You have to be simultaneously well-prepared and spontaneous. You don't really know for sure what percentage of the preparation you are going to use, and you don't know exactly where it will apply. So you have to be prepared, but not locked into that preparation.

Bob Costas

Categorized in : Use Preparation Spontaneous

Champions don't become champions in the field---they are merely r... by Bob Costas

Champions don't become champions in the field---they are merely recognized there.

champion fields

Any good broadcast, not just an Olympic broadcast, should have texture to it. It should have information, should have some history, should have something that's offbeat, quirky, humorous, and where called for it, should have journalism, and judiciously it should also have commentary. That's my ideal.

quirky humorous should-have

The best thing about sports is the sense of community and shared... by Bob Costas

The best thing about sports is the sense of community and shared emotion it can create.

athlete success sports

If Vin Scully calling a game is just as good in 2013 as he was in 1963, that's the way a game should sound. If Jack Buck were around today, I don't think anybody would ask him to change his style. My style has always been a little bit of a combination of old and new, if only because my frame of reference, personally, was different than that of Ernie Harwell or Jack Buck or Harry Caray. I was a younger guy. Just as Joe Buck's frame of reference is somewhat different from mine. But the nuts and bolts of how to call a ballgame well, I think remain the same.

nuts games thinking

If OJ Simpson did not have a handgun, Nicole and Ron would still... by Bob Costas

If OJ Simpson did not have a handgun, Nicole and Ron would still be alive today.

nicole live-for-today alive

If that's the last image of Michael Jordan...how magnificent is i... by Bob Costas

If that's the last image of Michael Jordan...how magnificent is it!?

nba-championships jordan lasts

Our current gun culture simply ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy, and that more convenience-store confrontations over loud music coming from a car will leave more teenage boys bloodied and dead... What I believe is, if he [Belcher] didn’t possess/own a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today... Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it.

teenage gun believe

The National League game is chess; The American League is checker... by Bob Costas

The National League game is chess; The American League is checkers.

league games chess

His doctors said he was, in many ways, the most remarkable patient they'd ever seen. His bravery, so stark and real, that even those used to seeing people in dire circumstances were moved by his example.

doctors real baseball

We're still buzzin' about Bruce Springsteen at halftime, but I'll tell you if there was one guy we weren't thinking was 'Born To Run' it was James Harrison.

guy running thinking

I can't do anything about how people who are all but completely unaware of my actual motivations and my actual thought process and my actual worldview, how they characterize me. There's not much I can do about it, except never say another word other than 'there's a ground ball to shortstop.' And I don't think that's going to happen.

motivation people thinking

(He was) a fragile hero to whom we had an emotional attachment so strong and lasting that it defied logic.

strong baseball hero

All that's missing for Utah is a blindfold and a cigarette. by Bob Costas

All that's missing for Utah is a blindfold and a cigarette.

nba-championships utah missing

We're used to comeback stories in the world of sports, but the Gail Devers story is remarkable. This is a comeback from an illness which almost killed her.

stories sports world

People will speculate about what they want, but that is not my in... by Bob Costas

People will speculate about what they want, but that is not my intention.

intention want people

Mickey Mantle was baseball. by Bob Costas

Mickey Mantle was baseball.

mickey baseball

commenting on baseball players who test positive for steroids: It?s an announced test, so you not only failed the steroid test, you failed the IQ test.

tests player baseball

Yes folks, their gold medal looks the same as everybody elses. by Bob Costas

Yes folks, their gold medal looks the same as everybody elses.

hockey gold sports

There are some times when sports rises to the level of news and when sports broadcasters acquit themselves as well as the best news broadcasters do, they aren't there to dramatize. They're there as journalists.

news levels sports

He was our symbol of baseball at a time when the game meant something to us that perhaps it no longer does.

baseball games doe