Quotes from Keith Jackson

My grandma once told my mama, 'The kid's walking crazy around the cornfield, talking to himself.' I was calling ballgames.

I talk to the guy who busted his butt all week to buy a color TV, and the woman who's raising her kids, the people I owe a debt to. I'm talking to people in hotel rooms, lonesome people.

Baseball is a game of geometry, while football is a game of explosive emotion. Every emotion known to mankind is in that 60 minutes - pride, pain, dedication, satisfaction, fear.

I can't buy the happiness I see on people's faces when I give them a fifty dollar bill.

This 'Whoa, Nellie!' thing is overrated. There were all kinds of stories going around. People said I had a mule in Georgia named Nellie. Well, we had a mule in Georgia, but her name was Pearl.

When the money gets bigger and the stakes get higher, the sea gets wider, and the sharks in the water grow sharper teeth.

The older I got, the more willing I was to go into the Southern vernacular, because some of it's funny.

The one thing you can't ever forget - the playing field is the property of the players and the coaches. It is not to be used by some fat-butted announcer trying to make a name for himself.

We're thrifty. We can live off our interest, save the principal, and let the kids go off and have a hoot.

If I could get someone like John Grisham or someone like that to sit down and write a book with me, I'd love that.

The best way to get somebody's attention is with a little quiet, and then yell at 'em.

You guys got big uglies, fuumm-bull, and 'Whoa, Nellie.' What I got was, 'Lindsey, why are the trash cans still out front?' 'This homework needs more work,' and the inevitable was, 'How fast were you really going?'

It's the broadcaster's dilemma. Are we true journalists? I don't know if I am or not.

You must tell the truth. You must be truthful to yourself and the values of the game that got you there.

Michigan has such grandiosity. It has all those all-Americans. You can't go anywhere without finding a Michigan graduate.

Football is not a contact sport, it is said: it is a collision sport. Dancing is a contact sport.

I've announced every kind of sporting event except hockey and demolition derby, and to be frank about it, I don't really care to ever do those.

I don't want to get back into the pressure cooker of play-by-play and worry about travel. I don't want to die in a stadium parking lot.

When you come into Camp Randall Stadium to play a game, you better double-clutch your chinstrap because you're going to be in a smash-mouth game.

I think college football is a reflection of Middle America. You go into a college football town, and you will find three generations of a family sitting together. It's a rallying point for the university, the community, and the families.

Bo Schembechler was the best after-dinner speaker I ever heard. He'd even have the old boys in the back of the room snorting and jumping up and down.

Amplify, clarify, and punctuate, and let the viewer draw his or her own conclusion.