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Keith Jackson

I loved that he called some NU games during the Rose Bowl run! A true ICON in his field. They’re going to let him in anyway, but they may make him drop a Woah Nellie to open up the pearly gates!
 
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He was the greatest announcer of the greatest sport, 'College Football' of our generation. I think he opened our Rose Bowl with a line, 'Now we'll find out if she can dance...' A great one gone.
He did - and ABC News' story on the network news tonight included that very clip. Worth looking it up online if it has been posted.
 
Whoooaaa Nellie!

My grandfather, nicknamed "Slim" , a 6'6" fireball throwing phenom in the 1920's, was the first person I ever heard utter that phrase iconic. He said it whenever something wrong occurred or when a Cleveland baseball or football team made an exceptional play in the field. My fondest memories were of him yelling that epithet when listening to radio broadcasts of the dreadful Indians teams of the 60s & 70s. I watched my first college football game with him, seated in his rocking chair in his bedroom and me planted near his feet at age 5, watching a Notre Dame game with Keith Jackson heading the TV broadcast crew. When KJ shouted "Whoooaaa Nellie!", Slim chuckled and said that only Keith Jackson truly had the background to use that phrase in the appropriate context. That moment is forever etched into my memory banks.

God Bless You, Mr. Jackson.
 
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