Reversal helps ruin WVU’s night
West Virginia quarterback Jarrett Brown (16) runs against Cincinnati defensive lineman Dan Giordano (99) for a first quarter touchdown during an NCAA college football game, Friday, Nov. 13, 2009 in Cincinnati
CINCINNATI — Chances are, hopefully, you are too young to remember Roone Arledge, but without him you well might not have watched last night’s football game in Cincinnati between West Virginia University and Bearcats.
If Abner Doubleday invented baseball, if Thomas Edison gave us the electric light bulb, if Alexander Graham Bell gave us the telephone, Roone Arledge was every bit as much the father of modern sports television.
ABC’s Wide World of Sports was his baby, right down to “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat,” and West Virginians know something about the agony of defeat today.
See, along with Wide World of Sports and Monday Night Football and, yes, the irritating nasal pompousness of Howard Cosell, Roone Arledge was behind the invention of instant replay, although it is safe to infer that Arledge saw it as an aid to the viewers in understanding what was going on during a game, not as a way to decide the outcome of football games.
Complete Story at- The Times West Virginian
