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Editorial: A broadcasting touchdown

Monday, Dec. 26, 2005 | 7:52 a.m.

It's time now to tip our air helmets to ABC in appreciation for its 36 years of broadcasting "Monday Night Football." Tonight is the last broadcast by the network. Next season, for economic reasons, it will be on the cable sports station ESPN.

Two people were behind the birth of "Monday Night Football" -- the late Roone Arledge and the late Pete Rozelle. Arledge was the programming genius behind "ABC's Wide World of Sports" before embracing "Monday Night Football" and going on to lead the network as its president. Rozelle, NFL commissioner from 1960 to 1989, set the stage for the first Super Bowl, in 1967, and staked his reputation on the marketability of "Monday Night Football."

What helped make ABC's "Monday Night Football" such an institution, beyond the obvious attraction of the sport itself, were the color analysts and play-by-play announcers. Howard "tell it like it is" Cosell, "Dandy" Don Meredith, Keith Jackson, Frank Gifford, Fran Tarkington, Joe Namath, Boomer Esiason and Dan Fouts are some of the names from past years. Recently Al Michaels and the incomparable John Madden have been adding fun and interest to the show.

ESPN has big shoes to fill.

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