CHARLOTTE, N.C. — When Keith Jackson played against the Carolina Panthers in the 1996 NFL Playoffs, he wasn't sure whether his professional football career was about to end.
Jackson, a 6-time Pro Bowl selection, was mulling retirement when the Packers beat the Panthers in the NFC Championship Game that year, but didn't make the decision to retire until after Green Bay's win over New England in the Super Bowl.
There will be a greater sense of finality when Jackson enters the away radio booth at the Panthers' Bank of America Stadium on Thursday. After 17 seasons as Arkansas' football color analyst on the Razorback Sports Network, Jackson, 51, will be hanging up his headset following Arkansas' game against Virginia Tech in the Belk Bowl.
"I guess when I get about 90 years old, I won't come to Carolina because it will be the last time I'm living," Jackson said with a laugh. "Everything has to come to an end. When you sit back and look at your body of work, you just hope that people listened to the radio and had about three-and-a-half hours of enjoyment, and you did the right things."
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Jackson is the longest-tenured color analyst in the history of Arkansas' football radio broadcasts, said Rick Schaeffer, Jackson's predecessor and a pregame host for football games on the network.
A Little Rock native who played college football at Oklahoma, Jackson took over as Arkansas' analyst in 2000 after he moved home to Little Rock and Schaeffer retired as the Razorbacks' sports information director.
Jackson had spent the previous three seasons calling college football games on TV for FOX Sports and TNT. He and longtime Arkansas play-by-play man Paul Eells hit it off from the beginning and provided fans with a polished broadcast.
"Frankly, the reason (former athletics director Frank) Broyles put me in there was because I knew the players so well and I could tell stories about the players," Schaeffer said. "I wasn't an Xs and Os guy. Keith brought immediate credibility to knowing the game. I think he brings nice humor and he doesn't mind laughing. He knows when to be serious, but it's not life and death with him, which I think is good."
Jackson was a controversial hire when he was chosen by Broyles to call games. Most college radio broadcasts include former players as analysts (Jackson will be replaced by former Arkansas quarterback Quinn Grovey next year) and Jackson chose to play at Oklahoma in a high-profile spurn of the home state Razorbacks.
Jackson was a can't-miss prospect on Little Rock Parkview's powerhouse teams of the 1980s. In past interviews Jackson said he didn't consider Arkansas until late in the recruiting process because of then-coach Lou Holtz. He also considered Texas, but committed to play for Barry Switzer, who would win his third national championship in Jackson's sophomore season with the Sooners.
Jackson was a two-time All-American at Oklahoma and in 2001 was enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame.
"When (Keith) got hired, obviously there was kind of an outcry because he grew up in Arkansas and went to school at Oklahoma," Schaeffer said, "but to me if you start looking at guys who left the state to play and then came back, he's the one guy that I can think of off the bat that everybody still loves."
Jackson has worked with three play-by-play announcers during his 17 seasons - Eells (2000-05), Mike Nail (2006) and Chuck Barrett (2007-present).
Eells' death in a 2006 car accident was the hardest moment for Jackson during his time as a broadcaster.
"It was a tough deal," Jackson said. "You become friends - teammates almost - and you spend a lot of time together on the road. When something like that happens, it's very painful for the whole group. Then you take in the fact that he was the nicest guy in the world, it doesn't help the situation.
"It was just a tough year. Mike came from doing basketball, and football and basketball are different, and it was just hard to get that footing...because I was used to Paul Eells."
In spite of that, the 2006 season was also one of Jackson's favorites. He was able to watch his son, Keith Jr., start all 14 games that year as a defensive lineman as the Razorbacks won 10 straight games, reached a No. 5 national ranking and played in the SEC Championship Game.
"That entire starting defensive line was from Little Rock, so I knew that team well," Jackson said. "To have a chance to broadcast and watch your son play, there's nothing like that."
The inability to watch his middle son, Kenyon, play at Illinois this season caused Jackson to make the decision to leave the broadcast booth. Kenyon Jackson started for the Fighting Illini before suffering a season-ending elbow injury in November, but the elder Jackson was only able to attend one game.
Another son, Koilan, is committed to play at Arkansas next season as a wide receiver, and Keith Jackson said his time will be divided between traveling to games involving the Razorbacks and Fighting Illini. It will be the first season since 1997 that he won't be in a broadcast booth.
"We'll have 24 games and basically my wife and I are going to four together," Jackson said. "After that, she's going one way and I'm going one way. To make it easy for her, I'll take most of the SEC road games and Big Ten road games, and she'll do most of the home games."
Jackson said he will miss the camaraderie with the men he has shared the airwaves with for so long.
"I enjoy what I do and going on the road with my friends every weekend to talk about sports," Jackson said. "But family is important...and at the end of the day you want to make sure that you treated all of your kids fair.
"It wasn't an easy decision, but it was the right decision."