Sportscaster Keith Jackson, Granddaddy Of 'em All, Dies At 89

Keith Jackson, the legendary sports broadcaster regarded by many as the signature voice of college football and admired for the boyish enthusiasm he maintained while behind the microphone calling games for nearly a half century, died Friday. He was 89.

Jackson got his start in broadcasting in 1952, calling sports for Washington State University before joining ABC sports, where he would work 10 Summer and Winter Olympics and “ABC’s Wide World of Sports.” He was the play-by-play man for the inaugural season of N.F.L. “Monday Night Football” and announced baseball, basketball, and auto racing.

He was best known to generations of college football fans, though, as the guy who called the biggest games on Saturday, including some of the most memorable in the sport's history. His love for college football and all its pageantry was infectious, and young boys playing pickup games in backyards across the country imitated his lyrical announcement of teams such as Al-a-Bama and Oh-kla-Homa. He managed to be noticed, without being distracting by injecting his broadcasts with somewhat corny and decidedly southern turns of phrase, eventually becoming known for adding a "Whoa, Nellie!" to cap his description of exciting plays.

Jackson once told The New York Times how the broadcaster Ted Husing inspired his breezy style, advising him: “Never be afraid to turn a phrase. If you can say something in such a way that’s explanatory, has flavor and people can understand it, try it. If it means quoting Shakespeare or Goethe, do it."

Jackson worked for ABC sports for 40 years, calling his first college game in 1966 and his last, and perhaps most memorable, in 2006. That game ended up being the exhilarating national title game between USC and Texas that doubled as the Rose Bowl. Texas won in the last seconds of the game.

In a statement on Twitter on Saturday, Robert A. Iger, the chief executive of the Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC, confirmed Jackson’s death.

“For generations of fans, Keith was college football,” Iger said.

During his career, Jackson called 15 Rose Bowls and is credited with giving it the name, "The Granddaddy of 'em All" and he also nicknamed The University of Michigan's stadium, "The Big House." He was inducted into the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame in 1999 and in 2015 the stadium's radio and TV booths were renamed in his honor.

“The entire Jackson family, we all had our feet off the ground in excitement for at least a week or even a month after hearing this news,” Jackson said when the Rose Bowl stadium announced the honor.

After calling his last game in 2006, Jackson didn't return to the stadium until 2017.

“This is the heart place for big ballgames," Jackson told The Los Angeles Times before attending the Rose Bowl last year. "If this is just a decent match, it will be memorable. It’s something for these young people to remember: `I played in the Rose Bowl.’”

He was also a member of the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame.

Jackson was born in Roopville, Georgia near the Alabama state line. He served in the Marine Corps before attending Washington State University, graduating in 1954.

He is survived by his wife of 63 years, Turi Ann, three children and three grandchildren.

Photo by Dean Hare/Associated Press