ESPN's Beano Cook Is Dead At 81

Beano Cook, an eminence grise of college football— the closest thing ESPN had to Andy Rooney—died in his sleep last night at 81. Cook went to Pitt and worked there for a decade in sports publicity. While he was at CBS in 1981, he uttered his most celebrated bit of wisdom. Bowie Kuhn had just given the Iranian hostages lifetime passes to MLB games. Cook: "Haven't they suffered enough?"

He bounced around in a number of other sports publicity jobs before joining ESPN in 1986, where he did that thing you see above, and became a fixture on every (2:10 in this one). He was one of the good ones. RIP.

Update (1:25 p.m.): Here's ESPN's tribute.