By JP Pelzman
Legendary sportscaster Gary Cohen has become respected and admired for his ability to make bold, perfectly descriptive and declarative statements instantaneously based on what he is seeing.
But what perhaps has endeared him most to Seton Hall fans are questions rather than statements, specifically, the ones he asks to Seton Hall coach Kevin Willard shortly after games.
So, naturally, I asked him a question about those questions.
“I'm smiling as you’re asking me this question,” Cohen said, “because Kevin is perfect for what we need. He also happens to be a great coach who’s become better and better throughout his 10 years at Seton Hall. But from a personal standpoint, from an interview standpoint, from an emotional 10 minutes after the game interview standpoint, he is just perfect because he cares so much.”
After a 74-71 loss at Providence on Feb. 15 in which the Pirates trailed by 25 points in the first half, an emotional Willard told Cohen he was “disappointed” and threatened to shorten the team’s rotation. His team responded by winning three consecutive games.
Cohen continued, “At the same time, (Willard) doesn’t take himself too seriously, has a great sense of humor, knows how to be pointed when he needs to, knows how to roll with something funny if it’s called for. Frankly, those post-game interviews are the most fun interviews I do in any context, because I know that Kevin is always going to give us truth and he’s always going to deliver us something poignant and funny. I wish somebody would make a compendium of those post-game interviews because they are nothing but fun.
“Now, there have been a couple of times in 10 years,” Cohen told PirateCrew.com, “when after a close loss he’s been a little testy but those have rarely come to the fore. I've done other post-game interviews with other coaches in other contexts and his percentage of unhappiness after close losses that gets translated into testy interviews is lower than anybody I've ever dealt with.”
Cohen arrived at Seton Hall seven seasons before Willard. Of course, he already was well-known by then as the radio voice of the New York Mets, but he also spent seven seasons doing play-by-play for St. John’s, “the last four years with Ed Coleman and we had a great time doing that,” Cohen recalled, “including the run to the Elite Eight that St. John’s had in 1999, but St. John’s switched radio stations.”
The Red Storm wound up on the New York ESPN affiliate.
“I think they wanted to go in a different direction,” Cohen said, “and have someone who wasn’t as associated with WFAN. Keith Meyers (then an associate Seton Hall athletic director) was someone I had known peripherally and a big Mets fan. When he found out St. John’s had let me go, I think they had been contemplating making a change and Keith reached out to me and I was thrilled.”
Prior to the tandem of Cohen and Dave Popkin, Warner Fusselle had done the Seton Hall radio broadcasts solo.
“I love college basketball,” Cohen said, “and in the year in between my St. John’s gig and my Seton Hall gig, I really missed doing the game. I was very happy when Keith reached out. And fortunately, things have worked out wonderfully since then.”
Cohen is adept at broadcasting both Seton Hall on 970 AM and the Mets on SNY and WPIX. Here is a list of the similarities--he speaks into a microphone, and both sporting events are contested on Planet Earth. Otherwise...
“Everything is different,” Cohen explains. “It's like comparing lobsters and kumquats. First of all, baseball is a slow game. It’s become a 3½-hour game with eight minutes of action. Basketball is a short game, it’s about two hours and the ball is in play for most of that time. I do television where you speak less anyway for baseball and I'm doing radio for basketball where you’re trying to describe as much as you can and make the game come alive for people who can’t see it.
“With baseball we sit hundreds of feet away from the action, with basketball we sit six inches away from the action. Everything about it is different and that’s one of the things I like. The only downside of taking the gig at SNY in 2006 was giving up radio play-by-play and I was a guy who was raised on radio and even to this day on television I'm a radio guy doing TV.
“I’m feeling all the description in my head,” Cohen continued, “and editing out 90 percent of it and spewing out the 10 percent of it that makes sense. Radio gives me a chance to do all of that and not edit myself the same way and honestly that’s what I'm built for and that’s what I grew up with.”
He concluded, “That’s why it’s such a joy to do that and to be able to exercise those chops during the basketball season.”
Legendary sportscaster Gary Cohen has become respected and admired for his ability to make bold, perfectly descriptive and declarative statements instantaneously based on what he is seeing.
But what perhaps has endeared him most to Seton Hall fans are questions rather than statements, specifically, the ones he asks to Seton Hall coach Kevin Willard shortly after games.
So, naturally, I asked him a question about those questions.
“I'm smiling as you’re asking me this question,” Cohen said, “because Kevin is perfect for what we need. He also happens to be a great coach who’s become better and better throughout his 10 years at Seton Hall. But from a personal standpoint, from an interview standpoint, from an emotional 10 minutes after the game interview standpoint, he is just perfect because he cares so much.”
After a 74-71 loss at Providence on Feb. 15 in which the Pirates trailed by 25 points in the first half, an emotional Willard told Cohen he was “disappointed” and threatened to shorten the team’s rotation. His team responded by winning three consecutive games.
Cohen continued, “At the same time, (Willard) doesn’t take himself too seriously, has a great sense of humor, knows how to be pointed when he needs to, knows how to roll with something funny if it’s called for. Frankly, those post-game interviews are the most fun interviews I do in any context, because I know that Kevin is always going to give us truth and he’s always going to deliver us something poignant and funny. I wish somebody would make a compendium of those post-game interviews because they are nothing but fun.
“Now, there have been a couple of times in 10 years,” Cohen told PirateCrew.com, “when after a close loss he’s been a little testy but those have rarely come to the fore. I've done other post-game interviews with other coaches in other contexts and his percentage of unhappiness after close losses that gets translated into testy interviews is lower than anybody I've ever dealt with.”
Cohen arrived at Seton Hall seven seasons before Willard. Of course, he already was well-known by then as the radio voice of the New York Mets, but he also spent seven seasons doing play-by-play for St. John’s, “the last four years with Ed Coleman and we had a great time doing that,” Cohen recalled, “including the run to the Elite Eight that St. John’s had in 1999, but St. John’s switched radio stations.”
The Red Storm wound up on the New York ESPN affiliate.
“I think they wanted to go in a different direction,” Cohen said, “and have someone who wasn’t as associated with WFAN. Keith Meyers (then an associate Seton Hall athletic director) was someone I had known peripherally and a big Mets fan. When he found out St. John’s had let me go, I think they had been contemplating making a change and Keith reached out to me and I was thrilled.”
Prior to the tandem of Cohen and Dave Popkin, Warner Fusselle had done the Seton Hall radio broadcasts solo.
“I love college basketball,” Cohen said, “and in the year in between my St. John’s gig and my Seton Hall gig, I really missed doing the game. I was very happy when Keith reached out. And fortunately, things have worked out wonderfully since then.”
Cohen is adept at broadcasting both Seton Hall on 970 AM and the Mets on SNY and WPIX. Here is a list of the similarities--he speaks into a microphone, and both sporting events are contested on Planet Earth. Otherwise...
“Everything is different,” Cohen explains. “It's like comparing lobsters and kumquats. First of all, baseball is a slow game. It’s become a 3½-hour game with eight minutes of action. Basketball is a short game, it’s about two hours and the ball is in play for most of that time. I do television where you speak less anyway for baseball and I'm doing radio for basketball where you’re trying to describe as much as you can and make the game come alive for people who can’t see it.
“With baseball we sit hundreds of feet away from the action, with basketball we sit six inches away from the action. Everything about it is different and that’s one of the things I like. The only downside of taking the gig at SNY in 2006 was giving up radio play-by-play and I was a guy who was raised on radio and even to this day on television I'm a radio guy doing TV.
“I’m feeling all the description in my head,” Cohen continued, “and editing out 90 percent of it and spewing out the 10 percent of it that makes sense. Radio gives me a chance to do all of that and not edit myself the same way and honestly that’s what I'm built for and that’s what I grew up with.”
He concluded, “That’s why it’s such a joy to do that and to be able to exercise those chops during the basketball season.”
