Jackson Has Lost None of His Edge, on Course or Behind Microphone

When someone shoots his age in golf, you can be sure of two things: The person is up in years and plays a lot of golf.

Keith Jackson, Mr. College Football, turned 67 on Oct. 18, and a few days later, on the Los Angeles Country Club’s South Course, he shot a 67.

Jackson is a golf fanatic, and retirement from his job as ABC’s No. 1 play-by-play announcer on college football would mean even more time for golf.

But Jackson, who will work Monday’s Rose Bowl game with Bob Griese, isn’t thinking about retirement. And his bosses at ABC have told him he can stay as long as he wants.

“The day I sit down in a chair and pop in a tape of a game I’ve done in the tape machine and say, ‘This guy stinks,’ that’s the day I’ll retire,” Jackson said. “I’m my own worst critic, and I think I’ll be able to tell when it’s time to quit. At least I hope so.

“Ideally, I’d like to work until I’m 70.”

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No one is calling for Jackson’s retirement. He remains the best college football play-by-play man in the business. His voice and style bring excitement to any game, and he figures the one he’ll call Monday should be a good one.

“I’ll be surprised if it isn’t,” Jackson said. “I think USC got a break when Michigan knocked out Ohio State. The Trojans match up much better with Northwestern than they would have with the Buckeyes.”

Calling the Rose Bowl is one of Jackson’s favorite assignments, and not just because of its prestige.

“There are three reasons I like it so much,” he said. “Location, location, location.”

What that means is, it’s an easy commute out the 134 Freeway from his home in Sherman Oaks.

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Jackson has many stories to tell.

A quote from Northwestern Coach Gary Barnett--”If we don’t drop the ball or make any mistakes, then we have only one team to beat”--reminded him of another.

“That may be the best quote since ‘Big fast guys always beat little fast guys,’ ” Jackson said.

He got that one in 1958 from the legendary Amos Alonzo Stagg, whose 57 years in coaching included 14 seasons at COP, now the University of Pacific.

“I was broadcasting Washington State football for KOMO, Channel 4, in Seattle, and the Cougars had a game in Stockton against COP. Washington State won the game, 34-0, even though Dick Bass [known as ‘the Scooter’ because of his diminutive size] had something like 202 yards for COP.

“After the game, Stagg, who had a son on the COP coaching staff . . . stopped me and said, ‘I told you, big fast guys always beat little fast guys.’ ”

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Jackson was at L.A. Country Club, where he is a member, on Tuesday. He said the big news that day was a hole in one on the North Course’s 190-yard ninth hole by another football announcer, Turner’s Pat Haden, who will work Saturday’s Carquest Bowl with Verne Lundquist for TBS and then, on loan to CBS, will work Monday’s Orange Bowl with Sean McDonough.

Amazingly, Haden’s hole in one was the second of back-to-back aces.

The last golfer to hit in the foursome in front of Haden’s, Andrew McGuess, got a hole in one. Haden, the next golfer to step to the tee, then proclaimed he was going to do the same thing--and did it.

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Year-end retrospectives can be dreary, but Channel 5 producers Chris Lee and Kevin Grigsby have put together a good one. It will be shown in two parts in the final quarter-hour of the station’s 10 o’clock news shows Saturday and Sunday.

The always solid, sometimes overlooked Ed Arnold will serve as the host.

Arnold, a former Marine from Texarkana, Ark., has been quietly going about his job on the Los Angeles sports scene, and doing a lot of charity work along the way, since the late 1960s.

That’s when, while doing sports for radio station KDAY, he began doing fill-in work for Channel 5, where, in 1974, he replaced Tom Harmon. He was at Channel 7 from 1975 through ’86 before returning to Channel 5, where he and Stu Nahan have become mainstays.

On Saturday, Arnold will serve as emcee of the Kiwanis Rose Bowl luncheon at the Pasadena Convention Center.

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TV-Radio Notes

Terry Donahue makes his CBS debut on the Sun Bowl today at 11:30 a.m. . . . CBS was considering using both Rick Neuheisel and Boomer Esiason with Pat O’Brien on the pregame and halftime shows for the Fiesta Bowl on Tuesday, but decided to go with only Esiason, who will also be working with O’Brien on Monday. The 34-year-old quarterback for the New York Jets said during a conference call Thursday that broadcasting may be in his future, but he plans to play football for another couple of years. “Hopefully with a team that will give me better protection,” he said.

XTRA’s Steve Mason, host of the station’s early-morning show with John Ireland and Jeanne Zelasko, has been hired to also serve as co-host with Tom Snyder of CBS radio’s “Late Radio Show,” beginning next week. Mason, who lives in Marina del Rey, will do his 5:30-9 a.m XTRA show from the station’s Hollywood studio, then do the 8-11 p.m. network show from CBS’ Television City. “I’ll work sleep in there somewhere,” Mason said.

Rick Schwartz has left XTRA. He is doing some work for Prime Sports and has also done a pilot for non-sports show, sort of a hip “Jeopardy.” . . . Expected to soon take Schwartz’s late-night slot are Kelly Carter, a former Orange County Register sportswriter who now covers the NFL for USA Today, and John Kentera.

Beginning Tuesday, KMAX-FM’s entertaining midday show with Rich Hererra and Bob Golic will be syndicated through the SportsFan Radio Network. Also, KMAX’s Joe McDonnell has been promoted to Pete Rose’s full-time co-host. . . . Today at 3:30 p.m. and Saturday at 10 a.m., KMAX will report live from the Rose Bowl Family Festival Kickoff for Kids, with Harvey Hyde, former Nevada Las Vegas football coach, Chuck Hayes and Hererra reporting. The shows will also be carried on the Cable Radio Network.

On Monday, the NBA will begin scrambling signals of all telecasts, meaning satellite dish owners who now get games for free will have to pay either $149 for a season package or $99 for a single-team package. . . . It was pointed out on this week’s edition of HBO’s “Inside the NFL” that the last time the Miami Dolphins won a road playoff game, Nick Buoniconti, one of the show’s three hosts, was the starting middle linebacker. That was when the Dolphins beat Pittsburgh in the AFC championship game after the 1972 season. They are 0-5 in road playoff games since then.