October 7, 1978: The University of Oklahoma, ranked Number 1 in the nation, beats the University of Texas, ranked Number 6, 31-10, in their annual Red River Rivalry showdown at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. Keith Jackson broadcasts the game for ABC Sports, then flies to New York, arriving just in time to call Game 4 of the American League Championship Series at Yankee Stadium.
He sees the Yankees beat the Kansas City Royals for the 3rd straight year, and win their 3rd straight Pennant, their 32nd overall. Roy White, in his 14th season with the Yankees, hits a tiebreaking homer in the 6th. Graig Nettles homers and makes a sensational play at 3rd, and Ron Guidry wins for the 26th time in his remarkable season.
It was hardly unusual for the Georgia native, approaching his 50th birthday. He graduated from Washington State University, which had the coursework he wanted, at a time when not many colleges did. The fact that he did not go to a Southern school allowed him to broadcast Southern college football games with complete objectivity.
He broadcast for the Seattle Rainiers of baseball's Pacific Coast League, and football at the University of Washington. In 1958, he became the 1st American sports announcer to broadcast an event taking place in the Soviet Union, as the UW crew team raced a Soviet team. It turned out to be the 1st American sports victory on Russian or Soviet soil. That got the attention of the national networks, and by 1964, he was sports director of ABC Radio West.
ABC regularly had him on Wide World of Sports, put him on coverage of the Olympic Games, and put him on baseball. He called Chris Chambliss' Pennant-winning home run for the Yankees over the Royals in 1976, Reggie Jackson's 3 home runs in the Yankees' clinching Game 6 of the 1977 World Series, and Bucky Dent's home run in the 1978 Playoff game with the Boston Red Sox.
On October 11, 1980, he did it again, calling Oklahoma vs. Texas at the Cotton Bowl (Texas won, 20-13), then flying to Houston to cover Game 4 of the epic 1980 National League Championship Series between the Houston Astros and the Philadelphia Phillies, at the Astrodome. At least, that time, he didn't have as far to fly.
But he was at his best as their lead announcer on college football, and, like baseball announcer Red Barber, he came up with Southern expressions that became legendary. An exciting play led him to let out a hearty, "Whoa, Nellie!" or, occasionally, "My goodness!" A dropped ball was a "Fum-blllllllle!" A penalty flag made him say, "Hold the phone!" If the foul was egregious enough for all the officials to throw their flags, he might say, "A ton of laundry on the field."
Linemen, on either side of the ball, were "the big uglies in the trenches." A particularly big guy was a "hoss." At the other end of the spectrum: "He's a little-bitty thing, a bantam rooster. But he's young. If he keeps eatin' his cornbread, he'll be man-sized someday." I once heard him decry a runner's poor attempt at trying to get around tacklers, saying, "You can't be pussyfootin' around out there like a ballerina. You've got to run it north and south."
Occasionally, he would be assigned to the Alabama-Tennessee game, always played on the 3rd Saturday in October, the time of the Harvest Moon -- and he would call it "a Possum-Huntin' Moon." One year, as the usual early-season inter-conference games were concluded, and it would be regular conference games the rest of the way, Keith said, "The social portion of the Big Ten schedule is over. From here on out, it's strictly meat and potatoes." In 1993, calling his home State's biggest rivalry, Georgia vs. Georgia Tech on a Thanksgiving Day, he said, "This is the day when the waistline takes a whuppin', and ancient rivalries are replayed."
Yes, he was a Southerner, and he particularly liked to stretch out the name of Paul "Bear" Bryant's Crimson Tide: "Touchdown, Allllllabama!" But he liked going to the Midwest to call Big Ten games, and liked to stretch out the opening consonant in "Mmmmichigan!" And the Iowa Hawkeyes became "the Iowa Huckeyes."
He gave the stadiums in the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry their nicknames: Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor was "the Big House," and Ohio Stadium in Columbus was "the Big Horseshoe on the Olentangy." And the winner would usually win the Big Ten title, and go to Pasadena, outside Los Angeles, to play the Pacific-Ten (now Pacific-Twelve) Champion in the Rose Bowl, the oldest bowl game, which he thus called "the Granddaddy of Them All."
He called 10 Number 1 vs. Number 2 games, including the last game he ever broadcast, the 2006 National Championship Game in which Vince Young's Texas beat Reggie Bush's USC in the Rose Bowl. He died in 2018. As Mike Greenberg of ABC's sister network ESPN put it, "If you ask: 'What does college football sound like?' My answer is: 'Keith Jackson's voice.'"
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October 7, 1978 was a Saturday. The National League Pennant was also decided on this day, and, as with the previous year, the Philadelphia Phillies can't catch a break on an October 7. In Game 4 of the NL Championship Series, Ron Cey scored in the bottom of the 10th inning on Bill Russell's 2-out game-winning single, giving the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-4 victory at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, and their 2nd consecutive Pennant. Cey, who walked after the 1st 2 batters were retired, advanced into scoring position when Garry Maddox misplayed Dusty Baker's fly ball in center field.
How odd is this? Maddox was so good in center field that he was nicknamed the Secretary of Defense. Ralph Kiner, the Pittsburgh Pirates slugger turned New York Mets broadcaster, once said, "Two-thirds of the Earth is covered by water. The other third is covered by Garry Maddox." But on this occasion, Maddox blew it. However, he did go on to catch the final out of the NLCS in 1980, when the Phillies finally won the Pennant after 30 years, and then won their 1st World Series.
And these other notable college football games were played that day:
* Number 1 Oklahoma beat Number 6 Texas, 31-6 in the Red River Rivalry at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. Oklahoma went on to blow the Big Eight Conference title by losing to arch-rival Nebraska. But when Nebraska lost their last regular-season game to Missouri, a rematch was set up in the Orange Bowl, and Oklahoma won. Texas went to the Sun Bowl, where they beat Maryland.
* Number 2 University of Southern California were idle. USC went on to win the Pacific-Ten Conference title.
* Number 3 Michigan beat Arizona, 21-17 at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor. Michigan won the Big Ten Conference title, but lost the Rose Bowl to USC.
* Number 4 Arkansas beat Texas Christian University (TCU), 42-3 at Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The Razorbacks ended up losing their next 2 games, and ended up going to the Fiesta Bowl, where they played UCLA to a tie.
* Number 5 Penn State beat Kentucky, 30-0 at Commonwealth Stadium (now Kroger Field) in Lexington, Kentucky. Penn State finished the regular season undefeated and ranked Number 1, and went to the Sugar Bowl.
* Number 7 Texas A&M beat Texas Tech, 38-9 at Kyle Field in College Station, Texas. A&M lost their next 2 games, and ended up going to the Hall of Fame Bowl, where they beat Iowa State.
* Number 8 Alabama beat the University of Washington, 20-17 at Husky Stadium in Seattle. Alabama won the Southeastern Conference title, and were Number 2 going into the Sugar Bowl. They beat Number 1 Penn State, and won the National Championship.
* Number 9 University of Pittsburgh beat Boston College, 32-15 at Alumni Stadium outside Boston in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. But Pitt lost 2 of their next 3, and ended up going to the Tangerine Bowl, where they lost to North Carolina State.
* Number 10 Nebraska beat Number 15 Iowa State, 23-0 at Cyclone Stadium (now Jack Trice Stadium) in Ames, Iowa.
* Number 14 Ohio State were the highest-ranking team to fail to defeat an unranked team, played to a 35-35 tie by Southern Methodist University (SMU) at Ohio Stadium in Columbus.
* The University of Houston, then unranked, beat Baylor, 20-18 at Floyd Casey Stadium in Waco, Texas. Houston went on to win the Southwest Conference title.
* Notre Dame, then unranked, beat Michigan State, 29-25 at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing, Michigan. The following week, Michigan State went to Michigan and won. The Big 10 season ended with those 2 teams tied, so MSU should have gotten the tiebreaker. However, they were on probation, and ineligible for a bowl game, so UM got the Big 10's Rose Bowl berth. Notre Dame went on to beat Houston in the Cotton Bowl.
* Among the service academies, Army lost to Tennessee, 31-13 at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee; while Navy beat Air Force, 37-8 at Falcon Stadium in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
* And Rutgers beat Yale, 28-27 at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut.
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