“I love sports, but I love writing more,” Lowell Cohn.
San Francisco Bay Area sports fans either loved Lowell Cohn or hated him. The now-retired sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and the Santa Rosa Press Democrat had a way with words. Those words could inflame readers but always keep their attention.
Whether or not you agree with Cohn, you must admire his style, wit, courage, and ability to peel back the layers of his subject and get to the heart of the matter.
In his memoir, Gloves Off: 40 Years of Unfiltered Sports Writing, Cohn doesn’t just publish his previous columns. Instead, he provides 64 short, highly readable chapters on the many Bay Area sports personalities he covered and insights into his craft. In it, he pens, “Writing a column, writing anything, means the writer cannot be boring. Not for a single paragraph, sentence, or clause. Not even for a word. How a writer achieves this is not the writer’s primary business, challenge, and joy—writing lives on the not.”
No one would ever accuse Cohn of being boring. Although he riled up many athletes and readers, he always clarified his reasoning and was effective because of his objectivity. He was not a fan of any team or athlete. “When people understood that I didn’t care if a local team won,” he writes, “they would ask why I wrote sports. What was the point? And I said I liked to write about sports, understood that world, simple as that.. and I loved bringing up a subject to start a discussion or an argument among readers.”
Cohn admits that his chief love, even above sports, is writing.
Photo courtesy X
“When people ask what I like about my job, I say the writing,” he states. “They are always disappointed, and they want me to say I’m in love with sports. I am in love with sports, but I love writing more. If it came to that, I could write about a glass of water.”
Cohn will probably offend some more readers and athletes in this book. He is not a fan of Colin Kaepernick, for example. He writes: “Disclaimer: My view of Kaepernick may be skewed because I know him and don’t like him.” Cohn says, “Simple question for Colin Kaepernick, a mere two-word sentence: Why then? He had been a mixed-race person all his life facing things a mixed-race person faces and, all of a sudden, six years into his NFL career, it dawned on him that there are monstrous injustices in the American system.” Cohn’s conclusion: “He dissed the anthem because he wanted attention. Strictly my interpretation. I freely admit that.”
Cohn was also no fan of Barry Bonds. He described a scene in the Giants clubhouse where reporters were crowded around Bonds’ locker and, without saying a word, Bonds used a bat to herd them away and make a path for himself. “His meaning was clear,” writes Cohn. “We were cows or goats or pigs, four-legged subhumans, and we didn’t deserve the rudimentary politeness and consideration you would accord a human being.”
Cohn writes about Michael Jordan’s last game in Oakland during his final farewell tour and how Jordan refused to interview after the game in the interview room, instead forcing a horde of reporters to gather around his locker. Then Jordan gave the interview in a whisper, making it impossible for most reporters to capture his words. Cohn writes, “And I looked at Jordan and thought so much of this man is image, packaged, made up. Sure, he may be a good person to those close to him. How would I know? But he isn’t acting like a good person now. He’s being mean for no reason. To exert power. To disappoint people who came to celebrate him. Why would anyone do that?”
Steve Young (photo courtesy Yardbarker)
Cohn mentions many local and national sports figures he did, including Bill Walsh, Steve Young, Vida Blue, Dusty Baker, Floyd Patterson, and Jim Harbaugh. At least in some cases, the feeling was mutual. Young wrote the Foreword to the book, stating, “But in the end, we were better because of Lowell. There’s always a need for a voice like that. It’s important. Nothing is worse than internal marketing… It’s when we tell each other we’re all great and everything is fine. That didn’t happen with Lowell. As a truth seeker, he wouldn’t allow it.” In the Afterword, Harbaugh wrote, “You are a man I truly respect because of your principles and convictions. Your passion and work ethic are at the highest level. And our sense of humor and dry wit were appreciated.”
All those characteristics are in full display in this book and, like him or hate him, readers will be fascinated as Cohn shares his insights into people like Reggie Jackson, Tim Lincecum, Baron Davis, Al Davis, Bruce Bochy, Billy Martin, Billy Beane, Randy Moss, Steve Mariucci and many others.
Cohn lives up to his standard: NOT boring!
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Matt Sieger, now retired sports reporter/columnist who worked for New York State and California newspapers, did his undergraduate work at Cornell University and received a master’s in journalism from Syracuse University. This article first appeared in The Vacaville Reporter on February 27, 2021.
