Forgotten Hollywood

Manny P. here…

“`Keith Jackson, whose signature phrase, Whoa Nelly!, made him the down-home voice of college football during more than five decades as a sportscaster. Jackson covered many sports; but, he was best known for college football.

“`After serving four years in the Marine Corps., Jackson broadcast his first college football game in 1952 as an undergraduate at Washington State. He worked in radio and television before joining ABC Sports in 1966.  He also called NFL football games, and was the initial play-by-play announcer on  ABC Monday Night Football before being replaced in the second season by Frank Gifford. He was a member of the Wide World of Sports team.                                KEITH JACKSON —–>

“`Keith called a number of World Series and baseball’s All-Star games, and he was ABC’s lead NBA play-by-play announcer, auto racing, PGA Tour Golf, and worked college basketball with Dick Vitale. Jackson also covered ten Olympics, calling swimming, track and field, basketball, speed skating, and ski jumping.

“`He appeared in the movie, The Fortune Cookie; and on an episode of Coach on television. He also was cast in many commercials throughout his career. The Edward R. Murrow School of Communication at Washington State University awarded him the Murrow Award for leaders in the communication industry in 1999

“`Jackson first announced his retirement in 1998; but, returned to work. He retired for good after the 2006 Rose Bowl, featuring the Texas University upset of USC in the BCS national championship game. He’s a member of the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame. The Rose Bowl stadium’s radio and television booths were renamed in his honor, two years ago. He is in the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame for his contributions to the New Year’s Day game,  which he called a record 15 times; and he nicknamed The granddaddy of them all. He could turn a phrase…

“`My prayers to his family, and especially, his son Lindsey, who was a high school friend. Keith Jackson was 89.

Until next time>                               “never forget”

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 13th, 2018 at 3:44 pm and is filed under Blog by Manny Pacheco. You can follow any comments to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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