Cohn's memoir is a breath of fresh air

USA TODAY, July, 2008 by Michael Hiestand

Inside the industry

Promotional blurbs on book covers are suspect. But Bob Costas, blurbing for ESPN anchor Linda Cohn's new memoir Cohn-Head, is right on: "I now know things about Linda Cohn I couldn't have even suspected."

And how. In a refreshing departure from the sugar-coated autobiographies -- or snarly tell-alls settling old scores -- Cohn paints herself as plucky and, at times, something rhyming with witchy.

And open to self-criticism. She was a backup goalie on her Long Island high school boys team -- "I was drawn to goalies from the start because they were always the center of attention" -- and played on the women's team at Oswego (N.Y.) State, where "maybe I really was just an airhead."

How Cohn hooked up with her future husband Stew is nostalgic -- for Baby Boomers anyway -- about college before it involved so much staring into ...