Another Reason To Clone Keith Jackson
As a youngster, I was lucky enough to be exposed early and often to the unparalleled experience of listening to Keith Jackson call a college football game. While I was too young to fully appreciate this before his first retirement in 1998, even as a shortsighted high school senior I knew well enough to savor every word when he called the classic 2006 USC-Texas title game, his last on the mic.
In the years since, his absence has become as tangible as his presence—while I enjoy, or at least respect, the likes of Brent Musburger, Verne Lundquist, Joe Tessitore, and Sean McDonough, none comes remotely close to capturing the essence of college football as eloquently or charmingly as Jackson. (This is no slight, of course. Legends are not legends if they're easily replaced.)
I thought about Keith Jackson today, oddly enough, after seeing this tweet from Spencer Hall, which on its face has absolutely nothing to do with Keith Jackson:
BRODARIOUS HAMM. RT @joetereshinski4: Attn @edsbs, UGA has offered a 290 pound 9th grader named Brodarious Hamm.
— edsbs (@edsbs) May 3, 2013
After the initial conniption fit over the existence of such a magnificent name, I actually got sad, because I imagined the possibility of Keith Jackson saying the words "Brodarious Hamm" in his understated, melodic Southern drawl. He'd say it just like any other name—enunciating flawlessly, elongating just the right syllables, leaving plenty of space for the words to breathe—accompanied with a typically Jacksonian turn of phrase: "Tackle made by 310-pound freshman Brooo-darious Hamm. If he keeps eating his cornbread, he'll be man-sized one day."*
This caused me to do three things. The first was to abandon whatever crappy post I was writing at the time. The second—compile a very incomplete list of 2014 recruit names that I wish I could hear Keith Jackson say during the course of a broadcast:
- Lorenzo Featherston
- Kentavius Street
- Bentley Spain
- Raekwon McMillian (and if Jackson called him "The Chef", I would immediately die the world's happiest death)
- Adarius Pickett
- T'Kevian Rockwell
- Malachi Dupre
- Dontavius Blair
- C'yontai Lewis
- Breeland Speaks
(Did I put together this list exclusively by scrolling through Alabama and LSU targets on the 247 database? Well, duh.)
The third, out of curiosity, was check Google to see if a Keith Jackson soundboard existed online, because certainly there must be one. Remarkably, there is not, at least that I can find. This is the first result:
I've never been more disappointed in the Internet.
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*The cornbread line is something he said, verbatim (if memory serves), about a 300-pound freshman Texas defensive lineman during that final game. To the very end, Keith still had it, every bit of it. I imagine he still does.
I can hear him saying those names in my mind as strange as that might sound. Truly was one of the greatest of all time. I liked Pat Summerall as well who we just lost recently.
Keith Jackson's voice was golden. His understated excitement is part of what made him great. One of my biggest gripes with Musberger is that he acts like every play is the biggest play ever, instead of just announcing the game. Keith Jackson just told it how it was.
I only had Ufer around for my early years as a UM fan, but his excitement and love for Michigan is what made him great. He was a homer, but I think he was respected outside of UM (maybe some of the older guys know more about this).
To answer your question, I would prefer Keith Jackson for any non-Michigan game, but Ufer for a Michigan game.
Keith Jackson also called a lot of sports outside of football and did an amazing job with those sports as well.
Jackson for anything else.
Normally I'm not a big fan of homers, but Ufer was both completely over the top and on my side. I strongly suspect I'd feel different about him had he done the play by play for Tennessee or Minnesota or Texas or (and I feel dirty even suggesting this) Ohio State.
Jackson, on the other hand, was a true professional and brought the same charm and enthusiasm to every game he covered no matter who was playing.
When I was a kid, every announcer was Ufer-ed over with the radio except Keith jackson.
So both I guess. Most games Ufer, a big game with Jackson (like Rose Bowl). Ufer is better play by play but Jackson could setup the grandiosity like nobody else.
since most people on this board were not alive before Ufer died in 1977, he is kind of like Elvis. A legend, but not one we remember. I do remember Keith Jackson remarking after a big hit "They heard that one all the way in Ypsilanti" which he pronounced "Yu-ipsilanti" like out of towners pronouse "Saline" like the solution and "Milan" like the city in italy and Dee-Troit.
/pedant mode
/resisting the urge to zombie Ufer jokes
That's an important correction. Ufer's most famous call happened in 1979, after all. It'd be pretty weird if a zombie made this call:
There are a couple of distinctions between the two.
First, as noted, Ufer was an unabased Michigan fan and homer. That was glorious, and made him "one of us." Jackson was always fond of Michigan and Bo, but was a national broadcaster. IIRC, when he broadcast in later years, he basically was able to cherry pick teams and venues he would agree to do, and Michigan was on that short list.
Second, Ufer worked in the media of radio. What many of you youngsters can't comprehend is that pre-internet and pre-cable TV, you had to go to the game to see it. The fact that Michigan was on ABC several times was a huge thing, and big recruiting help. But if you couldn't watch the game, you had to be somewhere that you could find a radio broadcast. I can indeed remember beautiful Fall days when I couldn't be in Ann Arbor, hearing his voice and the horn coming through the radio. His shtick worked so well for radio and for Michigan fans.
Here's the thing, though. I literally don't know how Ufer would have been as a TV commentator. I don't know that the horn would have worked the same way. His corniness and passion bled through the soundwaves. I know I would have preferred him to most anyone on TV now, but I really have to stick with Keith Jackson for a Michigan game on TV.
as a lad i remember listening to ufer announce one of the mich v. ohio games and the 'horseshoe' (ohio's stadium) sat 84,000 at the time. the quote i remember in that ultra-gravel voice of ufers was: "there's 84,000 screaming fans here today folks. 10,000 maize and blue supporters, and 74,000 truck drivers!"
what year was it, and for the life of me, was that on a regional telecast, or was it on radio?
I always thought that line from Ufer was over the top. Uncalled for. Like Ufer's ranting about "General Bo Patton Schembechler" defeating Dr. Strangehayes. The idea of some vision of American military defeating Woody Hayes who was himself a decorated Naval officer and a military historian in an entirely different league from Bob Ufer...
I liked Ufer's enthusiasm, and I actually think he was a better broadcaster when he was on the little Ann Arbor AM station (WAAM?) before WJR plucked him to do his nutjob routine for a wider regional audience. But I think he came way too close to being a self-parody later on. His later-years broadcast partner for a while was Bob Forman, who was just another alumni booster, not a football expert.
I had a hard time listening to Ufer, when the clearly superior radio broadcast was the WUOM (public, no commercials!) team of Tom Hemmingway and Tom Slade. The best radio team Michigan ever had, although I do very much like Frank Beckmann and Jim Brandstatter.
I wouldn't have minded hearing him say "Denard Robinson" once or twice (or fifty times), either. :-)
I wish Gus did Big ten football games besides the championship.
Michigan games. He's the best in the business today.
The embed isn't working for some reason, so heres a link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTSvbv9uLlY
every time I watch that.
While I am happy to get every game on TV now, I still think ESPN has totally destroyed sports on TV.
As a recent and avid “listener” of books I would love to have the option to listen to Keith narrate a classic.
Keith and Great Expectations… Mr. Pumblechook… Miss. Havisham… he would have nailed it.
Nothing like Keith Jackson doing a Michigan/OSU or Texas/OK game. Best ever...by far.
"Elephants in the game."
"We've got a barn burner in the Big House today folks."
"Deep down the sidelinnnne. Incomplete."
I thought the same thing until I heard him do a non Mich Bowl game and was like wha da Funk bro?
Legends are not legends if they're easily replaced.
Amen, Ace. I wasn't around during the Bob Ufer era but Keith Jackson was a quasi-grandfather to me every fall in the 1990s.
Mostly the latter.
I want to hear Leonard Nimoy and Kieth Jackson narrate each others actions for a solid millenium.
It would be amazing to have him do this years UTL game.
You're going to bring up Keith Jackson, get our hearts and ears all sentimental and NOT at least give us an audio clip of the man. Talk about a tease!!
Just kidding. Good post - I used to love listening to him. Luckily, when he semi-retired and was only doing west coast games I was living on the west coast and got to listen to him for a few more years.
Pretty sure he came out of his 'west coast only' retirement to call the 100th OSU-UM game in 2003.
(Edit - went back and re-read the entire post and saw you tried to find one. The first I didn't make it to the bottom cause I stopped reading when I saw all the Chris Berman faces)
I remember him coming to the Stadium the year he retired. It was a rare thing for him to be that far north and east at that point. I seem to remember him waiving to the crowd from the press box while we all stood and cheered for him. A moment of true gratitude and appreciate. Us for him, and him for us.
Nobody else comes close. I did like Mike Tirico when he did college football. His work on the Thrusday night college game was great. Part of that could just be that I love those Thrusday games. Starts the weekend off just a little early.
resident and a great guy. excellent announcer too. but keith jackson is an all-time classic with the likes of earnie harwell, bud lynch (for you red wing fans) and vin scully (sp?).
Really missing the nostalgia mgovideo and mgohistorian could bring with a few videos right now.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTSvbv9uLlY
Not sure if that link works but it's Keith Jackson doing the intro to the 100th UM-OSU game.
One of the best parts of that video is hearing Keith jackson say: Hail to the Victors Valiant! Hail to the Conquering heroes! I created a ringtone from that.
Reminds me of the time a buddy and I were looking for Howard King in the UM pressbox during the offseason back in the 90's. We were going to implore him to say "Ty Douthard", then RB of the Illini...
Kick the announcers out of the box and just have a guy on a Keith Jackson soundboard with general sayings during the game.
You forgot to add Jackmarius Tacktheritrix...
It gets worse for us...
If you google "Keith Jackson Whoa Nellie," the first video result is a "Signature Keith Jackson" video of him calling Kordell Stewart's hail mary.
The internet is out to get us, you guys.
God, I wish I could remember the kid's name, but one of Michigan's lineman 20+ years ago said that he knew he wasn't going to play in the NFL, so his career highlight would be to have Keith Jackson call him a hoss just once. Bob Griese heard the story and told it on air. Keith teased about it for 3 quarters--"Well, now he's going to have to earn that one." Finally, after a nice run through a big hole the kid created, Keith said dramatically, "OK: HE...IS...A...HOSS." Made MY day just listening to it; I expect it made the kid's decade.
It was always...
"Tyrone Wheatley, the 6'0 "soph•a•more" out of...."
Please stop making up stupid names that you don't have to live with, but your kid does. There are thousands of exisiting names that won't cause your kids to be relentlessly teased when they are young.
You gotta admit, Barkevious is a pretty slick name! We're talkin' Shakespeare in the Dirty South with a name like that.
My first name is "Michael." It's not so bad since I moved to Toronto, with its huge population of immigrants, but growing up there were always at least one other Mike in all of my classes and as many as five.
(Now I work with three other Mikes on the same team. Only one of us was actually born in Canada. One was born in the Philippines, another in Romania and I was born in Ann Arbor.)
Lemonjello and Orangejello?
Lemonjello and Orangejello? A double post for twin names.
to Ernie Harwell. I had no idea how lucky I was as a metro-Detroit kid listening to Harwell call Tiger games.
For me, Mike Emrick (hockey) is approaching the same level of quality play-by-play + personal charm/wit.
I think that too many analysts try too hard . . . and it shows. (I mute when C. Berman is on the T.V. )
KJ was pretty darn awesome, and like the other 30- 40-somethings on this board, was a central figure in my formative sports years.
I remember summer vacations in the UP and picking up his broadcasts of Tiger games, or driving around Metro Detroit with the game on, or sitting in Michigan Stadium in September watching a football game while listening to Ernie on WJR. Talk about a legend.
College football is my favorite sport, but Ernie Harwell's "Baseball" always makes the room a little dustry. I am too computer illiterate to embed, so here's a link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cloU58N0YVI
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