knew the whole world was watching,” said Mike Swanson, a longtime sports executive who worked as a statistician for “Monday Night Football” in the late ’70s and early ’80s.

By the mid-1970s, as the audience swelled and the production quality advanced, as the idea of prime-time football became rooted in America, there were anecdotal stories — perhaps apocryphal — of local theaters and restaurants closing on Monday night, lest they lose out to Howard, Frank and Dandy Don. “People were not coming anymore,” Goodrich, the former MNF producer, said. “They were watching ‘Monday Night Football.’ They loved listening to those announcers.”

Gifford was the All-American straight man — regal, polite — delivering a steady diet of play-by-play. Meredith was a bumpkin — and a lunatic. Cosell, as Swanson put it, played “the snob.” The dynamic produced a mesmerizing energy on the air, and a dysfunctional family unit off it. (Meredith left “MNF” for three seasons to work for NBC before returning in 1977.)

Once, during the 1978 season, the three men were in a booth in Miami as the Dolphins were dominating the Bengals 21-0 late in the third quarter. Meredith remarked that the Bengals just needed a score, a stop and another score and it would be a ballgame. Cosell, finding the commentary ridiculous, lambasted him on air. At the next commercial break, Meredith kindly told Cosell that if he ever did that again, he would ring his neck. “Cosell got up and left the booth,” Swanson said.

The mood in the booth was decidedly more mellow in Los Angeles on the night of Dec. 9, 1974. Washington led the Rams, 20-10, at halftime. Cosell was set to interview Reagan; he always interviewed the celebrities. But as Gifford looked over his shoulder during a timeout, he saw Lennon, his hair down to his shoulders, his signature sunglasses on, standing next to Ronald Reagan, listening to an explanation of American football from a man who had once announced professional baseball. Gifford tapped Cosell. He turned around. “Giffer, don’t worry,” Cosell said. “I’ll take the Beatle.”

Lennon seemed relaxed. “Hi, Howard,” he said. He told Cosell that NFL football made “rock concerts look like tea parties.” He talked about the similarities between football and rugby. “The goals are the same,” he said. “They have points the same. They have to get a touchdown the same. But they don’t have the scrum here. Where both teams really punch each other, you know?”

Lennon was not a serious sports fan, though he did possess a basic cultural appreciation. He once name-dropped English football legend Matt Busby in the Beatles song “Dig It,” and, according to historians, it was Lennon who suggested putting former Liverpool footballer Albert Stubbins on the cover of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” (Lennon’s father was a Reds supporter.)

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Cosell noted that American football had its own type of scrum, but then he pivoted to a question he’d asked just two months earlier: Will the Beatles ever unite?

“You never know,” Lennon said. “I mean, it’s always in the wind. If it looked like this, it might be worth doing, right?”

Cosell thanked Lennon and tossed it over to Gifford. But there was something about Lennon’s answer:

You never know.

The football season ended, and “Monday Night Football” wrapped for the year. Cosell focused on another project: hosting a new Saturday night variety show on ABC. The program — “Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell” — would originate from the Ed Sullivan Theater, where the Beatles had once made their American television debut. Cosell had an idea: What if you never know meant the window was open. What if he could reunite the Beatles?

“He loved the idea,” said Rupert Hitzig, a producer on the show.

(Cosell’s show was not to be confused with NBC’s new sketch-comedy program, which debuted the same year and was originally titled “NBC’s Saturday Night.”)

With the help of Sklar, the program director at WABC, Cosell and Hitzig arranged a lunch with Lennon at the 21 Club on 52nd Street, hoping to make their case. “He really liked Howard,” Hitzig said, “and Howard liked him.” According to Sklar’s memoirs, Lennon arrived in a black velvet jacket with an Elvis pin. He came with a business associate. He looked like John Lennon.

“I want you guys,” Cosell said.

Lennon, according to Sklar, was surprised. He thought Cosell wanted him. Not the Beatles. He wasn’t ready for that. “What would people expect?” Lennon said, according to Sklar. “What would they expect. We might leave them disappointed. Better to remember the memories.”

The lunch ended, the idea having failed, and Lennon headed for an art gallery near Columbus Circle. In a letter later sent to Sklar, Lennon said he wasn’t the variety-show type and suggested to Cosell that he try Ringo. He told Sklar that Cosell would be “fine.”

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“I’m sure he’ll be just fine and dandy with or without me,” Lennon wrote. “He can forget the critics.”

Not only that, Lennon said that he wasn’t in the mood for something so light, like a television appearance amidst a collection of celebrities. He was in one of his reflective phases, pondering the meaning of life, eschewing the spotlight.

“I don’t think that this kind of introspection is the luxury of the ‘artist’ (rich or poor),” Lennon wrote. “I just never believed in waiting till ‘deaths door’ before facing (or at least trying) the Eternal Mysteries.”

Dec. 8, 1980, began as a normal Monday in New York. Giants quarterback Phil Simms missed treatment for an injury and was fined by the team. The Knicks prepared to host the Bullets at the Garden on Tuesday. The Yankees and Mets were at the winter meetings, vying for the services of Dave Winfield.

On the Upper West Side, Lennon and Ono spent the day with a Rolling Stone photographer before doing a radio interview with a crew from San Francisco in the afternoon, promoting their new album, “Double Fantasy.” Cosell and the “Monday Night Football” crew were in Miami for a 9 p.m. ET matchup between Don Shula’s 6-7 Dolphins and the New England Patriots, who were 8-5 and vying for a playoff spot. The game itself was a slog, tied, 6-6, entering the fourth quarter, then tied again, 13-13, after both teams exchanged touchdowns in the final 13 minutes.

Inside the production truck, Goodrich was in his usual seat, next to longtime director Chet Forte. It was late in the fourth quarter when the phone first rang. It was someone from ABC News. John Lennon had been shot in New York. “I said, ‘Thank you,’ and hung up,” Goodrich said.

The next few minutes were a blur, Goodrich said. It was only later that he heard the full story: That a local ABC television journalist had been at Roosevelt Hospital after a motorcycle accident; that Lennon had been rushed there around 11 p.m. That word soon spread through the ABC News desk.

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Back in the truck, Goodrich waited for word from Arledge before passing along the news. As the Patriots marched down the field in the final minutes, Cosell and Gifford discussed how to handle the news. “I just don’t know,” Cosell said, in an off-air conversation unearthed by ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” in 2010. “I’d like your opinion. I can’t see this game situation allowing for that news flash, can you?”

Gifford: “Absolutely, I can see it.”

Cosell: “You can?”

Gifford: “You betcha. If we know it, we’ve got to do it. … Don’t hang on this. It’s a tragic moment. This is going to shake up the whole world.”

Cosell: “All right. I will get it in.”

When the game returned from commercial, the Patriots attempted a run on third down. Seconds later, Patriots kicker John Smith trotted onto the field for a potential game-winning kick.

“Three seconds remaining,” Gifford said. “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,” Cosell began, in his distinctive voice, “this is just a football game, no matter who wins or loses. 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.”

“Hard to go back to the game after that news flash, which in duty bound we have to take.”

Moments later, the Dolphins blocked the kick. The game went to overtime.

The day after Lennon was killed, a crowd of mourners congregated outside The Dakota apartments, and a line of shoppers formed outside the Sam Goody record store at 3rd Avenue and 43rd street. Cosell and members of the “Monday Night” crew returned to New York, where the outpouring of grief lasted for days.

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Cosell, in an interview with Rolling Stone, would speak about what Lennon meant to him, how he had first interviewed him in the mid-’70s, how his daughters had grown up on the Beatles, how he saw “the magic and excitement of that time through their eyes.”

“I knew that I was the right one to tell America that John Lennon had been assassinated,” Cosell said in an interview with journalist Robert Lipsyte in 1991. “I had had a very special relationship with John Lennon. I thought John Lennon was a genius. I knew of his impact upon the civilization of my time.”

In the hours after Cosell delivered the news — one cultural institution meeting another — a New York Post reporter joined the swelling crowd outside The Dakota. A teenager named George Mamlouk stood outside the iron gates. A woman named Donna Samuelson held a Beatles record in her hands. A man named John Scelfo told the newspaper that he heard the gunshots while inside his home on West 72nd Street. He had been watching “Monday Night Football.”

 (Illustration: Klawe Rzeczy)

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