How I Got to Know a Legend
A thank you note to the voice of a sport.

I was caught off guard yesterday morning when I was scrolling through my twitter feed and found out that Keith Jackson had died. Now, I realize that many people don’t know who Keith Jackson was… Let me tell you.
As a kid growing up, baseball was (and is) my first love. But, it was also the beginning of my love affair with another sport. One that is steeped in traditions and rivalries that run deep. College Football. Within that particular sport, which I didn’t know very much (if anything) about at the time, there was one of the greatest storytellers and most iconic voices that the sport ever had. Between the “Whoa Nellie’s” (a phrase that he attributed to his great-grandfather), the references to the offense linemen as “the big uglies,” and giving the Rose Bowl the nickname it still holds today (“The Grandaddy of Them All”) was a folksy, everyman way to tell stories and explain the game.
You can probably imagine that as an 8 or 9-year kid, this was the best way to find and fall in love a sport. He had a voice that if I close my eyes (or stare off into space), I can still hear (which I have a lot in the past day) clear as a bell. He was the voice of many Saturdays and New Year’s Days during my childhood/teenage years.
If I could say anything to him, it would be a very big “thank you.” Thank you for making College Football something that was fun to watch, thank you for caring so genuinely about the game, and lastly, thank you for always being there.
I’m sure that I along with the broader College Football (and sports) community will miss you very much.
