Author Topic: CSN fired Cousy!! CSN Bring him back for his 10 Games!  (Read 13433 times)

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Re: CSN fired Cousy!! CSN Bring him back for his 10 Games!
« Reply #45 on: October 11, 2008, 11:00:59 PM »

Offline Redz

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I sent an email to comcast and got this response:


Thank you very much for taking the time to write us about Bob Cousy.  Many of us at Comcast SportsNet New England, including myself, are native New Englanders and we understand the importance of the team’s history in the hearts of fans across the region.
We have been honored to have Bob join Celtic legend Tommy Heinsohn and Dorchester native Mike Gorman on our broadcast team as the third man in the booth for ten games during each of the past nine seasons.  

For this upcomoing season, we have made several changes and have opted to go with a two-man booth.  For personal reasons, Tommy will not do road games.  Donny Marshall, who last season proved himself to be a terrific addition to our on-air team, will do his best to fill Tommy’s shoes for road games.

We share your sentiment that Bob Cousy is a classic and important part of the Celtics’ history.  As such, we have offered to work with him to find other roles within our network.  Unfortunately, he has chosen not to accept that offer.

Respecting the Celtics tradition is extremely important to us. We have been the proud home of the Celtics for the past 28 years and it is the passion of fans like yourself that makes every one of our telecasts a privilege.

With another potential championship season on tap, I hope you will join Tommy, Mike, Donny and the entire Comcast SportsNet team in closely following the new season.

 
Perham, Skip <sperham@comcastsportsnet.com>

======================================================

Here was my response to Skippy:

Dear Skip,
 
Thanks for taking the time to read my email and for your response.
 
I know you're probably getting hammered on this but I feel like I need to put this to you in another way.
 
Bob Cousy is Mister Celtic.  He is one of the reasons that I find the broadcasts to be enjoyable even when the Celtics won 20 games a couple of years ago.
 
You should be grateful that he wants to continue doing games on Comcast and give him whatever he wants.
 
He's an 80 year old man for ****.  Show him a little respect.
 
Please think about and try to understand what I'm saying.
 
Thanks

Not sure you'll get as cordial a response the second time!  Good job though.
Yup

Re: CSN fired Cousy!! CSN Bring him back for his 10 Games!
« Reply #46 on: October 12, 2008, 01:58:45 AM »

Offline guava_wrench

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I sent an email to comcast and got this response:


Thank you very much for taking the time to write us about Bob Cousy.  Many of us at Comcast SportsNet New England, including myself, are native New Englanders and we understand the importance of the team’s history in the hearts of fans across the region.
We have been honored to have Bob join Celtic legend Tommy Heinsohn and Dorchester native Mike Gorman on our broadcast team as the third man in the booth for ten games during each of the past nine seasons.  

For this upcomoing season, we have made several changes and have opted to go with a two-man booth.  For personal reasons, Tommy will not do road games.  Donny Marshall, who last season proved himself to be a terrific addition to our on-air team, will do his best to fill Tommy’s shoes for road games.

We share your sentiment that Bob Cousy is a classic and important part of the Celtics’ history.  As such, we have offered to work with him to find other roles within our network.  Unfortunately, he has chosen not to accept that offer.

Respecting the Celtics tradition is extremely important to us. We have been the proud home of the Celtics for the past 28 years and it is the passion of fans like yourself that makes every one of our telecasts a privilege.

With another potential championship season on tap, I hope you will join Tommy, Mike, Donny and the entire Comcast SportsNet team in closely following the new season.

 
Perham, Skip <sperham@comcastsportsnet.com>

======================================================

Here was my response to Skippy:

Dear Skip,
 
Thanks for taking the time to read my email and for your response.
 
I know you're probably getting hammered on this but I feel like I need to put this to you in another way.
 
Bob Cousy is Mister Celtic.  He is one of the reasons that I find the broadcasts to be enjoyable even when the Celtics won 20 games a couple of years ago.
 
You should be grateful that he wants to continue doing games on Comcast and give him whatever he wants.
 
He's an 80 year old man for ****.  Show him a little respect.
 
Please think about and try to understand what I'm saying.
 
Thanks

Now you've inspired me to email to thank them for not using him. I think they understand though that the many people who approve of the decision are unlikely to email, while the people who don't like it are more likely to email.

I won't miss his voice and accent. Very grating.

Re: CSN fired Cousy!! CSN Bring him back for his 10 Games!
« Reply #47 on: October 12, 2008, 08:03:40 AM »

Offline TrueGreen

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I sent an email to comcast and got this response:


Thank you very much for taking the time to write us about Bob Cousy.  Many of us at Comcast SportsNet New England, including myself, are native New Englanders and we understand the importance of the team’s history in the hearts of fans across the region.
We have been honored to have Bob join Celtic legend Tommy Heinsohn and Dorchester native Mike Gorman on our broadcast team as the third man in the booth for ten games during each of the past nine seasons.  

For this upcomoing season, we have made several changes and have opted to go with a two-man booth.  For personal reasons, Tommy will not do road games.  Donny Marshall, who last season proved himself to be a terrific addition to our on-air team, will do his best to fill Tommy’s shoes for road games.

We share your sentiment that Bob Cousy is a classic and important part of the Celtics’ history.  As such, we have offered to work with him to find other roles within our network.  Unfortunately, he has chosen not to accept that offer.

Respecting the Celtics tradition is extremely important to us. We have been the proud home of the Celtics for the past 28 years and it is the passion of fans like yourself that makes every one of our telecasts a privilege.

With another potential championship season on tap, I hope you will join Tommy, Mike, Donny and the entire Comcast SportsNet team in closely following the new season.

 
Perham, Skip <sperham@comcastsportsnet.com>

======================================================

Here was my response to Skippy:

Dear Skip,
 
Thanks for taking the time to read my email and for your response.
 
I know you're probably getting hammered on this but I feel like I need to put this to you in another way.
 
Bob Cousy is Mister Celtic.  He is one of the reasons that I find the broadcasts to be enjoyable even when the Celtics won 20 games a couple of years ago.
 
You should be grateful that he wants to continue doing games on Comcast and give him whatever he wants.
 
He's an 80 year old man for ****.  Show him a little respect.
 
Please think about and try to understand what I'm saying.
 
Thanks

Not sure you'll get as cordial a response the second time!  Good job though.

I sent several emails to Comcast and received the exact same reply you did, a form letter (email). So hopefully they are being bombarded. I responded to that email saying it wasn't good enough and that they owe
Cooz, the Celtic Organization and Celtic fans a public apology. To me this was done with a total lack of class by Comcast and Cooz deserves better. It has nothing to do with whether or not we like Cooz as a broadcaster. Deciding to have a "two man booth" is bogus. We're talking 10 games here.

Re: CSN fired Cousy!! CSN Bring him back for his 10 Games!
« Reply #48 on: October 12, 2008, 08:47:32 AM »

Offline Brickowski

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If you want to have any influence, try cancelling your Comcast CATV service and going with another service (Verizon FIOS, if you can get it in your area) or DISH Network.  Then tell them that you're cancelled because of how they treated Cousy.  If enough people do that, it might influence them.  Anything else is just hot air, and they will blow you off with a canned email from the PR department.

Re: CSN fired Cousy!! CSN Bring him back for his 10 Games!
« Reply #49 on: October 12, 2008, 09:10:54 AM »

Offline cdif911

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I appreciated the fact that cous was a c's legend, but honestly he was awful - he had little knowledge of current day NBA players, he'd drone on and on and often times make little to no sense

If you think Cousy doesn't make any sense, then you don't understand basketball.  You don't necessarily have to know the ins and outs of the every day players to be able to comment on the game you're watching -- basketball is basketball and if you have an understanding of the game, you can pick up things that the average fan who watches only whether the ball goes in the hoop -- tends to miss.

Cousy was always brutally honest about what he was seeing - yeah, maybe at times he could get too negative -- but next to Tommy's constant hype -- his view actually worked pretty well from a broadcasting standpoint.

And yes, he's 80, but he is still sharp unlike some guys (Gil, Gino, Dick Enberg) who should have packed it in a long time ago.  

Of course, if the team hadn't sucked these past 20 years, there would be some other candidates to choose from besides a fringe NBA player from the state of Washington who was lucky to even make an NBA roster for a couple of years and whose only connection to Boston is that he played for UConn -- and he wasn't even one of their best players when he was there.

Bottom line it's a crappy move and I'm surprised a columnist like Shaughnessy or Ryan or someone like that hasn't killed C's ownership in print over that.  Just goes to show you how much Boston has changed.

I didn't want to insinuate that Cousy doesn't have basketball knowledge, I was saying he carries on far too long, his execution in speaking about his knowledge is failing him.  And I do think it is very important for an analyst/announcer to do his homework on the current product, if he doesn't, it shows a lack of professionalism.  As much as I am annoyed by Tommy's homerism, he actually knows the players in the game today.  We live in a society where performance is a key to a job; I'm a coach myself and am pretty well liked by my players (I hope!), but if I stopped preparing for games and just winged it, I wouldn't deserve my job, because there are plenty of people who want it and would do the work necessary to do a better job.  Not hating on Cous as a person, as a Celtics legend, just saying he's not very good at his job anymore, so I'm not surprised he was let go - should he get a behind the scenes job with the c's if he wants it? Absolutely - but, and this is a big but, look at Jo Jo White - he is with the team or doing something team related nearly every day.  Would Cous put that commitment in, or would he hang out in Florida... I think we all know the answer to that
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Re: CSN fired Cousy!! CSN Bring him back for his 10 Games!
« Reply #50 on: October 12, 2008, 02:01:57 PM »

Offline Spoon

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If you think Cousy doesn't make any sense, then you don't understand basketball.  You don't necessarily have to know the ins and outs of the every day players to be able to comment on the game you're watching -- basketball is basketball and if you have an understanding of the game, you can pick up things that the average fan who watches only whether the ball goes in the hoop -- tends to miss.

That's not always true. There are many great players who made lousy announcers. Howard Cosell called it the jockocracy. The notion they only ex-jocks know what is going on out there. I enjoyed Cousy, but like Billy Packer, he tended to be too negative to the point where only perfect basketball - if there is such a thing - brought any rare enjoyment from them.

Of course, if the team hadn't sucked these past 20 years, there would be some other candidates to choose from besides a fringe NBA player from the state of Washington who was lucky to even make an NBA roster for a couple of years and whose only connection to Boston is that he played for UConn -- and he wasn't even one of their best players when he was there.

Did you just forget we were the best team in basketball and just won the NBA championship this year? I am sure there are plenty of people who would love to commentate for a NBA champion. CSN made their choice, but the Celtics are a hot ticket now and they could have lured a number of top talents into the broadcast booth.

Bottom line it's a crappy move and I'm surprised a columnist like Shaughnessy or Ryan or someone like that hasn't killed C's ownership in print over that.  Just goes to show you how much Boston has changed.

Maybe this just passed over your head, but this was CSN's decision and has nothing to do with C's ownership. BTW, C's ownership is pretty popular around Boston these days. With that NBA championship and all.

Re: CSN fired Cousy!! CSN Bring him back for his 10 Games!
« Reply #51 on: October 12, 2008, 03:56:42 PM »

Offline SShorefan 3.0

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It's too bad CSN has an exclusive video rights contract...I hate having to support these toolsheds by watching their broadcast.

I totally agree with this.
I love my kids - Call me a sap, but it's true.

Re: CSN fired Cousy!! CSN Bring him back for his 10 Games!
« Reply #52 on: October 12, 2008, 08:16:47 PM »

Offline TrueGreen

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Quote
Quote from: Kuberski33 on Yesterday at 04:42:05 PM
Bottom line it's a crappy move and I'm surprised a columnist like Shaughnessy or Ryan or someone like that hasn't killed C's ownership in print over that.  Just goes to show you how much Boston has changed.

Maybe this just passed over your head, but this was CSN's decision and has nothing to do with C's ownership. BTW, C's ownership is pretty popular around Boston these days. With that NBA championship and all.
If you read the article in the Globe, the Celtic Organization did speak to and support Bob Cousy and he appreciated that. Cooz will receive a 2008 Championship ring on opening night. Ownership made it well known that Couz will always be a part of the Celtic Organization.

Re: CSN fired Cousy!! CSN Bring him back for his 10 Games!
« Reply #53 on: October 13, 2008, 04:56:54 PM »

Offline thirstyboots18

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JS33,  Thanks for the link.  I wrote to CSN and got the standard reply.
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Re: CSN fired Cousy!! CSN Bring him back for his 10 Games!
« Reply #54 on: October 13, 2008, 09:56:13 PM »

Offline wbones1

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Dear Alan,
 
Thank you very much for taking the time to write us about Bob Cousy.  Many of us at Comcast SportsNet New England, including myself, are native New Englanders and we understand the importance of the team’s history in the hearts of fans across the region.
We have been honored to have Bob join Celtic legend Tommy Heinsohn and Dorchester native Mike Gorman on our broadcast team as the third man in the booth for ten games during each of the past nine seasons.   

For this upcomoing season, we have made several changes and have opted to go with a two-man booth.  For personal reasons, Tommy will not do road games.  Donny Marshall, who last season proved himself to be a terrific addition to our on-air team, will do his best to fill Tommy’s shoes for road games.

We share your sentiment that Bob Cousy is a classic and important part of the Celtics’ history.  As such, we have offered to work with him to find other roles within our network.  Unfortunately, he has chosen not to accept that offer.

Respecting the Celtics tradition is extremely important to us. We have been the proud home of the Celtics for the past 28 years and it is the passion of fans like yourself that makes every one of our telecasts a privilege.

With another potential championship season on tap, I hope you will join Tommy, Mike, Donny and the entire Comcast SportsNet team in closely following the new season.

 
Skip Perham
Marketing & Communications Manager
(781) 270-7252

That is what I received from my email a form letter. My reply

Dear Skip,
 
 Thank you for taking the time to reply. I do not agree with your companies' position on Mr Cousy. The man is Celtics basketball and the patriarch of the organization now that Red has passed. I think Comcast is doing a disservice to many of the younger fans by not letting them partake of the knowledge Bob has of the teams history and the game. In my opinion Comcast should have found out if Cedric Maxwell was available he was afterall a Celtic unlike Mr. Marshall.
wbones1

Re: CSN fired Cousy!! CSN Bring him back for his 10 Games!
« Reply #55 on: October 13, 2008, 10:07:57 PM »

Offline jaketwice

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I appreciated the fact that cous was a c's legend, but honestly he was awful - he had little knowledge of current day NBA players, he'd drone on and on and often times make little to no sense

If you think Cousy doesn't make any sense, then you don't understand basketball.  You don't necessarily have to know the ins and outs of the every day players to be able to comment on the game you're watching -- basketball is basketball and if you have an understanding of the game, you can pick up things that the average fan who watches only whether the ball goes in the hoop -- tends to miss.

Cousy was always brutally honest about what he was seeing - yeah, maybe at times he could get too negative -- but next to Tommy's constant hype -- his view actually worked pretty well from a broadcasting standpoint.

And yes, he's 80, but he is still sharp unlike some guys (Gil, Gino, Dick Enberg) who should have packed it in a long time ago.  

Of course, if the team hadn't sucked these past 20 years, there would be some other candidates to choose from besides a fringe NBA player from the state of Washington who was lucky to even make an NBA roster for a couple of years and whose only connection to Boston is that he played for UConn -- and he wasn't even one of their best players when he was there.

Bottom line it's a crappy move and I'm surprised a columnist like Shaughnessy or Ryan or someone like that hasn't killed C's ownership in print over that.  Just goes to show you how much Boston has changed.

I didn't want to insinuate that Cousy doesn't have basketball knowledge, I was saying he carries on far too long, his execution in speaking about his knowledge is failing him.  And I do think it is very important for an analyst/announcer to do his homework on the current product, if he doesn't, it shows a lack of professionalism.  As much as I am annoyed by Tommy's homerism, he actually knows the players in the game today.  We live in a society where performance is a key to a job; I'm a coach myself and am pretty well liked by my players (I hope!), but if I stopped preparing for games and just winged it, I wouldn't deserve my job, because there are plenty of people who want it and would do the work necessary to do a better job.  Not hating on Cous as a person, as a Celtics legend, just saying he's not very good at his job anymore, so I'm not surprised he was let go - should he get a behind the scenes job with the c's if he wants it? Absolutely - but, and this is a big but, look at Jo Jo White - he is with the team or doing something team related nearly every day.  Would Cous put that commitment in, or would he hang out in Florida... I think we all know the answer to that

I totally agree with this. Also, he has a terrible voice; I can't listen to him when he comments. It sounds like he is eating while talking!

For me, it is good riddance to aging vocal cords. Celtics legend or not, if you can't talk properly, you shouldn't have a job as a commentator.

Re: CSN fired Cousy!! CSN Bring him back for his 10 Games!
« Reply #56 on: October 14, 2008, 12:26:42 AM »

Offline Kuberski33

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If you read the article in the Globe, the Celtic Organization did speak to and support Bob Cousy and he appreciated that. Cooz will receive a 2008 Championship ring on opening night. Ownership made it well known that Couz will always be a part of the Celtic Organization.

Celtics ownership chooses their broadcast partner and because of that, if it so chooses, it can influence who is or is not announcing its games.  For the Celtics to indicate they had no say in the matter is a cop out.  They have plenty of say.

Reading between the lines here, it looks to me like the Celtics in fact wanted him off the broadcasts, and Comcast is simply absorbing the blow for them.

Re: CSN fired Cousy!! CSN Bring him back for his 10 Games!
« Reply #57 on: October 14, 2008, 12:38:44 AM »

Offline Kuberski33

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I enjoyed Cousy, but like Billy Packer, he tended to be too negative to the point where only perfect basketball - if there is such a thing - brought any rare enjoyment from them.

Actually one of the first indications that last year's team was going to be pretty special was Cousy's enthusiasm on the first couple of games he broadcast back in the Fall.  He was genuinely excited about what he was seeing for the first time since the Bird era.  If he was too negative the past 20+ years, believe me there was plenty of reason to be negative.  With one exception (the Toine/Pierce team that got to the Conference finals) the C's for the most part were pretty bad and for a few of those years, worse than bad.

That the Cooz called it like he saw it was actually pretty refreshing given the way Heinsohn used to try to sell hope and potential when there really was none.