Keith Jackson, for decades the voice of college football (and many other sports), passed away yesterday at the age of 89. Jackson is well known for his colorful expressions such as "Whoa, Nellie" and "Fum-bullll!" but he was more that just someone who mouthed catchphrases: he was a versatile broadcaster whose career spanned more than 50 years and who covered events ranging from college football to the NFL to the NBA to Major League Baseball to various Olympic sports and more. Jackson did the first live sports broadcast from the former Soviet Union and he was part of the original three man Monday Night Football broadcasting team along with Howard Cosell and Don Meredith.
Jackson won countless awards, including an Emmy, and he was inducted into two sports broadcasting halls of fame but he will probably always be most remembered as the familiar, comforting and informed voice of college football. If you turned on the TV and saw that Jackson was doing a college football game then you knew two things: (1) It was an important game and (2) this was would be a mistake-free, professional and entertaining broadcast.
Perhaps the best thing that you can say about any sportscaster is that he did not make the broadcast about himself; the game's the thing and the best sportscasters know that. Jackson once described his broadcasting philosophy as "Amplify, clarify and don't intrude." He lived up to those words every time he spoke into a microphone.
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