Keith Jackson - a legend passes

I was sad to hear today that Keith Jackson had passed away at the age of 89. I think that I enjoyed listening to him more than any other sports announcer I've ever seen on TV. His enthusiasm and pithy sayings endeared him to most of us who watched sports on TV during his era.

He was best known as the voice of college football on ABC, back in the days when we got ONE college football game a week, every Saturday afternoon in the fall. But he must have called every sport that ABC ever got involved with, including a number of Indy 500s, Daytona 500s and World Series. And he was the original play-by-play announcer for Monday Night Football. The highlight video that I saw even had him calling armwrestling and Evel Knievel motorcycle jumps, for heaven's sake.

And when I first lived in Seattle in the late '70s, I found out that Jackson had started out there, having gone to, I believe, Washington State, and becoming the sports anchor for KOMO TV in Seattle, where he called hydroplane races, Husky football games and rowing regattas.

Dick Vitale put it best in his tribute: Keith Jackson may be gone, but he will never be forgotten.