RIP Keith Jackson

KC Star column ....
Ty Cobb has nothing on Keith Jackson.


From would-be autobiography, Keith Jackson’s own oral history

 

Keith Jackson was in Microville to cover the 2000 Civil War, his first game here in about 30 years. Our little paper wanted to do a story on it, called his hotel for an interview; he wasn't in so we left a message, asking him to call back if he had the time. No one expected him to because obviously he was busy with a lot of game prep, and we obviously were not anywhere close to The Oregonian or the other big-time papers in town to cover the game, which had huge national implications.

But about two hours later, the phone rings, I answer it and it's KJ himself. I transferred the call to the guy doing the story, and he talked for about 15-20 minutes, all the time we needed, and more.

My faith in America grew that day. I mean, if you couldn't trust Keith Jackson to do the right thing, who could you trust anymore? I love what he said about WSU and Pullman in one of the stories I read: "My kind of school, my kind of people."

 

From LA Times obit: Keith Jackson, folksy voice of college football, dies at 89

He was roundly criticized — unfairly, he said — for ignoring an ugly incident late in the 1978 Gator Bowl game, when Ohio State coach Woody Hayes punched Clemson player Charlie Bauman after Bauman had intercepted a pass near the Ohio State sideline.

Recalling the scene for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1999, Jackson said that because the sideline was crowded with players and officials, "the fact of the matter is, I didn't see [the punch]. ... If people go back and listen, I said, 'Let's look at the tape and see what happened.' But we didn't see the tape because the network was nickel-and-diming the operation at that time with a bunch of green kids and the tape was in New York, which did not feed to us in the booth. I saw [the punch] for the first time at noon the next day on NBC."

Jackson rose above that incident, later winning an Emmy and being inducted into two sportscasting halls of fame. Besides college football, he worked college and pro basketball games, Major League Baseball, auto racing, Summer and Winter Olympics and, in 1970, was the first play-by-play announcer for NFL's "Monday Night Football" on ABC.

 

Wazzu may not be Syracuse, but to count Jackson and Ed Murrow as alums says something.

 

I'm with those who say that incident probably shouldn't be included in his obituary. One thing I don't like reading about that incident, though, is the implication that Bauman was celebrating when Hayes did his thing. Bauman had barely got off the ground when Hayes slugged him.

 

Really, college football has never been the same for me without Keith Jackson. He was always there, and then he wasn't.

 

I figured KJ called the 1969 Big Shootout, but no, it was Chris Schenkel with Bud Wilkinson on color.

 

For a whole bunch of people a few years older than me, Chris Schenkel was the voice of college football.

 

I agree.

 

Keith is mostly remembered for his football coverage, and rightly so. But I loved his call of Dale Earnhardt's misnamed "Pass in the Grass" at The Winston in 1987.
"And Earnhardt...loses it through the grass, and comes back on the track, still in the lead. In-CREDDD-ible!"