Whoa Nelly! Remembering The Great Keith Jackson

The passing of sports broadcasting icon Keith Jackson brought back a ton of childhood memories for me.

While a young college football fan probably doesn’t understand it today, there was a time when every game was not televised. The games which were worthy of air time were actually important ones or contests which were big rivalries.

You knew the game was special if Jackson was handling play-by-play. There’s no telling how many games I watched with Jackson and Frank Broyles describing the action in vivid fashion, including the Sugar Bowl between Notre Dame and Georgia following the 1980 season.

I still remember the big television set in our den where I would sit inches from (not wise I know) on Saturday afternoons in the fall with Jackson and Broyles making you feel like you were there.

A long forgotten fact about Jackson was that he was part of the original Monday Night Football broadcast trio on ABC along with Howard Cosell and Don Meredith. The show began airing in 1970 and broke trends for pro football broadcasting at the time.

The three-man announcing booth was different as well as the way those calling the action handled their duties. Jackson was the play-by-play announcer with Cosell the instigator and Meredith providing comical offerings.

For reasons still not really known, the producers decided to take Jackson off the team after the initial season, a move which infuriated him. They offered him a chance at a new role as “the voice of college football.”

Jackson felt it was a demotion as even at that time the professional game was considered a bigger role for an announcer than handling regionalized college football contests.

As it turned out, Jackson more than excelled in his role as a college football announcer as the lead broadcaster for ABC. He would be at the big games each week whether they took place in the South or North or on the West Coast. His catch phrases like “Whoa Nelly!” and “Fumble!!!!!” became his signature.

Jackson would also announce Olympic events, Major League Baseball and was the lead announcer for the short-lived USFL in the early-to-mid 80s. He teamed with Cosell again on Monday night baseball broadcasts in the late 70s and handled that sport with the same ease as he did football. His announcer duties for the USFL gave credibility to a league that might still be with us if not for its decision to move its seasons to the fall from the spring.

His announcing of college football games continued for decades. His last big event was the USC-Texas Rose Bowl which is still recognized as one of the best national title games ever played.

By this point in his career, age had caught up with Jackson somewhat and I remember him making several mistakes during that broadcast. However, it’s hard to offer any criticism to someone who was such a legend at his craft. Even Dan Fouts, who was Jackson’s final announcing partner, knew never to correct Jackson on the air even when the mistakes were obvious. You simply don’t do that to a legend.

In 2018 virtually every college football game of every level is available to watch on a weekly basis. If it’s not part of the ESPN or ABC package, there are numerous other stations which air games. You can even watch games on your computer as part of the ESPN 3 setup.

There was a time, however, that when the big game of the week aired Jackson would be there to set the picture for you.

Quite frankly, college football broadcasts have not been the same since Jackson retired.

Monticello native Chris Bridges is a long-time newspaper columnist. He welcomes comments about this column from readers of The Monticello News at pchrisbridges@gmail.com.