Beano Cook Selected to College Sports Communicators Hall of Fame
1/17/2024 10:13:00 AM | General
PITTSBURGH—Carroll H. "Beano" Cook, the iconic University of Pittsburgh sports information director who became known as the "Pope of College Football," has been posthumously elected to the College Sports Communicators (CSC) Hall of Fame Class of 2024, the organization announced.
Cook, who passed away in 2012 at the age of 81, was selected as part of the Veteran's Committee nominations. Veterans Committee Hall of Fame inductees represent former sports information professionals of distinction from the past whose professional and personal deeds and accomplishments helped make possible the stature of the athletics communications profession today.
Cook is part of a six-member class that will receive induction at a June 10 ceremony during the 2024 College Sports Communicators #CSCUnite24 annual convention at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas.
Cook was born on Sept. 1, 1931. At the age of seven, his family moved from Boston to Pittsburgh, where he would reside the rest of his life as a committed bachelor. Because of his Boston roots, people in his neighborhood gave him the nickname "Beano."
He graduated from Pitt in 1954 with a bachelor of arts degree. After serving 21 months in the Army, he returned to campus and served as his alma mater's sports information director from 1956-66.
"Tom Hamilton was the athletic director who hired me at Pitt," Cook recalled in a 2006 Pitt interview. "Frank Carver was the number two man in the athletic department. Frank used to be the sports information director years before and he gave me two pieces of advice that I still remember to this day. He told me, 'They always have the last word.' 'They' was referring to the media. It's like what Lyndon Johnson told Spiro Agnew, who was going after the press at the time. Johnson said, 'Spiro, you're crazy. Those newspapers come out every day. You don't come out at all.' That advice still holds true.
"The second piece of advice he gave me was, 'No matter how bad you screw up, Beano, they are still going to kick off at 1 p.m.' That put it in perspective."
His tenure at Pitt was highlighted by the 1963 football team, which went 9-1 and finished No. 3 in the nation, and the All-America performances of men's basketball player Don Hennon (1956-59). Cook quite famously, but unsuccessfully, attempted to pose Hennon with Dr. Jonas Salk—who discovered the vaccine that cured polio—for a photograph to be titled "The World's Two Greatest Shot Makers."
"My two favorite Pitt athletes are Mike Ditka and Don Hennon," Cook remembered. "If the bad guys are coming over the hill and I have to be in a foxhole with anybody, I'd want to be with Mike. He might not feel the same way about me. I really liked Don and he was the best basketball player we had at Pitt during my ten years there and is definitely one of the best ever.
"Getting to know the athletes really provided me with my fondest memories. That was the most fun. Sports information directors live in a world of reflected glory. If someone makes an All-America team you feel like you had something to do with it. Maybe you did and maybe you didn't. The player who got the honor probably was ninety-nine percent responsible but it was still gratifying being part of the process."
Cook left Pitt in 1966 and went on to serve as the NCAA press director for ABC Sports until 1974. Following stints as a sportswriter for the St. Petersburg Times, public relations director for the Miami Dolphins and public relations director for the Mutual Radio Network, Cook joined CBS sports and served in a public relations capacity from 1977-82.
He was a studio commentator for ABC Sports' College Football Association telecasts from 1982-85. Cook joined ESPN in 1985 and went on to serve as a college football studio commentator for the all-sports network.
He remained a frequent guest on ESPN Radio and also had a popular weekly podcast on ESPN.com (co-hosted by Ivan Maisel) until his passing in 2012.
Cook was never shy in professing his love for the college game over the professional ranks. When asked why, he replied, "The passion."
"When people study this civilization ten thousand years from now, historians are going to be baffled about why more people followed pro football than college," Cook said. "They are going to decide that it was a weakness of this civilization that more people wanted to watch pro football on Sundays rather than college on Saturdays. Many things have changed about the game during my lifetime, but the one thing that hasn't changed is the passion (in the college game)."
The media suite in Pitt's basketball arena, the Petersen Events Center, is named in Cook's honor as are the Panthers' practice fields at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex.
Cook's life, times and opinions—both serious and comedic—are chronicled by author John D. Lukacs in the 2021 biography Haven't They Suffered Enough?: An Unbelievable Career in Sports, PR and Television.
"For ten years, Beano worked tirelessly to secure publicity and recognition for Pitt's student-athletes as one of the country's most well-known college sports information directors," Lukacs said. "During his on-air career with ABC and ESPN, he became 'America's SID,' the nation's most insightful, enthusiastic and entertaining advocate for college athletics. If he were still with us, he'd be honored—and, for the first time in his life—probably rendered speechless with this recognition given to him by CSC in return."