Keith Jackson
Keith Max Jackson was an American sports commentator, journalist, author, and radio personality, known for his career with ABC Sports. While he covered a variety of sports over his career, he is best known for his coverage of college football from 1952 until 2006 and his distinctive voice, that according to Steve Kelley in The Seattle Times was "a throwback voice, deep and operatic. A voice that was to college football what Edward R. Murrow's was to war. It was the voice of ultimate authority in his profession."
Early life
A farmer's son, Jackson was born in Roopville, Georgia and grew up on a farm outside Carrollton, near the Alabama state line. He was the only surviving child in a poor family and grew up listening to sports on the radio. After enlisting and serving as a mechanic in the United States Marine Corps, he attended Washington State University in Pullman under the G.I. Bill. Jackson began as a political science major, but he became interested in broadcasting. He graduated in 1954 with a degree in speech communications.Broadcast career
Though best known for his college football broadcasts, Jackson announced numerous other sports for ABC throughout his career, including Major League Baseball, NBA basketball, boxing, auto racing, PGA Tour golf, the USFL, and the Olympic Games. He briefly worked college basketball with Dick Vitale. Jackson also served as the pregame, halftime, and postgame anchor for ABC's coverage of Super Bowl XXII in 1988. During his on-air tenure, he is credited with nicknaming the Rose Bowl as "The Grandaddy of Them All" and Michigan Stadium as "The Big House".Early assignments
Jackson began his career as a broadcaster in 1952, when he called a game between Stanford and Washington State on the Tidewater Associated Oil Co. radio network. He then worked for KOMO radio in Seattle, and later for KOMO-TV from 1954 to 1964 as co-anchor for their first news team covering Seafair hydroplane races, minor league Seattle Rainiers baseball games, and University of Washington football games. In 1958, Jackson became the first American sports announcer to broadcast an event from the Soviet Union, a crew race between the Washington Huskies and a Soviet team. Despite heavy suspicion and numerous hurdles by the Soviet authorities, Jackson and his cohorts were able to cover the race: the first ever American sports victory on Russian soil.Jackson became a radio news correspondent for ABC News Radio and sports director of ABC Radio West in 1964 before joining ABC Sports in 1966. He helped Walter Cronkite cover the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco.
Professional football
In the early 1960s, Jackson covered American Football League games. In 1970, he was chosen to be the first play-by-play announcer on Monday Night Football covering the NFL, but he remained in that capacity only for the program's first season. Frank Gifford was ABC's initial target, but could not get out of his CBS contract until after the 1970 season. In 1971, however, Gifford landed the job. Jackson found out that he had been taken off the Monday Night package from 38 messages, not from Roone Arledge himself. This incident led to some contention between Jackson and the brass at ABC. With Gifford's death in August 2015, Jackson became the last surviving member of the broadcast teams that called MNF games from the early 1970s.Jackson was the lead play-by-play announcer for the United States Football League broadcasts on ABC from 1983 to 1985. He was paired with Lynn Swann and Tim Brant. He called all three championship games in the league's short history.
As previously mentioned, for ABC's broadcast of Super Bowl XXII at the end of the 1987 season, Jackson served as the host for the pregame, halftime, and postgame coverage.
Olympic Games
Jackson was involved in the ABC coverage of the 1972 Summer Olympics and continued to contribute even when an attack by Palestinian terrorists transformed the coverage from that of a typical sporting event to a greater international and historical news event. In all, he covered a total of 10 Summer and Winter Olympic Games. Jackson covered swimming at the 1972 Summer Olympics and track and field at the 1976 Summer Olympics. He covered speed-skating during the 1980 Winter Olympics featuring Eric Heiden. He was offered the position of play-by-play for hockey, but turned it down. Jackson called speed skating and ski jumping at the 1984 Winter Olympics. He covered basketball in 1984. He was the weekend afternoon host for ABC's final Olympics in 1988 from Calgary.NBA
Jackson was ABC's lead basketball play-by-play announcer with NBA Hall of Famer Bill Russell for two years until ABC lost the NBA broadcasting rights to CBS following the conclusion of the 1973 Finals.''Wide World of Sports''
Jackson was a regular part of ABC's popular Wide World of Sports, covering both popular sports and obscure events like wrist wrestling. For WWOS, he covered Evel Knievel's successful jump at Exhibition Stadium, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on August 20, 1974; He also handled WWOSs first coverage of boxer Sugar Ray Leonard at the North American Continental Boxing Championships on July 26, 1975, who Jackson called a young boxer to watch. He teamed with Jackie Stewart and Chris Economaki in coverage of auto racing; among the notable events covered by Jackson was the 1974 Firecracker 400 at Daytona International Speedway and the 1975 Indianapolis 500. In the mid-1970s, Jackson also broadcast the United States Grand Prix motocross races from Carlsbad, California.Major League Baseball
In baseball, Jackson, alongside former Mets, Phillies, Yankees, and Cardinals broadcaster Tim McCarver, called the famous 16-inning Game Six of the 1986 National League Championship Series between the New York Mets and Houston Astros. That turned out to be the final Major League Baseball game that Jackson would broadcast. Jackson had previously broadcast ABC's coverage of the 1977, 1979, and 1981 World Series, the 1978, 1980, and 1982 All-Star Game, the 1980 National League Championship Series, the 1976, 1978 and 1982 American League Championship Series, the 1981 American League Division Series, and the 1978 American League East tie-breaker game between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. Jackson also called various Monday Night Baseball and other regular-season games for ABC throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s.Jackson's lead role on ABC's college football coverage occasionally interfered with his postseason baseball commitments. For instance, he was unavailable to call Game 1 of the 1976 ALCS because he had just finished calling an Oklahoma vs. Texas college football game for ABC. Thus, Bob Uecker filled in for Jackson for Game 1. In 1978, Jackson called another Oklahoma-Texas football game for ABC on the afternoon of October 7, then flew to New York, arriving just in time to call Game 4 of the 1978 ALCS that same night. On October 11, 1980, Jackson once again called an Oklahoma-Texas football game for ABC in the afternoon, then flew to Houston to call Game 4 of the 1980 National League Championship Series. In the meantime, Drysdale filled in for him on play-by-play for the early innings. On October 10, 1981, he called another Oklahoma v. Texas college football game for ABC and missed Game 4 of the ALCS. Again, Drysdale filled-in for him on play-by-play in his absence alongside color commentator Howard Cosell.
College basketball
Starting in 1987, he was ABC's lead play-by-play announcer for college basketball, teaming with analyst Dick Vitale. This partnership lasted until 1992.College football
Jackson received the most acclaim for his coverage of college football. He genuinely enjoyed the sport and its purity. Jackson began announcing college football when television play-by-play announcers did not always have regular analysts. He would only once miss working a college season in his over 50 years, beginning in 1952. Jackson was joined in the booth by Joe Paterno for the 1974 Michigan-Ohio State game in Columbus, while Woody Hayes accompanied him for the 1974 Notre Dame-USC game.In his many years covering college football, Jackson was paired with many color commentators, including Jackie Jensen, Lee Grosscup, Bud Wilkinson, Darrell Royal, Ara Parseghian, Frank Broyles, Lynn Swann, Tim Brant, Bob Griese, and Dan Fouts. Jackson called 16 Sugar Bowls and 15 Rose Bowls for ABC.
For many years, he was assigned by ABC to the primary national game of the week. His quirky expressions such as "Whoa, Nellie!", "Fum-BLE!" and "Hold the phonnnnne!" are often the subject of comedic imitation. Though he greatly popularized it, Jackson notes that he learned the term "Whoa, Nellie" from earlier television announcer Dick Lane. He has often referred to offensive and defensive line players as the Big Uglies, or to an individual by saying "That guy...is a hoss". Jackson is also credited with coining the nickname for Michigan Stadium, The Big House. In the season before his first retirement, during what was thought to be his final game at The Big House, the Michigan Marching Band's halftime show concluded by spelling out "Thanks Keith" across the field. The 111,019 fans turned toward the press box, stood up and cheered for the commentator. As a part of the halftime event former Michigan coach Bo Schembechler presented Jackson with a jersey with "The Big House" across the front and a Michigan football helmet.
During the mid-'80s, he began falling out of favor with ABC executives due to the rise of stars such as Al Michaels and Jim Lampley. Jackson's contract expired after the 1986 Sugar Bowl. He had a 3-month "retirement" until new ABC Sports President Dennis Swanson personally offered him a 3-year contract, which he accepted.
In the 1990s, Jackson recorded videos for the centennial of the Alabama Crimson Tide. In 2006, Jackson introduced the Nebraska Cornhuskers' "Tunnel Walk" video on the stadium "HuskerVision" screens. This video played before every home game at Memorial Stadium in the 2006 season. It was also used for one home game in 2007, against Texas A&M. On September 26, 2009, for the 300th consecutive sellout of Memorial Stadium, Jackson again provided a video tribute to the fans of Nebraska.
Jackson's connections to the University of Nebraska remain strong. It was Jackson himself that the university contacted when designing its new press box facility—Jackson's advice included a recommendation that it include a separate restroom inside the broadcast booth, as few if any broadcast booths had any suitable restroom facilities. When Jackson broadcast the Nebraska-California game the following season, he found a restroom in the booth with a sign reading "The Keith Jackson Memorial Bippy." The sign was a joke from Jackson's longtime friend, Nebraska sports information director Don Bryant. The name stuck, and a permanent plaque was put up next to the restroom door that reads "The Keith Jackson Toilet Facility – Dedicated Sept 11, 1999".
Jackson would call the 1972 USC Trojans football team the greatest team he ever saw. Jackson, who was in his first year in ABC football broadcasting narrating the taped highlights of the 1967 USC vs. UCLA football game, declared it many years later to be the greatest game he has ever seen.
Jackson's career was not free of incidents. During the 1978 Gator Bowl, Jackson missed Ohio State Head Coach Woody Hayes' infamous punch of Clemson defensive lineman Charlie Bauman. Bauman had intercepted a pass and was pushed out of bounds on the Ohio State sidelines, and a frustrated Hayes threw a forearm at Bauman's throat. Jackson and color commentator Ara Parseghian failed to see or comment on Hayes' actions, which had been captured from a different vantage point on camera. No replay of the actual incident was available in the booth during the telecast, as the television crew was working with limited replay capability. In addition to this, no sideline reporter was available to provide information on the cause of the unsportsmanlike penalties that occurred as a result. This led to accusations that Jackson was protecting Hayes, who was later fired for the incident.