\u201cKeith became the gold standard for the announcing of college-football games.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u2014 Don Ohlmeyer<\/p>\n
Born on a west Georgia farm in 1928, Jackson grew up listening to sports on the radio and riding a horse to school. He spent four years in the U.S. Marine Corps before enrolling at Washington State College, where he suggested to a member of the broadcast-school faculty that he might do a better job calling the school\u2019s football games than the current talent. That faculty member handed Jackson a tape recorder and asked him to prove it.<\/p>\n
Prove it he did, beginning with his very first broadcast, a 1952 WSC-Stanford football game on the 5,000-W campus radio station.<\/p>\n
After graduating in 1954 with a degree in speech communications, Jackson spent 10 years at KOMO radio in Seattle before joining ABC in 1964. He did his first college-football play-by-play for ABC in 1966 and soon thereafter became known as the nation\u2019s college-football voice.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was a boy, we didn\u2019t have all this pro stuff,\u201d he says. \u201cAll professional sports of any consequence were located in the big cities in the North, so those of us who enjoyed the game of football followed college football.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Keith-Jackson-post.jpg\" "\\"Keith-Jackson-post\\"")
Jackson enjoyed college football on the air for more than 30 years, drawing viewers in with his folksy style of announcing. His entertaining and original lingo immediately won fans over, no matter what school they supported.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only is he a classically talented football play-by-play announcer, he\u2019s got that quality that you can\u2019t teach people: he\u2019s very likable on the air,\u201d Ohlmeyer says. \u201cHe\u2019s got one of the great sets of pipes in the business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jackson always captured the atmosphere and pageantry of the game, punctuating his enthusiastic play-by-play with endearing terms like \u201cthe big uglies,\u201d referring to linemen, and the unparalleled \u201cWhoa, Nellie!\u201d With Keith Jackson in the booth, a football game immediately became an event.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was always fun to be in Keith\u2019s presence in a college-football town the night or two before the game,\u201d says former ABC Sports producer\/director Doug Wilson, \u201cespecially when you were up in the Northwest, where he went to college. He walked on water up there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jackson never strayed from his Southern roots, however, keeping stardom at arm\u2019s length. Whenever road life brought the ABC Sports team to Los Angeles, he always invited the entire crew to his home for a cookout.<\/p>\n
\u201cKeith is as down-home, great a human being as you\u2019ll ever come across,\u201d Lewin says. \u201cEverybody who ever worked with Keith would run through a wall for him, because he would do it for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite his Mr. College Football moniker, Jackson\u2019s repertoire was not limited to the gridiron. He also called NBA and college basketball; Major League Baseball, including eight World Series; boxing; auto racing; and the USFL. He was the first play-by-play announcer on Monday Night Football, and he was the voice of the 1972 Olympics during the Mark Spitz show. All together, he called 10 Summer and Winter Olympic Games and was a regular on ABC\u2019s Wide World of Sports, for which he traveled to 31 different countries.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t missed anything except ice hockey,\u201d Jackson says. \u201cAnd they didn\u2019t have ice hockey in the South when I grew up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jackson now resides in Sherman Oaks, CA, with his wife of 55 years, Turi Ann Johnsen. He has not been to a football game since his final broadcast, the 2006 Rose Bowl.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was in the business 54 years,\u201d he says. \u201cI only had two real jobs, one wife, and no debts, which proves I don\u2019t know a damn thing about show business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perhaps not, but, in six decades broadcasting sports, Jackson has proved he knows plenty about being a husband, father, friend, coworker, and as likable an announcer as has ever taken the microphone.<\/p>\n