Whoa Nellie, Keith Jackson's back in the Rose Bowl!
Jackson, the legendary college football broadcaster, will be back at the Rose Bowl on Monday, but not in his old role of play-by-play in the announcing booth. Instead, it's the presence of two legendary programs, particularly Penn State, that has Jackson making the familiar early-year trip to Pasadena for one of the country's biggest college football pageants.
"I have a longstanding relationship with Penn State," Jackson, now 88 years old, told the Los Angeles Times. "The history of the school is incredible. The coaches, I knew them all. I knew a lot of families that sent their people there. Just ties. So that they wouldn't feel so terribly lonesome, I thought I'd go over there and mill around a little bit, chew the fat and stay out of the way if I can."
Jackson's last call in the Rose Bowl was the epic Texas-Southern California BCS championship game in January 2006, featuring Vince Young's winning touchdown march to beat the Reggie Bush-led Trojans -- a game that CBS Sports profiled with an oral history in January 2016. The last time Jackson was at the Rose Bowl as a fan was for Alabama's BCS title win against Texas at the end of the 2010 season.
Jackson, responsible for the Rose Bowl tag line "The Grandaddy of them All," told the Times that this year's Rose Bowl game is a chance for two legendary programs to put their best on display for the whole country.
"This is a chance for them to show they've still got the pride that made them so good for so many years, and will be again," Jackson said. "They still want to represent their school and their people. They want to win. Because that's what sports in this country is all about. We're people with grit. We want to go out there and play and show that we can still play hard and tough and win.
"This is the heart place for big ballgames. If this is just a decent match, it will be memorable. It's something for these young people to remember: 'I played in the Rose Bowl.'"
