LEGEND OF THE FALL; A NATURAL SINCE HIS OWN COLLEGE DAYS, KEITH JACKSON, 69, WILL BOW OUT AFTER THIS SEASON AS GRANDADDY OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL ANNOUNCERS.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH The Media

Burt Harrison doesn't pretend to deserve any credit for how Keith Jackson turned out as a sportscaster.

But the 81-year-old former professor from Washington State College's school of radio broadcasting (it didn't include TV then) did know one thing. This kid, who in the early '50s barged into his office and demanded he be given a shot at doing play-by-play on the campus radio station, would never embarrass himself behind a microphone.

``He had it, there's no getting around that. . . . He was a good, hard-working student, very colorful, a hell of a broadcaster even then, and a nut about doing sports,'' Harrison said of the 20-year-old who had just left the Marines and had enlisted at the school in Pullman, Wash., later to be named Washington State University.

Jackson's academic pursuit then was in police science, or what today is known as criminal justice. Somewhere inside he admits was a sportscaster he didn't know about waiting to emerge.

``We sort of lured him away,'' Harrison said, without much regret.

The only regret college football fans have this season is this will be the last for Jackson.

College football is Keith Jackson.

He's been doing games since he was a sophomore at Washington State in 1952 - his first was the Cougars' 14-13 loss to Bob Mathias' Stanford team. He has missed just one season, that to be the first play-by-play man on ``Monday Night Football.''

Jackson, who turns 70 in October, begins his final ``Whoa, Nellie!'' tour with Monday's Kickoff Classic in New Jersey between Florida State and Texas A&M. His final two broadcasts are the Jan. 1 Rose Bowl and the Jan. 4 Fiesta Bowl, which this year guarantees a No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup.

When his 32nd season doing college football at ABC ends, he'll have called nearly 500 games, making cities like Tuscaloosa, Ala., and Ann Arbor, Mich., seem like magic places on Saturday mornings in the fall.

``I think everyone realized I'm just getting to be an old goat,'' Jackson said Thursday, when asked if anyone has tried to talk him out of retirement. ``It's not a sudden thing.

``I don't want a farewell tour. I know it could be emotional. I'm an old Marine and I'm pretty crusty. When I'm backed into a corner, I can crack and break. I don't want this to be a distraction. I probably should have kept my mouth shut.''

If that had happened, he would have never gotten into the business.

Jackson, son of dirt farmers in western Georgia, actually rode a horse to high school. He was the freshman class president at WSC and drove a garbage truck for $4 an hour for pocket money. He was sitting in a dorm room one day listening to a game on KWSC, the 5,000-watt student-run station.

``I can do a better job than that guy,'' Jackson thought.

Jackson rumbled over to Harrison's office at the campus studio.

``I can do a better job than that guy,'' Jackson said.

Harrison, with a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth as he was pounding out a manuscript on his Underwood typewriter, looked up.

``I don't want to hear that (expletive),'' Harrison said, handing him a tape recorder and a few cassettes. ``Go do it.''

Jackson covered a high school game, came back with the tape and was hired to work at the station.

Upon his graduation in '54, he worked for 10 years at Seattle TV station KOMO and moved to Sherman Oaks in 1964 to become a radio news correspondent and sports director at ABC Radio West. Two years later, he was doing college football for the network.

Nine years each with Bud Wilkinson and Frank Broyles as his partner, one with Ara Parseghian and the last dozen with Bob Griese at his side, Jackson's down-home style has made an imprint on the game that viewers will likely never feel again in this era of half-billion-dollar TV contracts and high-stake coalitions.

Jackson, always outspoken about his dislike of the commercialization of the sport, is never shy about promoting it as well. Somehow, he can get away with it.

``People always accuse me of selling it and promoting it,'' said Jackson. ``I'm not a journalist. How can I be? We're not going on the air to say this game is a bad product. We're in this fix because of the money we (in TV) brought to it.''

If that's the case, Jackson's annual low-key sales pitch will definitely be missed. And he'll miss it in return.

``College football has become a festival with the flavor and ambiance,'' he said. ``It's about the band with 300 students who all have mommas and daddies from little towns. It's a happy setting, not like some sports.

``I've had more fun than anyone on these games. If I've helped people enjoy the telecast, that's fine. That's my purpose. If a guy blows a thousand bucks on a color TV, he doesn't care what I have to say.

``To me, the game is sacred.''

Amen.

Jackson can't embrace his `Whoa Nellie' line

For the record, Keith Jackson's wife of 46 years is named Turi Ann. Not Nellie.

And the phrase ``Whoa Nellie!'' is something he credits - or blames - sportscaster Roy Firestone for pinning on him.

``I can't even begin to think of when I could have said that, and I know I've said some pretty dumb things,'' said Jackson when asked about the two words that anyone who mimicks him seems to repeat the most.

``Know what? I don't even think about it too much. I don't think I have a staple phrase. I only use it (during games) now when (broadcast partner) Bob Griese goaded me into doing it.''

Dick Lane used it during roller derby and wrestling broadcasts from the Olympic Auditorium on KTLA back in the '50s, but Jackson thinks it somehow got pinned on him by those who do imitations of him, such as Firestone.

``Maybe I did say it,'' he admits, ``but I had a mule that was named Pearl.''

Not Nellie.

- Tom Hoffarth

SOUND BYTES By Tom Hoffarth

WHAT SMOKES

A Pepperdine alumnus done good. Bob Weir, a quick, funny and popular morning sports anchor at WGN in Chicago, will soon fill the role of overpaid and overemphasized sports guy at KABC Channel 7. The hiring effectively eliminates not only the incredibly smart but painfully annoying Todd Donoho (who is free to pursue his game-show career) but also the not-so-quick Rick Lozano from the rotation. Until Weir arrives, Donoho will continue to do the extremely irritating ``Monday Night Live'' postgame time-filler after each ABC ``Monday Night Football'' game, an often unsuccessful attempt by the station each week to keep at least half the 20-rating audience generated by the game. Weir expects to be through at WGN by next Friday.

WHAT CHOKES

Last season, USC had 14 affiliates on the radio broadcast network. This week, the school announced it has a whopping four for the upcoming season - including another one in L.A. In addition to the XTRA-AM (690) flagship, Trojans football will compete with itself on the city's One-on-One Sports station, KCTD-AM (1540). Will the signal be better in the San Fernando Valley now? We'll see. USC can also be heard on KGEO-AM (1230) in Bakersfield, KYNO-AM (1300) in Fresno and KDEF-AM (1150) in Albuquerque, N.M., if, by some unfortunate circumstance, you happen to be driving through Bakersfield, Fresno or Albuquerque.

XTRA's other station, AM-1150, can't be heard in Riverside/San Bernardino, even though it's within 30 miles of the transmitter. So the Dodgers games have been farmed out to Riverside's AM-1440 station. It's an all-Spanish station, by the way.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos, 2 Boxes

PHOTO (1--Color) Keith Jackson

Courtesy of ABC Sports

(2) ``I think everyone realized I'm just getting to be an old goat. It's not a sudden thing.''

--- Keith Jackson

on his retirement at season's end

Associated Press

BOX: (1) Jackson can't embrace his `Whoa Nellie' line (see text)

(2) SOUND BYTES By Tom Hoffarth (see text)