Welcome back to “On the Air,” in which Sports Media Watch Podcast co-host Armand Broady will offer in-depth breakdowns of broadcasters, on-air performance and career journeys, plus chronicle broader trends in the industry.
As college football prepares to crown a new champion Monday night, this week’s column looks back at Keith Jackson 20 years after his final call — on the iconic USC-Texas Rose Bowl in 2006.
It was January 1943. A young Keith Jackson was sitting on a quilt his grandmother had put down, listening to the Rose Bowl between Georgia and UCLA on his battery-powered radio.
Listening to sports on the radio had become a pastime for Jackson, who spent much of his childhood doing farm chores in the corn fields of Roopville, Ga., a rural community about 60 miles southwest of Atlanta. Money was low, and times were hard. In the late 1990s, Jackson, who never authored an autobiography, shared the harrowing details of his youth to Vahe Gregorian of the Kansas City Star.
“When I was about four years old, my father shot my grandfather and killed him,” Jackson said. “The bullet went through my mother’s cheek. And just missed me. To this day, I don’t know why. I don’t know what caused it. I have never asked what caused it. I never had a relationship with my father. He went to prison.”
Years of hardship had taught Jackson the value of hard work and the power of a dream. To realize those dreams, he took some drastic measures — lying about his age to get into the U.S. Marine Corps. Jackson believed life had more to offer than the corn fields of Roopville, and time in the Marine Corps gave him the opportunity to experience the world.
Through the GI Bill, which provided veterans with benefits to transition to civilian life, including funding for education, business loans, unemployment pay, and job-finding assistance, Jackson attended Washington State University — far away from his Georgia home — where he met a professor who would change his life.
“I approached Burt Harrison, a professor and core character in the broadcast school named after Edward R. Murrow,” Jackson recalled. “He pondered my arrogance for a moment while writing a classical music script for use on (local) radio. Then he reached into his desk drawer, handed me a tape recorder and told me to go record a game and let’s see if it’s any good. And I did. He listened to it (and said) ‘I don’t think you’re too bad.’ From there the journey was underway.”
In 1966, that journey took Jackson to ABC Sports. Though he would eventually cover numerous Olympic Games, the first season of “Monday Night Football,” the World Series, NBA, college basketball, boxing, auto racing and more, no sport fit Keith Jackson’s distinctive style like college football.
He was college football’s chief carnival barker, historian, and ambassador, teaching fans to immerse themselves in the sport’s tradition and grandeur. To this day, his colorful descriptions shape how generations of fans view college football. It was Jackson who informally christened Michigan Stadium “the Big House.” While there is debate over who coined the tag “granddaddy of ’em all” to describe the Rose Bowl Game, few argue against the fact that Jackson popularized it. And could anyone else lovingly describe 300-pound offensive linemen as “Big Uglies?”
Those clever phrases, shaped by his rural upbringing, were manifestations of the principle by which Jackson abided: “Amplify. Clarify. But don’t intrude.” Jackson delighted in the sport, but he never sought to make the sport about him. He once said in a New York Times interview, “This is not my stage. The stage belongs to the athletes and coaches who play the game. People don’t throw down 1,000 bucks for a TV to hear me talk.”
By the end of the 1970s, Jackson was already a legendary broadcaster, winning National Sportscaster of the Year honors five consecutive times, from 1972-76. For the following three decades, Jackson would chronicle college football’s greatest moments with iconic calls.
“Jackson … TOUCHDOWN!” said the ABC broadcaster during Auburn running back Bo Jackson’s diving touchdown in the 1982 Iron Bowl.
“It’s up … MISSED IT TO THE RIGHT!” Jackson said, as Florida State fell to Miami in a 1991 contest of undefeated rivals.
In perhaps his best-known call, Jackson declared, “HELLOOOOOO HEISMAN,” when Michigan WR Desmond Howard returned a punt vs. Ohio State for a 93-yard TD, cementing his Heisman victory in 1991.
And when Kordell Stewart’s Colorado team stunned Michigan at the Big House on a last-second Hail Mary in 1994, a shocked Jackson yelled “the ball’s up in the AIRRRR … CAUGHT! TOUCHDOWN! CAUGHT BY WESTBROOK FOR A TOUCHDOWN! INCREDIBLE!” Rarely did Jackson’s voice reach such heights, but the miracle finish demanded a different kind of call, and Jackson’s delivery matched it.
Jackson had planned to retire after the 1998 season, but changed his mind when ABC Sports president Howard Katz offered him a West Coast-based schedule that would allow the veteran broadcaster to remain close to his Southern California home. Jackson would begin to share lead play-by-play responsibilities at the network with Brent Musburger and Brad Nessler. But college football never had a better friend or a more revered announcer than Keith Jackson.
Words like “folksy” and “unpretentious” are often used to describe Jackson’s style, but those terms don’t fully capture the essence of his broadcast presentation. An exceptional scholar and wordsmith, Jackson wrote and narrated many of the pre-taped introductions to ABC’s biggest college football games.
In recent years, these narrations have become popular on social media due to Jackson’s exquisite writing, staccato delivery, and his thunderous baritone.
“The smoke screen is part of the entry for the Miami Hurricanes and there is no suggestion they need mirrors — they are the defending national champions of college football,” Jackson said ahead of the 2003 Fiesta Bowl, with ABC’s dramatic BCS theme accompanying him.
As the piano intro to Coldplay’s hit song Clocks complemented the visuals, Jackson opened the 2003 Ohio State-Michigan game broadcast this way: “When the last glow drips away from the Big House at Michigan, it’s a good time to have a seat and listen.”
Two years later, Jackson gave us another gem, when he opened the national championship with the words, “The royalty of college football is in assembly at the Rose Bowl 2006. Bush, Leinart, Young and their legion. By consensus, the teams ranked #1 and #2 with nary a whisper of dissent.”
Jackson was 77 when he retired for good after the 2005 season. In a fitting ending, he called one of the sport’s most memorable games, that year’s Rose Bowl between Texas and USC. In a classic showdown loaded with NFL talent, Texas QB Vince Young rose above the rest. Late in the 4th quarter, Young’s heroics gave Jackson one last opportunity to provide the perfect caption. Jackson delivered.
“He’s going for the CORNERRRRRRR … HE’S GOT IT! VINCE YOUNG SCORES!” Texas won that year’s national championship and Keith Jackson ended his extraordinary career with a spectacular game and an iconic call.
College football has many characters, but only one true voice. Keith Jackson retired as the signature voice of college football. Twenty years after his final broadcast, his standing within the industry and the sport remains untouched.
