Loran Smith pays a visit to the now-retired broadcast icon and gets a mournful sounding quote that sounds like a potential epitaph for the game, at least as we’ve known it:
The memories, however, will always bring about reverent and affectionate recall — those days when he would arrive at the stadium long before anybody else. “I wanted to hear the band rehearse,” he smiled on a recent summer day. “I do miss the pageantry and excitement of college football. I enjoy all of that on television now, but it is not like being there live. But there comes a time to quit, and I knew it was time.”
I’m a little sad that I know how Jackson feels.
Get The Picture 
Buck up Dawg!
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Still miss the tracks…
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“we don’t travel and we don’t go far, which we sorta like”. I am two decades behind Keith Jackson but I understand where he is coming from. And Loran is right, CFB fans above the age of 40 all miss Keith Jackson’s calls. His voice on a Saturday afternoon are in my Top 10 early memories of the game we love so much.
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“Jackson has been retired for a half dozen years, and, while I understand life’s vicissitudes, I don’t have to like them. And I don’t.”
Got that right. Life is indeed cruel. Jackson retires and we’re left with the likes of Craig James….. and now a potential James return to the booth. Someone give me a time machine.
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Colin Cowherd is waiting in the wings. Colin Cowherd is the new Craig James.
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What? I”M the new Craig James!!!!
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Ok, Senator, you’re beginning to tread into the waters of melodrama here. Beneath all of the television contracts, street agents and media posturing, it’s still the game we love. You can’t always be a cynic, as that will surely kill your enjoyment of the game more quickly than a playoff or super-conference will.
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I’m sure my outlook will improve once the season starts, but it’s hard to ignore how they’re sucking all the joy out of the game.
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Maybe we’re paying too much attention to a process we cannot control anyway. I love sausage but it is best not to watch it being made.
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The problem with that is that scheduling is part of the process. It’s kind of hard not to pay attention to the results unless you’re gonna quit watching the games.
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Have you taken your lamentation to Greg?
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I guess I just don’t see how bland scheduling is a product of expansion of the new playoff format. Big schools have been scheduling as many cupcakes as they can for decades now.
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Think the Senator was referring to the networks scheduling us on Thursdays or kickoffs at 12:00.
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Whoa, Nellie.. He was the best.
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Whoa, Nelly. Respect.
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Gah! Spike beat me to it. Still… respect.
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Track.. Sorry.
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My fault. Just hadn’t refreshed my page. 😉
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As someone said of Patton at his funeral “We shall not see his like again.” There has never been anyone better. He loved the game, but more than that he knew the game and knew how to talk about it to the audience. Even when saddled with Bob Griese late in his career (talk about a reason to retire) he still managed the job with complete class. I miss him.
And if I had a vote I’d put him in charge of the selection committee it appears we’re going to get stuck with.
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As much as I loved Larry Munson, Keith Jackson may have been the only television sports announcer that never made me want to to turn down the sound of a Georgia game that he was broadcasting and turn up the radio broadcast.
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There’s always someone, at any point in time, that will reflect how the game used to be. I think all these changes will eventually help and grow the sport instead of stagnating it. College football history has a way of repeating itself
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