You never heard Cosell called a Tar Heel, but he was born in Winston-Salem.

North Carolina natives will be either edified or sad at that news.

That’s the kind of division Cosell created during his career. (There may be a lot of words like edified in this column in his honor.)

His vocabulary was broad if a bit hyperbolic. I would wager a considerable sum Cosell was the first broadcaster to pluck the word “athleticism” from the dark recesses of the American dictionary.

You either hated the man or loved him.

Forget sportscaster, he might have been the most polarizing individual in any segment of our popular culture.

A lawyer by trade, Cosell hosted a Little League baseball show for three years in the 1950s, sans a paycheck, before turning his back on his profession to pursue sportscasting fulltime.

Eventually, he became entrenched at ABC-TV, but not before overcoming rejection at almost every turn. The fame he achieved as the foremost member of the Monday Night Football crew was extraordinary.

It was there on MNF his ego raged at its mightiest.

Once when asked if he’d return for another season of MNF, he declared, “If I’m not there, there is no Monday Night Football.”

No one had ever heard a voice like his, thick with a Brooklyn accent and a staccato rhythm, dripping in melodrama, often in condescension.

His reign as the premier sportscaster in the ’60s, ’70s and early ’80s was nothing but remarkable.

This isn’t original, but we will not see his like again.

There’s no telling how many sportscasters adopted his trademark opening, minus the name of course: “Hello again everybody. This is Howard Cosell.”

Rarely would he fail to convey he was, “Just telling it like it is,” which was the name of one of his successful sports shows.

Everyone has at one time or another, uttered the most tiresome words in sports history, “He could go all the way.”

No one comes out of communication school today without what they believe is a viable catch phrase.

He appeared to have a disdain for the majority of human beings, especially other broadcasters and the print media.

The press fired back or maybe they fired the first salvo, and because he did not fit the mold of the traditional sportscaster, some called him incompetent.

In one of his columns, the late Mike Royko said of Cosell, “He is inane, boring, tasteless, repetitious, pompous and loud, sometimes all at once.”

No one before or after him delivered sports as pedantically as Cosell.

He didn’t address an issue unless it was going to create controversy.

Who else could you say that about, then or now?

The symbiotic relationship he established with Muhammad Ali while the heavyweight champion was being prosecuted for refusing induction into the Army during the Vietnam era was unprecedented and career threatening.

Few did as much to help baseball players achieve free agency.

He loathed hypocrisy, abuse and cheating in all sports, especially boxing, football and the Olympics.

It’s a shame Cosell is no longer with us. (He died in 1995.)

There’s one situation in which he without a doubt would be the greatest figure in all of television history.

Insert him in the cast of American Idol, and he’d have people comparing Simon Cowell to Mother Theresa. At least in my eyes there’d be a reason to watch.

With Cosell aboard, the public’s vocabulary would expand exponentially.