Keith Jackson

Keith Max Jackson

• School Washington State University

• Born October 18, 1928 in Roopville, GA USA
• Died January 12, 2018 in Los Angeles, CA USA

Biographical Information

Keith Jackson was a national sports broadcaster considered one of the greatest ever in the realm of college football. He also worked a number of high-profile baseball telecasts for ABC, including postseason games and the World Series. He had a distinctive deep voice that was considered a standard for broadcasters.

The son of a farmer, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps after World War II and after his discharge in 1950, was able to go to college thanks to the G.I. Bill. He graduated with a degree in speech communications in 1954.

Most of his career was spent with ABC Sports, and he touched just about every major sports during his long career, including several Olympic Games, both summer and winter. While he his best known for college football, he also had the distinction of being the first play-by-play announcer for ABC's seminal Monday Night Football program when it began in 1970, and was also the lead announcer for the short-lived United States Football League in the 1980s.

In baseball, one of his first assignments was doing broadcasting for the Seattle Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League in the 1950s. He was the play-by-play announcer, alongside Tim McCarver for the famous 16-inning Game 6 of the 1986 NLCS between the New York Mets and Houston Astros, which turned out to be his final baseball broadcasts, as ABC lost its contract to cover part of theMLB postseason after that year. He had earlier worked World Series in odd-numbered years starting in 1977, splitting duties with Al Michaels. He also worked various All-Star Games, League Championship Series and Division Series during that period, and was also featured on Monday Night Baseball telecasts. The fact that he was also ABC's lead college football announcer during those years sometimes made it difficult for Jackson to be available for both sports.