Remembering Beano Cook and his Notre Dame moments 10 years after passing
Ten years ago today a legend in the college football media world left us as Beano Cook passed away. The 1954 University of Pittsburgh graduate went on to become one the most recognizable faces associated with college football media but before his ESPN career that most of us knew him from, he served as a sports publicist at Pitt.
Eventually Cook worked his way into the media world and upon doing so, waste no time becoming one of the biggest names in the business.
John D. Lucaks, a Notre Dame graduate and passionate college football fan in his own right worked with Cook for years after developing a unique friendship on a whim. Lucaks released Cook’s biography, “Haven’t They Suffered Enough?” in 2021 and as you’d probably guess, has plenty of stories of Beano that involve Notre Dame.
I was seven years old when Beano declared that Ron Powlus would win multiple Heisman Trophies and just assumed Cook was a Notre Dame backer at heart. After reading this book I’ll let you know that he certainly wasn’t (doesn’t make him any less of a college football enthusiast) but sure did have some tales involving Notre Dame.
I’ll also say that in no point in my life have a I read a biography and in my head heard the featured person’s voice as clearly I did Beano’s with this book.
Find out below just a few of the stories that Lucaks shares in the book that involve Beano irritating a few Notre Dame priests during his publicist days at Pitt, the story behind his Powlus prediction, and what game Notre Dame won that earned Beano a huge pay day!
All are excerpts from the book that can be purchased for any longtime college football fan on Amazon.
Great respect for Knute Rockne
“Knute Rockne was not only the most famous college football coach; he was perhaps the most famous American sports figure the world will ever know. My mother told me that the three greatest national outpourings of grief she recalled in her lifetime were after FDR’s death, the assassination of JFK and when Rockne died.”
“Rockne had (Bear) Bryant’s charisma and coaching acumen, (Pop) Warner’s mad scientist brain and, with his rousing pep talks, he was the greatest motivational leader and speechmaker in the sport’s history, the Winston Churchill of college football.”
“What I am most in awe of when it comes to Rockne was that nobody saw the big picture like him. Most casual fans know him primarily for his role in popularizing the forward pass and for the Gipper speech, but he was in effect ND’s head coach, AD, business manager and SID.
“He was the first coach to grasp the importance of radio, was an expert at cultivating relationships with sportswriters and doing PR, and he was way ahead of his time when it came to marketing both himself and the Fighting Irish.”
Better coach: Rockne or Frank Leahy?
“I truly believe that had Rockne and his prized pupil ever went up against each other, with talent and everything else being equal, Leahy would have beaten Rockne head-to-head.
“No coach in the history of football at any level was, is, or will ever be more dedicated to winning than Frank Leahy. He was the prototype of today’s NFL coach, the workaholic who’s married to the game and sleeps on his office couch.
“Leahy slept on a cot in a room at the university fire house. He only saw his wife and 10 kids in the off-season. All he did was watch film and wear out chalkboards. If he were around today, the guy would think the hours that Bill Belichick, Andy Reid and Jon Gruden put in were not a serious enough commitment to winning.
…“Leahy is officially credited with four AP national titles…If not for World War II and other circumstances, there’s a chance he’d have finished with seven, maybe even eight national titles.”
How Beano almost ended Notre Dame-Pitt rivalry
“It’s impossible for me to explain just how much I hated Notre Dame at this time (1958). I hated them more than Penn State. It wasn’t only because we could never beat them in recruiting or on the field with any regularity. They not only had the media in their pocket; they had an entire religion behind their team. They had so many advantages.”
“When the game was officially over, I didn’t just celebrate, I went temporarily insane. I was so flush with adrenaline I ran out of the pressbox screaming my head off. I was so caught up in the moment, to this day I can’t remember exactly what I said.
“One variation of the story has me yelling “we beat those bastards!” Some say I was screaming “we beat those (blank) suckers!” Other people present that day insist it was “we beat those mother (blankers)!” It was probably some nasty, foul-mouthed concoction of all three.”
Who happened to be walking by right when Beano was going on this tirade? “A group of priests, some of whom represented Notre Dame’s leadership, just happened to be crossing my profanity-laden path. Father Hesburgh (Father Ted) was one of them. I vaguely remembered the white collars and black suits.”
Pitt athletic director Frank Carver then received a call from Father Ted in regards to actions of this “wild man” as Hesburgh had put it.
Carver would tell Cook that “Notre Dame is a good friend of Pitt’s and I believe we are a good friend of Notre Dame’s. We want to keep things that way. Whether you like them or not, that’s immaterial.
“If you have to insult somebody, don’t insult the one team that fills our stadium. Insult anybody else. Insult Duke.”
Notre Dame gets Beano PAID
In 1993 No. 2 Notre Dame hosted No. 1 Florida State in the “Game of the Century”, one that the Irish controlled almost entirely throughout until the very end. Notre Dame was a seven point underdog that day and even hated Notre Dame made Cook a happy man that afternoon. Here’s how:
“Second-ranked Notre Dame was a seven-point underdog to the top-ranked Seminoles. You couldn’t blame the wise guys since Florida State looked like an NFL team up to that point of the season. Me, on the other hand, I felt that the Fighting Irish had too many things going for them. For starters, home field advantage. One of my cardinal rules is never pick against Notre Dame when the Irish are getting points at home.”
“Factor in the way I’d seen Lou Holtz inspire underdogs over the years, it just seemed like the perfect situation for Notre Dame. I felt that Notre Dame would cover, so I called my bookie the night before the game and told him I wanted Notre Dame plus seven for $25,000.”
“…it didn’t bother me that a longtime rival had won a big game because I had won too.”
On his Ron Powlus Heisman Trophy prediction
“That particular prediction will almost certainly be the one college football fans remember me for and I can live with that because it’s part of the job…The public only remembers the ones you get wrong. You rarely get credit for what you get right.”
“Not too many people remember that there were three parts to the prediction, which I made on the air after Notre Dame defeated Florida State in 1993. I said, ‘let me tell you something about Notre Dame. In the next four years, they are going to win the national title at least twice and Ron Powlus will win the Heisman Trophy at least twice. He will be the greatest quarterback in Notre Dame history.”
“The parts I felt most certain of were the predictions that Notre Dame would win two national titles and that Powlus would go down in history as the school’s greatest quarterback. The part about winning at least two Heismans, that line wasn’t part of the first draft.”
“Against my better judgment, I simply overdid it.”
“For years, I’ve second-guessed myself for saying two. I’m certain that had I said something like ‘Ron Powlus will win the Heisman Trophy and be the first overall pick in the NFL draft,’ it would not have been as big of a deal as it was. Not only did I juice up the prediction too much, I called an ill-advised audible in front of the biggest possible audience…
“But let it be known that I don’t regret the prediction. I wouldn’t take it back if given the opportunity. Why? Because it took guts. Nobody goes on the record with anything like that anymore…I also still maintain that my rationale was sound. With the exception of that brief, feverish fit of hyperbole, everything I said was the right call for that moment.
“Notre Dame had just kicked the shit out of Florida State. The game wasn’t as close as the final score indicated. They had the best big-game coach, their own TV network, all that tradition and talent, plus the nation’s No. 1 quarterback recruit waiting in the wings. Why wouldn’t the Fighting Irish have seemed destined to dominate college football for the foreseeable future?”
“I based my predictions on what some trusted sources, football people, told me about his talent. After the first big scrimmage, Notre Dame people raved that Powlus could spot the fourth open receiver in a pattern. One Irish assistant coach, Joe Moore, told me that going off the film he’d seen, Powlus could play in the NFL as a back-up right away and people I knew who had followed Pennsylvania high school football for a long time compared Powlus’ arm strength to Dan Marino”
“If anybody was going to equal or break Archie Griffin’s record (Griffin won back-to-back Heismans at Ohio State), odds are fairly good it would be a Notre Dame quarterback.”
Watch that infamous video here!
Great for football enthusiasts
There are more Notre Dame items in the book that Lukacs shares including the 1973 Sugar Bowl win over Alabama and going much more in-depth on both Rockne and Leahy. If you know a college football fan of a certain age, they’ll enjoy hearing Beano’s voice through the words whether he’s ripping Notre Dame, praising them, or talking about one of the countless other fun stories in the book.
Follow author John D. Lukacs on Twitter @johndlukacs and again, you can purchase the book on Amazon.
