Linda, her brother Howard, Scott and me at the U.S. Open celebrating our 50th birthdays.
My friend Linda Cohn announced her retirement from ESPN last week after 34 incredible years.
Because she’s been an important trailblazer for women in sports journalism, Linda’s announcement was big news.
But long before Linda Cohn became a household name — before the record 5,500 SportsCenter broadcasts, before the National Sports Media Hall of Fame, before she was the most prolific anchor in ESPN history — she was my friend Howie’s older sister. His cool, very cool, big sister. I’ve always admired her.
Linda was a terrific athlete, had a great sense of humor and impeccable taste in music and never made us feel like we were in the way.
Howie (now Dr. Howard Cohn) and I were born a week apart. So, we often celebrated our birthdays together with a visit–accompanied by our good friend Scott– to an amusement park near Amityville off the Long Island Expressway.
Amityville became better known for a horror movie bearing its name, but to us it was home to a place full of rides and arcade games. Linda or her dad would often drive us.
She also took us to concerts. One memorable show was the Doobie Brothers at Nassau Coliseum.
We scored great seats because Howie and Linda’s mom worked as a store nurse at Macy’s. Her office was next to what I think was called the “ticketron”, which meant we had an “in” to score tickets to the best shows of the day. Billy Joel at the Garden, Foreigner and Johnny Winter also at the Garden, Styx at the Coliseum. It was the 70s, and rock ruled the land.
My memories of Linda from those days are vivid. She knew more about sports than anyone, loved the Knicks, Rangers, Mets and Giants, played goalie on an ice hockey team and was an awesome tennis player.
Yes, Linda was cool. She also had a great laugh, put up with our jokes and never seemed to be annoyed when forced to hang out with us. And folks, we could be annoying.
One time, we went to see Beatlemania at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway. We went with Linda and my friend’s Scott’s big sister and probably somebody else. Being young and foolish, we wanted some distance from these older women, so we sat in another car on the Long Island Railroad on the way to Penn Station.
When we heard the conductor announce Penn Station, we got off the train, only it wasn’t Penn Station. It was the stop before. The big sisters watched in horror as the train pulled away with us standing on the podium. Eventually, we reunited in the actual Penn Station. I don’t remember their reaction, but I think they were forgiving. I’m also pretty sure we stayed together until we returned safely to Stony Brook.
There were more trips and experiences. We went to Central Park when John Lennon was killed in 1980 for the vigil. That was unforgettable.
We also visited SUNY Oswego, where Linda played on the hockey team and studied broadcast communications.
My memories are her always laughing with us.
That’s the thing about knowing someone before they become someone.
You carry a version of them that the world never gets to see. The Linda Cohn who became a pioneer for women in sports journalism is the same person I watched grow up — or rather, the person who watched us grow up, shepherding a bunch of younger kids around Long Island with the patience of someone who probably had bigger things on her mind already.
She started at WALK-AM/FM in Patchogue N.Y. in 1981, covering news and sports. By 1992 she was at ESPN, and the rest is television history. But numbers don’t really tell the story. What Linda did was simply show up, every night, and treat sports like it mattered — because to her, it genuinely did. As mentioned, she was a former college hockey goalie. She wasn’t performing enthusiasm. She had it.
For those of us who spent decades watching SportsCenter, Linda was the constant. Generations of kids fell asleep to her voice recapping the late scores. And quietly, without making a crusade of it, she was showing a generation of young women that the anchor desk belonged to them too.
She said it herself, in her retirement statement: “What I’m most proud of is that my career lasted long enough for me to see little girls grow up watching SportsCenter, enter this business and succeed in it.”
That’s the whole thing, right there.
At a Queen concert in Sunrise, Florida.
When Howie and I turned 50, Linda did something I’ll never forget. She treated us to a sports weekend in New York City, access to the ESPN box at the US Open, sideline passes for a Giants preseason game (we were a few feet from Tom Brady and he waved to her), up close at a Mets game. It was one of those weekends that reminds you how lucky you’ve been with the friends you’ve collected across a lifetime. She could have made arrangements for us and said have fun, but she came with us instead. We got to hang out and joke all weekend. It was a magical time.
The teenager who drove us to concerts became the woman who changed what sports television looked like. But she never seemed to forget where she came from, and she never stopped bringing people along with her.
In recent years, we attended a Queen concert in Sunrise (just like old times) and met for dinner at La Cigale in Delray Beach.
There are texts, mostly during football season, where all of us lament life as Giants fans.
We share photos of people we used to know, poke gentle fun at the world and follow each other on social media.
Recently, Linda did a great podcast with Rich Eisen as part of his series “That was SportsCenter.” Don’t miss it, it’s awesome. Here’s a link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hGFBz5iv7k
Linda has met all the legends in just about every sport. Walking around NYC with her was a trip. She was stopped for photos etc., and my friend Scott photo bombed every single one.
And we laughed. How cool is that?
Linda, congratulations on a career that mattered. You earned every one of those record setting broadcasts and inspired a generation of women entering sports journalism. Wow.
And thanks for the rides too. Can’t wait to see what the next chapter holds.
