Calling It Quits

For someone who is retiring today after 47 years in sports broadcasting, rubbing shoulders with one legend after another, Keith Jackson does not have a lot of memorabilia.

But what he does have in his upstairs den at his Sherman Oaks home in the hills above Mulholland Drive triggers plenty of memories.

“Check this out,” he says as he reaches up for one of a dozen or so footballs and lifts it off a shelf. “It’s made out of walnut.”

Engraved in the wooden football is Jackson’s name and Indiana University.

“Bobby Knight gave it to me in 1984.”

Jackson has only two helmets, one from Michigan, autographed by former coach Bo Schembechler, and another from Arizona State, signed by Coach Bruce Snyder. Both were among the farewell gifts he has received this season.

“My wife told me if I brought home any more helmets, she was going to throw them and me out of the house,” Jackson says.

He picks up the Michigan helmet, and of course there is a story. Jackson has a million stories. This one involves Fritz Crisler, the Michigan coach from 1938-47.

“Ol’ Fritz Crisler himself came up with that winged design; painted it on in his kitchen,” Jackson says. “He wanted to make it easier for his quarterbacks to spot their receivers.”

Jackson got his Michigan helmet at the Penn State-Michigan game at Ann Arbor, Mich., last month.

At halftime, after his producer, as a ruse, told Jackson that there was a problem at the New York studio and he was going to have to fill time, Schembechler showed up in the booth. Jackson at first thought he was supposed to interview him.

But Schembechler got on the P.A. system and presented Jackson with the helmet and a Michigan jersey while the crowd of 111,000-plus stood and cheered. And the band on the field spelled out, “THANKS KEITH.”

“I’m not used to crying that much,” he says.

There is only one picture of note on the walls of Jackson’s den. It is a blowup of Alabama’s Van Tiffin kicking the winning, 52-yard field goal against Auburn in 1985.

No great significance. Alabama beat USC in the Aloha Bowl that year. Jackson just likes the picture.

There are no pictures of Jackson with the likes of a Bear Bryant, Joe Paterno or John McKay.

If he did collect such pictures, you probably wouldn’t find one of Jackson and Woody Hayes.

“I never really got along with Woody,” Jackson says.

That’s of note because a low point of Jackson’s career came when he was accused of covering up for Hayes when the Ohio State coach threw a punch at a Clemson player at the end of the 1978 Gator Bowl, a punch that ended Hayes’ career.

“I simply didn’t see the punch,” Jackson says. “I saw it for the first time the next day on NBC.”

Ask Jackson, often called Mr. College Football, to name his most memorable games, and he cringes.

“When you do that, you always worry you’re going to leave one out,” he says.

The first one he mentions is the 1967 USC-UCLA game at the Coliseum, won by the Trojans, 21-20.

“The national champion, the conference champion, the Rose Bowl and the Heisman Trophy all came out of that game,” he said. “And who could forget O.J. Simpson’s two runs?”

Most people remember Simpson’s 64-yard run, but Jackson also remembers Simpson’s 13-yard scoring run, one that UCLA Coach Tommy Prothro called the best run he had ever seen.

Jackson next mentions the 1979 Sugar Bowl, in which Alabama, ranked No. 2, twice stopped No. 1 Penn State inside the one and won, 14-7, to finish off a perfect season.

He remembers a 1977 game between Hayes’ Ohio State team and Barry Switzer’s Oklahoma team.

“Ohio State was leading by a point when Oklahoma’s Uwe von Schamann comes on to try a 43-yard field goal at the end of the game,” Jackson says. “Woody calls three timeouts and von Schamann runs around as if he is conducting the crowd in Columbus. When he finally makes it back to the line of scrimmage, he popped that thing right up through the middle of the highway.”

Jackson is embarrassed, and a little put out, by all the fuss. It took some cajoling before he would agree to an in-person interview and photo session with The Times.

“If I had my druthers, I’d kept my mouth shut,” he says. “I’d have just said goodbye and walked away.”

Jackson, 70, will walk away after announcing tonight’s Fiesta Bowl game for ABC. Then he and his wife of 46 years, Turi Ann, will spend plenty of time doing two things they love most: golfing and fishing.

They have owned a home near Garden Bay, British Columbia, about 60 miles up the coast from Vancouver, for 20 years. They go there mainly to fish for salmon and relax.

They usually drive there, even though it takes three days. Jackson has had his fill of airports and airplanes, and people hollering out, “Whoa, Nellie!”

There is a story behind that too. Jackson claims Roy Firestone is responsible for his signature phrase, not him.

“My mule was named Pearl,” Jackson cracks. “I don’t think I’d ever said ‘Whoa, Nellie’ before Firestone put it in his act.”

Said Firestone: “He’s right. I don’t think I ever heard him say it.

“When I included my Keith Jackson impersonation in my stand-up act, I threw in the ‘Whoa, Nellie’ because it sounded like something Keith would say. I got it from the old ‘Roy Rogers Show.’ The comedian on there [Pat Brady] used to say it when he was trying to control the jeep named ‘Nellybelle.’ ”

Firestone, who likes to point out that his “Whoa, Nellie” line got Jackson that commercial he does where he officiates over a wedding, is, like so many others in broadcasting, a huge Jackson fan.

“There is no voice more identifiable with a sport than Keith Jackson’s with college football,” Firestone said. “His voice can be imitated but it will never be duplicated.”

“Fuuuummmmmble!” is all Jackson’s. So is his down-home, Southern delivery. He hasn’t lived in the South since he was 17 and lied about his age to get into the Marine Corps.

He says when he did news, he did it straight. He used a Southern accent when he did sports because, with great foresight, he thought it would work well on sports.

That it did, and added to the Keith Jackson lore.

Now he looks into his future and sees a blank page.

He and Turi have a three-month trip planned for next fall, beginning in Jasper Park in the Canadian Rockies. The trip will include a lot of golf and fishing.

Jackson is also going to get his wish to become an expert chef, not merely someone who can throw a steak on a barbecue.

One of his retirement gifts, from ABC, was a gift certificate to the cooking school operated by his friends, Jack and Delores Cakebread, at the renowned Cakebread Cellars winery in the Napa Valley.

The certificate entitles the Jacksons, wine and culinary connoisseurs, to a week’s lodging and cooking lessons.

Jackson enjoys entertaining, whether it is friends or family at his home or a national audience from a television booth.

He’ll tell you there is no better feeling than the one he gets after a good telecast.

So why is he willing to give up that feeling? Why is he retiring? Chick Hearn passed 70 at least a decade ago.

“You want to go when it’s time,” he says. “You’re better off if you go a little early.

“You don’t see quite as well as you used to, you don’t have the patience, you lose a step. You huff and puff a little more after you climb up to the press box and it takes you longer to catch your breath.

“I think 47 years in the business is long enough.”

Jackson, wrapping up his 32nd year as a full-time announcer for ABC Sports, did his first college football game for the campus radio station at Washington State in 1952. It was the Cougars against a Stanford team that had Bob Mathias in the backfield. The Cougars lost, 14-13.

“Had the quarterback, or whoever the holder was, not messed up on an extra-point try, we would have tied them,” Jackson said as if it were yesterday.

Jackson had gone to Washington State in 1950 on the GI Bill after his stint in the Marines. He had dabbled in radio in the service but went to Washington State to study police and political science.

His roots are in the red clay of west Georgia, where he was raised by a grandmother in rural Carrollton after his parents separated. Young Keith picked cotton, plowed fields and learned about hard work.

He studied by kerosene lantern through junior high and rode a horse to high school.

At Washington State, he was freshman class president and drove a garbage truck for pocket money.

He was sitting in his dorm room one day, listening to a game on the campus station, and thought, “I can do better than that.” Then he convinced the professor who ran the station that he really could.

That was the start of his career.

After graduating in 1954, he had his choice of jobs at radio stations in Lewiston, Idaho, or Atlanta. He took the one in Lewiston because it paid more, $82.50 a week to $69.50.

That led to a job at KOMO-TV in Seattle, where he worked for 10 years before coming to Los Angeles to do news for ABC radio and freelance for ABC Sports.

He and Turi have lived in Sherman Oaks ever since, although they’re in their second home there. They moved up the hill about 30 years ago, and moved to Agoura in 1994 for a year after their home was nearly destroyed by the Northridge earthquake. Three houses near theirs were leveled.

Now his long and glorious career is just about over.

And how emotional will he be at the end of the Fiesta Bowl?

“I won’t be emotional at all,” Jackson said. “It’s not my show; it belongs to Tennessee and Florida State. I’ll give the final score. That’s all that matters.”